Call Out

Amber Woodard

Charles silently observed my behaviour as I went about my craft. He did this as he strolled around and passed advice to the students. I can easily discern the obvious glare of eyes on my back, and if they could talk, which they can't (those pupils), they would snarkily comment, "back at it again, ain't you?" I would do so too if a stranger showed up, descending from nowhere, then signs up to the workshop with all the prior knowledge and experience and instead of learning, uses the place purely out of self-interest to throw a pot or two for a hobby.

   It had to be 3/4 Art too for that ceramic related course I wanted to incorporate into my education. So I'm no stranger to simply making my life a difficulty over a little obsessive hobby. I wiped the surface clean for seconds, I was feeling daring today for another go at the pots. The potter's wheel was a thing of wonder, it was a nifty sink with a giant wheel attached to it, allowing a trained human to mould life into any pottery their heart may desire. Shame I don't have that one around anymore...

* * *

"Look at what I found!" Mum grinned gleefully, holding something solidly circular on top of her head, "This, it's my potter's wheel from my late high school years," she pleasantly placed down the wheel onto the wooden coffee table, which only had a remote and a plate of store-bought cookies. My family sat on the couch behind, the sport commentators blurred with the background in irrelevance as they glanced forward in slight interest.

   "Let me show you," she said, dusting the station off, pulling a small stool over and placing me gleefully onto her lap, her gold locks fluttering as the wheel whirred into motion.

   It was simply like that, my enjoyment for throwing pottery had begun here, digging deep and planting itself into the ground, rooting back to this core memory — with my mother holding onto my faint and little six-year-old hand, guiding the mould into a vase shape. The sensation of clay as it slips past the cracks of my finger tips, the post-dryness of earth, the fulfilment felt by whittling my very own creation into art, it truly is a quotidian joy.

   My parents... they were everything I could have ever asked for. Some things in life you don't begin to miss until they're all gone.

* * *

I started by wedging her clay for seconds, rolling the piece until I felt that all sides were smooth and all previously trapped air pockets were gone. Pressing and shaping the earth into something of a raindrop with a rounded bottom, I made sure to occasionally sprinkle splotches of water now and then to smoothen it out. I slammed the clump onto the centre of the potter's wheel, inching closer towards the wheel, anchoring my elbow closer towards my body, practically leaning all my body weight onto an emerging vase. By now it had simply become second nature.

   Charles tapped on my back in a poor attempt to strike a conversation with me, "The pot you left behind when you dashed out last time finished in the kiln, so pick it up later, alright?"

   I already know that. So instead, I quietly muttered a 'got it' and moved on.

Straightening his apron, he tries again with the self-insert, "The daisies you were trying to carve? It didn't turn out... you see- not as well."

   I know. My mother wasn't around long enough to educate me.

* * *

   The trademarking of the first pot we made together uniquely had an uneven dent in its back, with a soft carving of three daisies, a skill I wasn't able to completely inherit from my mother. It wasn't properly glazed and so it remained an earthy-brown up for preservation. We later took the pot to a kiln and it heated up the clay to a solid state. It sat on our bookshelf for a set period, gazing at two, then later three real children before it vividly vanished upon our departure.