tea

drinking morning tea

the monk is peaceful

the chrysanthemum blooms

Basho

we finally had some sun here, enough so that my camera might take some good photos of the tea cups i've been doing lately in the pottery studio. fortuitously the sun was coming through my garden doors and orange tree and it cast the perfect shadow to be the setting for these photos. tea and the tea ceremony are a couple of those things i wish i could devote more time to. i studied the architecture of the tea house while in school and was able to once attend a traditional tea ceremony in boston. 

i am not actually much of a tea drinker. i really only like it at a certain not boiling but not yet tepid temperature. however i still appreciate the culture behind it. i've been feeling that small tea cups are a noble pursuit for me; as i get more accomplished with throwing pottery. the cups are not perfect and there is a great lesson in that, in that they need not be perfect. fate and glaze add their voices to the process and out of everything, chance sometimes is the best course to follow.

i've been considering building small wooden boxes for some of the cups, just to make them more of a celebration of chance and the lesson that perfection can sometimes be set to one side.

many of these will go to the friends i have left in my life (though they seem to be lost like autumn leaves lately). others i may keep. one might even find its way to you.

perhaps it is time for a new blog contest?