Photo by Aaron Painter
Research has long touted the benefits of play for children. Through it, they discover the world and their pIace in it. They learn by experience the hardness of rocks, the softness of grass, the roughness of asphalt and the smoothness of mud. They learn what it is to run, jump, fall, and feel a little out of control. Their play is often repetitive. This delightful repetition helps them discover the substance of their surroundings, as well as their own. As they play, they find, and then push, boundaries.
Play is the exercise of imagination, the exploration of possibility, and the discovery of limits.
G. K. Chesterton makes this observation in Orthodoxy. He says,
A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life...They always
say, “Do it again;” and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For
grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is
strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do
it again” to the sun and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be
automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every
daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them...The repetition in Nature
may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.
Potter Elle Painter loves to play in the mud, so to speak. I asked her if I could simply watch her throw pottery one evening. I sat in a corner of her workshop, a notebook and pen in hand to jot down my observations while she worked. I watched her create firm, steady boundaries with her hands, pressing against a spinning lump of clay as she centered it on the wheel. I could clearly see the steady patience with which she held the boundary as the clay spun out against her until its movement was smooth and settled like a top that had worked itself into a divot.
She wouldn’t simply allow me to observe though. She explained each step of the process, her words themselves shaped by the slight curve of a smile throughout. Elle is someone who cannot hide her delight. It doesn’t matter what she’s talking about, there’s always a playfulness in her countenance.
As I watched the centering process, however, I could not see the strength this required. In order to provide the limits that shape the clay, she has to evenly hold pressure against it, waiting for it to conform to the shape of her hands. Her hands provide the limits while the clay naturally responds to them until its substance finds form. Her steady strength allows the clay to be what it is within her hold. Once a vessel finds shape, then comes the delight of mixing glazes, the brilliance of which is only revealed by fire.
"The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence;
it may be a theatrical encore."
She finishes one, only to find delight in creating another one, and still another one, in perpetual "encore," as Chesterton would say. She fashions vessels, centers them, hollows them out, stretches them, and smooths them, all while discovering and pushing the boundaries of these earthly elements, her body, and her own imagination. If you watch her, you will see that it’s the delight of play that compels her.
These 17 years I have known Elle, I have become convinced that watching a playful artist at work is watching a beloved child at play.
Thank you, Elle, for continuing to invite me, again and again, to ‘come out and play.’
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