Recently, I’ve admitted to myself that most of the ceramic cups I’ve made over the years are too big.

The ten-ounce setting on a Keurig only reaches halfway on mugs that line my parents’ cupboards. I always make some forgettable jokes about this when I visit. Not only am I embarrassed by the heavy lower walls and awkward handles, I’m also confused why I made them so massive. My parents seem to use these mugs from a decade ago anyhow, at least when I visit, sipping green tea and apple cider out of cups half full.

I rarely use my own pottery at home, but lately I’ve been adding one of my pieces—a cup that reminds me of better times—into my rotation. When I use this clumsy mug, I’m tempted to use two teabags to make herbal tea strong enough that I can taste its flavor. I reconsider when I think about balancing grocery bills, rent, and Christmas shipping. One bag and bland tea will do; still, I keep using the cup.

My friend holds a white mug with a horse decal up to the screen, as our circle swaps stories over Zoom. “It’s my favorite cup,” she says. “Been my favorite since you gave it to me.” For a minute, I try to remember which Christmas or Thanksgiving these cups helped to celebrate. I know there was a batch of them, back when I thought decal work on clay was some sort of miracle, but I can’t recall specifics of the occasion or gift. Then I remind myself that the date doesn’t matter—what bothers me tonight is that this mug, like the others, is huge and awkward.

And then my thoughts spiral away from the conversation, thinking about how many of my too-big mugs live in people’s cupboards, in people’s lives, in states I haven’t visited in years, or how many students I coached to make unreasonably big cups, and where these cups, and students, ended up. And then a former teacher’s voice is ringing in my head, reminding me that there are already too many bad pots in the world, and my soul sinks at how much junk I’ve added to the mess, directly or through the hands of the students I’ve taught.

I think that I was more of an optimist about all this, once. Maybe more than once.

I snap back into the conversation in time to wish love to friends who have shared this long chapter with me.

•••

A few weeks ago, I sat down at the wheel again for the first time in months. 

Throwing is complicated these days. There’s a wheel on my deck, but whenever I’ve tried to use it, my head spins faster than the wheelhead with all the reasons it’s impractical to throw at my one-bedroom rental. Although my colleague is generous with invitations, I have a litany of excuses not to use the studio at my current school. The most relevant one, since last March, is that we’re all doing our best not to share spaces during a pandemic. A ceramic studio is meant to be shared, so everything about sharing-but-not-sharing space is harder than usual. (It feels impossibly sad. too.)

Anyhow, while I wedged clay on some very borrowed time, I was careful not to strategize about what I’d be making. I owe pots to people—replacements for broken ware, gifts for postponed 2020 graduations—but there was no way I could make any progress on promises just yet.

Throwing again in 2020 was purely for therapy. I was—am—reaching my breaking point with spending whole days staring at screens. I needed—need—to create something tangible.

“No pressure,” I mumbled to myself as I wedged, gathered tools, sat down at the wheel. I only came back to the wheel because I felt desperate to make something. That’s no pressure at all.

The something I made, of course, was too-big cups.

I stretched the clay as far as I could—more grateful than I admitted to myself until now that I could still do this—then nudged the walls to collapse and fold a little. I worried that the pieces were too heavy, then worried that they were too light after I trimmed. I always worry a lot when I throw, but it’s not the sort of exhausting worry that accents everything else lately.

I considered a hundred metaphors as I worked, then wondered why my head doesn’t spin with stories like this while I’m taking photos or teaching photography. I suppose I need to figure out the answers to that question, but—remember—for now, no pressure.

The school reached its quota of active COVID cases and closed down before I could pick these cups up from a kiln shared with student work. I snuck back into the silent building a week later to gather nine massive cups. And as I packed them in a box, I think I realized the buried lede of why I keep coming back to making cups that are unreasonably big.

These cups, although still too large for the Keurig, are quite a bit smaller than they were when the clay was wet. Clay shrinks considerably as it makes its way from wet, to leather, to greenware, to bisque, to glazed. When you select a clay, you consider its shrinkage rate, and as you develop skill with the medium, you plan for shrinkage in the work. So many shared laughs echoed in our studio when students noticed that a pot that was giant in their memory emerged snack-size from its final firing. My favorite clay shrinks 12.5% from wet to cone 6.

Shrinking is humbling—whether it’s clay shrinking from start to finish, or our own shrinking back from changes, or our lives shrinking from each others’ worlds as we hunker down to survive this season.

It’s humbling even when you plan for it.

•••

I think I’ve made my cups too big over the years to combat the shrinking. Maybe I overplanned. I just wanted the finished work to remain as generous as it felt when it was plastic and full of potential, on the wheel in a cluttered and noisy room.

I think I made my recent cups too big to ensure there would still be enough of myself in the work, even after I’ve shrunk so much from the person and teacher I was a few years ago that I barely recognize myself.

Big enough to still keep pouring, keep offering, when there are no refills.

•••

What can we do to fill our cups back up—as teachers and artists and human beings—after the experiences of this past year?