The security guard had a lot of questions so I invited him to put on an apron and jump in the clay.  As it turned out, he is a professional potter! He was used to doing production, and has used up to 450 pounds of clay at one sitting. He taught pottery to school children. He told me something else that was very interesting:  that deep in the bowels of many housing buildings, there may be a kiln, used and unused. I will certainly investigate further.

We do not have a kiln at DPCM, but a ceramic artist and teacher offered us the use of a kiln, 50 pounds of pug clay and several clay tools and instruments.  She asked that we do not make our pinch pots more than four inches high. Our artists came in, some have played with play dough in the past, some were touching clay for the very first time. “I’m playing with dirt!” “Is it okay, mommy?”

I demonstrated how to make a pinch pot but the clay invited them each to go further, and soon they were sculpting and hand-building, going further than what we expected with clay. Then someone said something that broke my heart, “I’m enjoying myself so much that I think God will punish me later.” This led to a discussion on God and clay and how clay invites us in the joy of creating, and that there is no judgement or condemnation in the enjoyment of working with clay.

God used dirt to fashion humans, Genesis 2:7. Remember that you fashioned me like clay, Job 10:9. Like clay in the hand of the potter, to be moulded as he pleases, so all are in the hand of their Maker, to be given whatever he decides, Ecclesiasticus 33:13. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us, 2Corinthians 4:7.

Let’s play with clay again!