M.C. Richards | Elizabeth Fram

My first 9-5 job was as a potter’s apprentice.
I went into it imagining my throwing skills would blossom, but in reality it was my biceps that grew, not my artistic chops. The potter who hired me, in addition to his pots, sold clay and glazes. So I spent the majority of my days that summer carrying 40-pound bags of clay to other potter’s cars and measuring chemicals for glaze mixtures.

Poof! went my romantic notions of spending my time at the wheel. I left that job mostly having learned that I was glad to be headed to college. And while I didn’t get very far in becoming a potter, I’ve never lost my attraction for things made of clay.

One of my favorite books from that era is M.C. Richards’ Centering. In it she relates the following parable which has stayed with me as a wonderful philosophical riddle:

There are many marvelous stories of potters in ancient China. In one of them a noble is riding through a town and he passes a potter at work. He admires the pots the man is making: their grace and a kind of rude strength in them. He dismounts from his horse and speaks with the potter. “How are you able to form these vessels so that they possess such convincing beauty?” “Oh,” answers the potter, ” you are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot has been broken.”

I was recently reminded of this story when I dropped a beloved hand-painted clay vase that I picked up at a flea market years ago. What heartbreak! I couldn’t bring myself to toss it out so I ordered a kintsugi kit to put the pieces back together, hoping to give it a second life.

But in the meantime, I’ve been painting the vase’s shards with dramatic shadows, incorporating knotless netting to accentuate the resulting forms and to insert a suggestion of repair or mending. The outcome is that the memory of the original remains intact, acknowledging what was while simultaneously embracing what is.

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Speaking of memory…
I’m over the moon to share that these latest netted paintings will be among a varied selection of my work chosen to be part of Art at the Kent this fall in their group show that will investigate memory.

Holding Poster

Mark your calendar now to be sure to visit one of our state’s most beloved annual exhibitions, presented in a truly magical Vermont setting during one of the loveliest seasons of the year.

This past weekend we left the fireworks behind and ventured north for the Montreal Jazz Festival. I also had the ulterior motive of checking out “Pompeii” and “Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque” at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

They are both wonderful exhibits. The artifacts from Pompeii were extremely moving, not just for their incredible preservation and accessibility to a daily life we can all relate to, but also for the sheer beauty and, in many respects, almost contemporary feel in much of their design. Across the hall, I was in total awe over Toulouse-Lautrec’s facility with line and mesmerizing compositional skills. And because various states of many of his prints are on view, there is an enhanced opportunity for learning. To tell the truth, after being surrounded by so many posters of Parisian life, I left his exhibit feeling a touch of Paris-envy. (And how better to scratch that itch from far-away Vermont than with Paris Breakfasts? Carol Gillott’s world of patisseries, watercolors, and ‘la joie de la vie à paris’ is a visual confection.)

Now that I’m back at work, there has been a lot to think about, especially after a weekend exposed to such artistic mastery – both visual and musical. I keep a folder on my laptop of various quotes and passages — thoughts that resonate and, depending on the circumstance, often provide the perfect reinforcement in the studio when needed. As I’ve been stitching this week, humbly plugging away, the following two ideas keep running through my mind:

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.” – Miles Davis

And this from M.C. Richards’ Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person:

“There are many marvelous stories of potters in ancient China. In one of them a noble is riding through a town and he passes a potter at work. He admires the pots the man is making: their grace and a kind of rude strength in them. He dismounts from his horse and speaks with the potter. ‘How are you able to form these vessels so that they possess such convincing beauty?’ ‘Oh,’ answers the potter, ‘you are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot has been broken.’ It is not the pots we are forming, but ourselves.”

Wise words for keeping me on track. Can you relate?

Elizabeth Fram

Eye of the Needle

Tag Archives: M.C. Richards

Acknowledging What Was, Embracing What Is

A Feast for the Eyes & Food for Thought