coffee in a handmade cup

So the day begins with a hot cup of coffee in a handmade cup. The best way to start any day. There is something amazing about pottery. I love to see it start from nothing a bag of dust and become a beautiful piece of art. If only it was as simple as it sounds..

As an artist I can truly appreciate what that cup has been through to get where it is today. A functioning piece of pottery.

First my cup was a lump of clay that was wedged and mangled to get all the air bubbles out before it could be molded. Then it was slapped on to a spinning wheel....round and round being pinched and probed tugged and pulled until it became centered to the wheel soon to become a vessel. Then after the maker shaped the vessel to his liking it was set on a shelf to dry. Sometimes days upon days just sitting there until it was completely dried out. Then it was put in a kiln. A fiery furnace reaching over 1000 degrees. The fire makes the cup "Bisque" or hard but not totally solid. The cup then gets a coat of wet glaze and again is set on a shelf waiting. And if only that was the end. the cup is then put through the fire once again this time for longer. But Ah, Alas once the fire cools and the cup has lost its hot glow it reveals its true beauty. A completed vessel. My beautiful cup.

Isn't that so much like life. "For I am the potter and you are the clay." God truly does want to make us beautiful vessels. It takes many trails, molding spinning and confusing times in life. Sometimes there is just nothing...We are sitting waiting to dry and we feel like nothings happening...we are useless. Even fire and flames, tribulations come but they are only a moment in our life...God knows the end result his plan for our life..to make us what He wants us to be. Beautiful vessels...