So much of what I do as a potter and a parent has to do with looking into the future. If I use a particular clay mixed with another slip combined with the heat of the kiln what will happen. If we make this choice then what? If I say that, what will the reaction be... If I plant this seed... I tell Zoe knowledge builds on experience and trying new things. When she was in middle school she would say but I don't know how to do such and such and I would remind her no one expects you to know how to do it, you just have to give it a try, we all have to start someplace. When I touch the blank page in a partially filled notebook I feel like I am touching the future. When I fill an unfired kiln it is a collaboration of art and science, of the known and unknown.
"So much of what I do as a writer and as a parent has to do
with understanding why things are as they are. Why was this building sited this
way? Why does the page look the way it does? Why did you say that? And why did
you stay up until two in the morning when you had an exam the following day?
Why didn't you tell me how you felt? It is by necessity that I, along with most
of us, expend time and energy on learning how things have come to be. Or not.
Information is knowledge, I tell my sons. Lean whatever you can. Gather the
facts. Find the reasons behind things, and then you will understand them. This
is all important and true, I know, and yet Einstein said that the 'most
beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all
true art and science.' to find myself now at the edge of a river with
unfathomable origins brought a certain thrill. I am happy to be reminded of the
realm of the inexplicable." Nine Ways to Cross a River (pp 183-84), Akiko Busch
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