I have to learn to say goodbye and everytime I do I sing that excellent Cole Porter song significantly titled “Everytime We Say Goodbye”.  I’m much happier when I say goodbye to my ceramic pieces that go to live in people’s houses.  They can bring happiness and joy to their new owner eating breakfast out of one of my bowls, fueling their day with a big cup of coffee, or eating a big chunk of chocolate cake with ice cream.  When I sell one of my pieces I think of them going home with a stranger, sitting in their kitchen cabinets, hoping that the next time they need a cup of tea they pick me — pick me!

Yet, in the world of Ceramics, the kiln has a different plan for you sometimes.  So, you end up with Seconds — pieces where the glaze just didn’t fire right, a little tiny unexpected hairline crack occurs in your coffee mug handle etcetera etcetera…  And then there are those days in a ceramics studio where you open the kiln and sometimes seemingly for no reason at all your pieces are completely, utterly and undeniably destroyed.  Not a “second” — an abomination.

And that’s when it is really hard to say goodbye.  I’ve had these little abominations sitting in my storage since December.  The glaze was misformulated so they have big pits in them, a weird bluish hazy glow and runny underglaze drawings.  One will be made into a planter for my home.  The others I can hardly look at without wincing.  Today, I can take out my aggressions and take a hammer to them and just like the Cole Porter song, “Everytime we say goodbye,  I die a little”…