Reflecting on this week’s featured artwork and course readings I
felt inspired to contemplate on what gestures I considered expressed
compassion. This was a new thought concept which led me to explore my own
gestures throughout my life span asking the question, was it a gesture of
compassion? I was easily able to relate and understand from this week’s
featured artwork, a mother nurturing her child, as a gesture of compassion, since
I am a mother of two children. However I felt directed to look at my lifelong
creative practice as a potter creating vessels and sculptures on a potter’s
wheel, uncovering the realization that it too is a compassionate gesture.
The
art/craft of pottery making on a potter’s wheel is ancient, could be considered
an icon image and is symbolic in the bible as a metaphor, God as The Potter and
his people/creation are the clay. Jeremiah 18:1-6 states the following about The Potter and the Clay:
18 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord,
saying,
2 Arise,
and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
3 Then
I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
4 And
the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he
made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
5 Then
the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
6 O
house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of
Israel (KJV).
The
metaphor of God as the Potter and the clay, denotes immanence analogous to an
earthly potter who shapes the clay intimately with his hands, carefully
crafting a work of art. “If the clay did not achieve the desired shape, he did
not throw it away. Instead, he patiently reworked it until it became the vessel
he wanted it to be.” One can picture the
image of the potter leaning forward over the wheel of two stones, turning the
wheel by foot and shaping “the rotating clay” into the desired work. In this way God is portrayed as gracious,
loving, long-suffering, merciful, and compassionate (Peckham, 2007).
For
my creative practice I chose to create the following two photograph collages depicting myself
as a potter through my lifespan:
·
The
Potter and the Clay: The larger image is a self-portrait
painting, Cubist style, which I painted many years ago for one of my bachelor
in fine arts degree course assignments.
The other photos were taken during various opportunities in my life to
create on the potter’s wheel during church services, Christian conferences,
schools and my Arts in Medicine practice. The images all show the compassionate
gesture and the different stages of making a vessel on the potter’s wheel.
·
Clay
Arts and Compassion: The images in this collage are of a
creative aging workshop at an assisted living community. This particular workshop I demonstrated and
taught about making vessels on a potter’s wheel, and had the participants draw the shape of the
vessel they wanted me to make for them. Once I made their vessels on the wheel
they painted their piece with colored slips. This was their first time seeing the
process and there were immediate positive outcomes, their well-being was
enhanced. One of the aids brought an
older frail woman in a wheel chair to observe the compassionate gesture she was
fascinated watching me create everyone’s vessels, a positive distraction from
her pain.
I am humbled and grateful to the
Master Potter, that He was compassionate toward me when fashioning my life as
an artist/potter to create vessels and sculptures on a potter’s wheel, as a
compassionate gesture toward helping others.
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