When a pot is not just a pot

Pots born of stories stay with you forever

For a few years now, I make pots to sell. They are unique and I pour myself into them. I can spend hours on a mug and days on a platter. All my pots are special to me, but none are more special than some of the pots I made at the beginning of my journey as a potter.

Like the one you see on the picture.

Like this small vase, I made many other pieces that I gifted my family and friends. Though technically far inferior, in other aspects they hold a beauty and a meaning that the pieces I make today never will. And even more special than those gifted to friends and family are the ones made with a specific person in mind.

Like the one you see on the picture.

These pots hold a story. Not just my story, of how I came to make them, what they mean to me, or how I got there. Their (origin) story includes the other person and their story. While the pots I make to sell will acquire their person’s story once they leave my hands, these early pots (and by extension any other pot I make with someone in mind) are born with that person’s story, that story is part of what they are. They are in fact, you could argue, born from the story, and without it they wouldn’t exist. And whether they end up in the person’s hands or not, whether this person even sees them or knows they exist, it doesn’t matter; these pots belong to them and always will.

Like the one you see on the picture.

Back when I made these first pots, I was still learning to throw on the wheel and all my pieces were never taller than 6 or 7 cm, rather bottom heavy and with a thin rim that tended to chip given half a chance. Like the one you see on the picture.

Or they had a thin foot which was easily chipped. Like the honey jar I made for my parents, which kept chipping every time they put it back in the cupboard. They used it for years though, and I am pretty sure they still prefer it to the much sturdier, better designed honey jar I gave them last year.

Or they were crocked and weird looking, like the mugs I made for my dad (mostly green for the Sporting supporter) and for my mom. Even the decorations are all over the place. You can really tell (or at least I can really tell) I was still searching, experimenting, learning. Their story is my story too.

And let’s not forget the “yogurt” bowls, made to order for my dad: shallow and with two small asymmetrically placed handles, one for his thumb, one for his index finger, so he can hold it with one hand.

Experimental is also a good word to describe the unusual and probably not very practical handle I put on a mug for my uncle after he asked whether handles need to be attached at both ends. I made him a mug with a handle that ends just a few centimetres short of where it would normally be attached to, at the bottom. An experimental pot for someone who always picks my pots up and turns them upside-down. I do this too, with other potters’ work. I like to see the foots of pots, the hidden parts.

It all adds to the story.

One of the most special pots I made back then was the mug for Radek. Probably the best of its time, it was still rather thick walled and not very balanced. I loved making it (and the matching bowl, made some time later and which, unlike the mug, is still in use today). I made it for him, not long after we got together. Thinking about him, worrying if he would like it, fretting about what he might think, maybe he would find it a weird first gift — a mug, something so personal in a way, and lasting. What if it didn’t work out between us? Would he keep it? Depending on how it would end, he would either put it at the back of the cupboard and forget about it or smash it to pieces… In the end, it was my mother who smashed it to pieces, though not on purpose, of course.

The stories become even more meaningful when the people go; they are what remains. Stories made memory. Stories and pots.

Like the one you see on the picture.

And like the bowls I made for Mai, my friend who lived with cancer and whom I lost 10 years ago. She would tell me that my bowls made her food taste better and eating — an activity she found harder and harder — easier. She was the kindest person I have ever met. I also made her a tiny misshapen moss-green bowl, which prompted her to teach me the meaning of wabi-sabi, a concept totally new to me but which, apparently, this tiny bowl embodied.

Like the half-litre pitcher I made for my grandfather. Red clay for red wine. It lived on his small round table, where he liked to sit, eat uma bucha and drink um copito. I like to believe it brought us closer. That it would make him think of me, perhaps wonder at my choice of decoration (a simple green glaze applied diagonally, across the belly of the pitcher, leaving most of the bottom half raw) and, hopefully, smile. In truth, that pot was more about me than about my grandfather, my attempt at reaching out to someone with whom I had lost the ability to really communicate.

Rather like the one you see on the picture. Except the one you see on the picture never reached the person it was made for. I made it for Mike, whom I met during my last year in London. We became close friends despite the fact that, the first time we met, we disliked each other and spent a good part of the evening arguing. When I left London we stayed in touch, and I would see him every time I went back. Mike was the most talented person I have ever met, a true modern times Renaissance man. He was a musician, a writer, a software whizz. He loved art and introduced me to Andrea del Sarto, who became my favourite Italian painter. I remember talking about the vase with him, he asked for it to be simple, no colours and no fancy shapes (as if I could make anything fancy back then). After I moved to Poland, we slowly stopped writing and eventually lost touch. Every few weeks I would write to him but never hit send, I don’t know why. Nine years passed. Last month, when we were still in Portugal, I learnt through a common friend that he had died after a short illness. I don’t know why I never managed to give Mike his vase. All I know is that it will always be his. Even now that I no longer can give it to him. Even now that he is no longer here to receive it.

The pots that I made for those who have now passed hold a special place in my mind and in my heart. Just like the people they were made for. This post is dedicated to them.

As always, and this time more than ever, thank you so much for reading.

Sara