The Team
The team at Humble Vessels Pottery is Hal and Barb Martin. I (Hal) had wanted to try my hand at pottery for a long time and now, retired from my IT career, I have been able to explore this wonderful art form.
What came as a wonderful surprise to me was my bride of 50 years would also enjoy this creative endeavor. Although she still practices as a licensed therapist, she makes opportunities to throw herself into glazing or making pieces from clay slabs alongside me.
Working with “dirt” has been part of our life together from the beginning. We have cultivated a vegetable garden our entire married life and now have a large organic garden, pick gallons of blueberries from our small patch, and raise chickens and ducks for their fabulous eggs. (duck eggs are great to bake with) Now, turning “dirt” into functional and decorative ceramic pieces is a transformative experience for both of us.
Another dimension to this endeavor is that there are many others that enjoy getting their hands dirty as well. Some of our grandchildren will spend hours in the studio with us throwing or glazing pottery. This makes for a wonderful time together and we get to see the delighted look on their faces as their creation comes out of the kiln.
Then there are friends who also enjoy a good glazing party, talking and sharing the creative process together to make something beautiful.
We all enjoy beauty and we all can create beauty. Art, a sun kissed tomato from the garden, a friendship, a job well done. Create something beautiful.
An exploration in beauty.
Plato, Winged Horses, and Beauty
“Around the same time Plato wrote his Republic, he wrote another work, less well known, called Phaedrus. In it, Plato ponders the immortality of our souls and how we may nourish them. He creates a metaphor wherein he depicts the soul as a charioteer with two horses. Frequently, Plato writes, the soul is anchored to the earth. It has a diet distinctly lacking in glory, and thus, the horses plod around in the dirt. However, on occasion, the soul sees objects of beauty. Their inherent worth is self-evident. They have an enigmatic quality that echoes of a beauty in the heavens. Gazing upon this worth, the horses begin to soar heavenward. Seeing beauty, the soul grows wings.
Plato’s metaphor is compelling. Who doesn’t want to fly? But was he right to afford such prominence to the notion of beauty? Can it really raise us up from the mire of daily life, propelling our souls toward greater realities?
In short, the answer is yes. The Ancients understood beauty far better than many do today, and they perceived its transcendent worth. True beauty, they teach us, whispers of the majesty that we observe in the skies. It pushes our thoughts toward expressions of glory, greater than those that are immediately before us. This is why we are captivated by the rolling waves of the ocean or snowy mountain peaks. Their self-evident beauty takes hold of the soul and asks us to think great thoughts. Their majesty prompts us to consider an even greater glory in the heavens.
The theological reason for this relationship is simple. All beauty issues from God himself. He is the most glorious, majestic being in the universe. Thus, when we perceive expressions of beauty on earth — the infant’s hand on the ultrasound screen, a hummingbird hovering, deer galloping in the forest — we are looking at mere streams and currents, which sit downstream from the source. Such beauty is real, but it is not ultimate. It whispers of God’s beauty. In the child, bird, or deer, we sense his fingerprints. And so, if we who have eyes to see ponder these expressions of beauty long enough, they beckon our hearts to journey upstream, toward the fount. They direct our minds heavenward. Seeing beauty, the soul grows wings.” Paul Twiss, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/too-busy-for-beauty