At first, a vase is just a vase.
As we gather around the workstation a clay-stained finger directs our attention to a recent creation. It's been left out for our benefit and steadfastly refuses to violate any expectations - it's earth-colored, curved, with a flat base and a hollow core.
It can't be loved or even discussed in this raw state. So far it's nothing but an abstract concept, like Justice, and stands before us like a tall, blind eye.
But it can't stay that way for long. At some point it needs to be turned into something a person can use. A pot is nothing without decoration.
But what kind of decoration? A swirling pattern? A stylized landscape? Simple patches of green and blue? As soon as the first brushload of paint is smeared across the rough surface the pot begins to emerge from its lifeless state, becomes more and more personal, changes slowly from something we all find equally dull into something only an increasingly smaller set of eyeballs will be able to appreciate. When it's done, a lucky few will find something to truly love, but others will find nothing at all. The thought of a world breaking to pieces over personal taste swirls through me like the accidental inhaling of a stranger's cigarette smoke.
Warned, I shake myself, and sort through the mental archives. A bible verse occurs to me:
"Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known."
Ahhhh. I exhale - a gentle, wordless sigh.
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