Come Along Girls

It’s January 2021. I go down to the studio and catch up with my standing figure again.
She has no arms, but her shoulders suggest they are reaching back and without a thought her arms collect two girls.

It feels different to anything I have done.

The intimacy of the support is a felt emotion,
I work close and an arm goes round a shoulder,

then stepping back I am shocked all over again.

Shocked how they ended up in the studio,
the three of them
Strong girls, standing there.

Their newness I find exciting. The energy they create is exhausting
The fact that the base was made for one and it wobbles… unnerving.

The studio is cold
but not miserable.
The solitude is intense
but not unpleasant.

I have my sisters here.

I reached back
and
found two children.

Come on guys
keep up.

They are rock and leaf.

Sometimes a hand just holds a shoulder but sometimes the clay looks like a cliff face
and other times it’s a river falling through time,
flowing over form.

The clay moves around

give and take
you to me
me to you
Come along.

You may see a felt feeling.
Family.
What you know.

I don’t know.
Is it my lost children?
or myself… lost?

Or am I
not
in fact lost.

I just went and
got myself.

Come on girls. It’s ok.
Come along.