I have tried several times to explain what the objects I create represent for me, but I couldn’t come up with anything that could explain it. This quote gave me the inspiration to tell a story in which I identify myself.
"There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in. "
Leonard Cohen
…. And the potter decided to make a vase, took a big piece of clay, and placed it at the centre of the lathe.
After a few hours of work, the potter was satisfied with the result: the vase had a big base, it was slender and solid at the same time.
Now he needed to choose the shade (of colour), but he didn’t have any doubt about what he would have chosen; surely it was not easy to obtain the right colour, he needed to combine the coloured powders and the cooking would have taken care of the rest.
The colours, in fact, are never the same, as subtle variations create a different character on the clay.
The result, though, of this vase was a shade of indigo blue that he liked very much and he decided to place it on a shelf to be admired by the clients of his atelier.
One day, a nosey person entered into the little atelier and Intrigued by the indigo blue vase, without thinking twice grabbed it clumsily, making it fall on the floor.
The potter, distracted by other customers, didn’t realise immediately that the vase shattered into a thousand pieces.
The sadness that the potter felt seeing his great creation ruined was immense and he knew that it couldn’t have been fixed. What’s the point to have a cracked vase?
He collected all pieces and placed them in a box and tried to forget about it.
Years later he found the box containing the indigo blue vase pieces again and he remembered when he made that vase and the joy he felt that day.
Then he decided to place all pieces together, it took him all day but, in the end, he managed to recompose it. It was all cracked and surely it couldn’t have been used to contain any kind of liquid, but he came up with an idea. He placed a light inside the cracked vase, and he was amazed by the effect. The light passing through the cracks created a warm and enveloping atmosphere.