You Are Clay

You are clay. You can be molded and formed into something different. This can be done many times over, and you can be the one to do it. But you aren't just any clay. You are a clay with some astonishing properties.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay has the property that it cannot be sculpted quickly. It responds to slow and constant pressure. Brief moments of quick and intense pressure can be useful, but for refining shapes, not for forming them. The sculptor must work the material in a never ending cycle. Repetition of pushing, pulling, and sculpting followed by times of rest where the clay allows the shape to take form. Without consistency, the shape never takes form. Without patience, strong movements simply break the clay and take it further from the desired form.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay also has the property that it settles. It settles just slowly enough that if you watch it with anything short of great care, you won't see it settle. If you watch it with great care and focus on detail, you can see when it settles. If you turn away for any time and come back to it, you can see that it has settled. Left unattended this clay will settle into something. What it is depends on another curious property of this clay.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay also has the property that f you elect not to be the one shaping and molding it, it will be shaped and molded for you by outside forces. Some are within your control and some are not. Even if you do choose to be the sculptor, other forces will also act to sculpt you. Much in the same way the settling can't be seen unless you watch with an eye towards detail, you also won't see the changes made by the other sculptors at work. You must constantly look for changes in the clay that you didn't make, and consciously accept them, or work to counter them. If you don't do this, other sculptors will make you into what you are.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay has the property that whenever you touch it to sculpt, it hurts. It is painful to work, and the longer it has been since you have worked the clay, the more it hurts. But in the same manner, the more frequently you work the clay, the more accustomed you grow to the pain of working it. The pain never goes away, you just get better at working through it. Even more curious though, is that every part of this clay hurts in a new and unrelated way. When you sculpt the body it brings a certain type of pain. You may spend the time and effort to learn to work through this pain, even channel it as part of your art. If you then move to sculpt the mind, it hurts in a new and different way. In a way that is only ever so slightly dulled by your tolerance of the pain from sculpting the body. You must build tolerance to the pain of sculpting the mind in the same way you built the tolerance to sculpting the body. If you start sculpting the heart or the soul or the spirit, each of these will again hurt in their own unique way, and will again require you to build tolerance to the pain of working that area.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay has the property that when you sculpt it, it will always feel as though it is going to break. It will feel that if you push any harder to mold a section to form, it will simply break away and your progress will be lost. But it won't. The clay actively resists change and the clay knows that convincing the artist it is about to break is one of the best ways to stop the sculptor from pushing towards new form. The clay can break, though. When it does break, the art is slowed, but not stopped. It takes skill and patience to mend the sculpture and to put careful attention on mending the break. The artist must focus on, but not fear, the mended areas. They mustn't sculpt with reckless abandon. They must be diligent in assessing when the feeling of impending collapse is just a mirage and when it is a harbinger of great damage. The artist learns the feel of the clay and accepts that the feigned failure and the reality of true failure is nothing more than an inherent characteristic of the material. A call to focus, not to fear. The artist perseveres.

This clay can be shaped and molded over and over again. But this clay has the property that eventually you will no longer be able to sculpt it. This clay breaks down with time. Areas grow stronger as they are worked, but even the strongest eventually weaken. The clay, which if sculpted, will have taken so much time and effort and energy, will eventually crumble and return to the earth. This clay is willing and able to take everything the artist has to give and will invariably, always turn it to dust which will be forgotten for an eternity. You can slow this, but you can never stop it. You can also choose: be overcome by the impossibility of creating art which will last, or revel in the joy of creating art, part of whose beauty is precisely the fact that it will not last. It is a moment. A moment which you can create and can only enjoy for that moment. But you as the artist will know it existed and you will have carved a moment of beauty that you can hold eternal, even if it will be lost to time.

You are clay. You can be shaped and molded. You can mold this clay. If you don't it will be molded for you and it will settle on a form that you do not control. If you do elect to be the sculptor, it will require diligence, focus, persistence, and tremendous pain. But if you do elect to sculpt it, it will be you and you will be it. Your mind and spirit and soul as the sculptor of a work of art that is your mortal husk. And even then, even if you do all of this, all you sculpt will eventually fade and be forgotten. The art will live for but a moment and may only ever be seen or remembered by the artist. It will certainly only ever be fully felt and understood by the artist, but it will have existed.

Will you sculpt?