I am not a great artist, but mine is an artist’s soul. I firmly believe that writing fiction, poetry, and many forms of nonfiction are art. I love to write. It’s what I was born to do. However, I also love to express myself in other ways. I love painting, wood working, and taking interesting photos.
A couple days ago, I woke up with an uncanny urge to sculpt. I don’t have time for such a thing right now, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. I was driven to go in search of clay. I had none. I didn’t even have so much as an egg of Silly Putty.
I visited my local arts and crafts store the next day. I searched and searched. I finally found a Crayola display which included a few different colors of interesting looking clay. I’m no expert and I haven’t sculpted in many years, but I thought there were different kinds of clay. I sure didn’t remember it being in neon colors.
I read the instructions on the Crayola clay and saw that it was air-dry clay. That’s not a bad thing since I don’t own a kiln, but I had envisioned baking my creation to assure its longevity. Way back when I was little and attending art class in school, the clay we used needed to be sclupted, fired in a kiln, glazed, and fired again.
I ultimately decided to give the Crayola clay a try since the only other thing I could find was Play-doh. I took my purchase up to the register where the cashier asked if I found everything. I told her I had to look really hard for the clay but eventually found it.
She looked at me funny and said, “Did you see the grown-up clay in aisle 11?”
I explained that I didn’t see the any other kind of clay. She called an employee over and asked him to show to the grown-up clay aisle. It was on the bottom and next to bottom shelves, which is why I didn’t see it. The nice man explained there were two kinds, air-dry and bake.
It was about that time when I realized I didn’t know which one I wanted. I read every package to try to determine what would be best. I ended up buying a few different packages. I bought five pounds of Amaco white air-dry modeling clay, an eight-ounce brick of Premo Sculpey white oven-bake clay, and one box of Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay in three neon colors. I couldn’t help it. Who can can turn down pink, yellow, and green in the same box?
It turns out that choosing my clay was the easy part. All I need is clay if I’m going to make a pot or cup, but I wanted to make an animal and maybe a flower or two, which meant I needed tools, too. As I mentioned before, it’s been a really long time since I scuplted antyhing. Any tools I once had are long gone.
I was astounded by the array of tools avaialable. I couldn’t just buy one, right? So, I bought a pack of pottery tools that contains all sorts of things including a potter’s needle, which is something I’ve never used before. I also bought assorted gems, googly eyes, and a small package of pottery knives. I wasn’t done yet. I bought some acrylic paint and gloss glaze, too.
I don’t want to think about how much money I spent on this bit of inspiration, but I’ve learned a few things in my life. Among them, I’ve learned to pay attention to my instincts and always listen to my muse when she speaks.
Do what you love, my friends! Thank you for reading Ozarks Maven! If you’ve enjoyed my little seeds of wisdom and joy, please subscribe to Ozarks Maven, Like Ozarks Maven on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @OzarksMaven.
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