Excerpt:

I arrived at the studio an hour early. I wanted to get some work time in. It was a place to start. Whenever I feel stuck, throwing something on the wheel gets me back in line. I unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. My navy backpack slid off my arm and landed on a nearby table; I’d move it in a minute. Right now I was anxious to get started.
I filled up a bowl from under the sink with water from the tap and set it on the edge of an electric pottery wheel. I pulled my tool box from my locker and gathered my bag of clay. Red Dakota clay.
I cut the clay into six equal squares and started rounding them into balls. When the clay first comes out of the bag, fresh, you can do that. Otherwise it takes a bit more than just rounding. You gotta beat them into submission. (wink)
So I’ve got my six balls of clay set on the edge of the wheel, along with my tool box, and I think about turning on the stereo to something slower, but still cool. Like reggae. Bob Marley’s Exodus. But I don’t. Silence is what I crave this evening. Silence to welcome the inspiration gods. I pray they bring my hands a work of art worthy of Odin and the other Old Norse gods.
I flip the on switch and the electric motor spins the wheel. I touch the sponge of water to the wheel and give it a quarter-sized splash of water. I slam the clay ball down on that wet spot and hold it there, suctioning it down to the metal and bringing it to center. And then I’m gone. Lost in a world of mud and fingers and emotions, and any stresses I come into the studio with are gone. They ground into the clay and slowly sink out of me.