On my morning walk in the damp mist the trees were black silhouettes against a grey sky like loose brushwork on a bowl. I see the outlines of pots everywhere I look. But I have spent my life as a potter trying to see the inside volume. So much of my early training was focused on bowls that it took me a long time to arrive at a place where I could throw bowls intuitively without working against the voice of my education.

First Sight

I see an outline
of you everywhere I look.
We spend our lives trying to
see our insides. Have
you ever watched the trees turn
black before the sky?

–Victoria Chang, in The Trees Witness Everything, Copper Canyon Press