He tries. It does not look easy. The clay lump dances and buckles, lurching violently to one side. He laughs, a burst of good-natured frustration.
“It has a mind of its own! It’s fighting me, Maya.”
“It always fights back. You have to be patient, but firm. You’re teaching it who’s boss. Think of it like… trying to hold a very slippery, angry softball under water. You have to hold itjust right.”
While he struggles gamely with his rebellious softball of clay, I get my own wheel going. The rhythm is already coming back to me, the muscle memory in my hands is a miracle. I am shaping the base of our ‘big pot,’ the one for the combo lesson, and as the clay whirls, the movement is hypnotizing.
“Oh, that’s so satisfying to watch,” Zachary says, pausing his own efforts. “How fast are you spinning that?”
“About eighty rotations per minute, maybe? I like a slow, steady center. It gives me time to correct. And listen, while we’re sculpting, I can tell you about the painting I’m working on.”
“Ah, yes! The famous fall gourds. Did you bring it in?”
“No, I’m still working on the last layer of sealant. It’s for our trailer. I realized we didn’t have any proper fall decor, just some sad plastic leaves. So I did this still life—gourds and winter squash, mostly. It went really well with the display outside of the cafeteria, but I actually think I’m going to keep in the trailer all year. It’s very warm, with the deep oranges and reds and this really lush, dark background.”
I pull the sides of my pot up, using a sponge to add water and keep the friction low. The clay wall stretches neatly toward the ceiling.
“It sounds beautiful, I can’t wait to see it. You’ve been so incredibly productive lately. It’s like a switch flipped.”
“It really has. I can’t stop. I keep seeing things in colors and shapes, and I have to get it down. It’s the most inspired I’ve felt since college. It feels like… me again.” I smile, running a wire cutter cleanly through the base of the large pot I just finished, lifting it gently and setting it aside. Time to start the small ones. I grab a smaller ball of wedged clay.
“It’s great to see. I know you learned to sculpt from your mother, right?” Zachary asks, finally getting his little lump of clay centered for a glorious, fleeting second before it collapsesback into a sloppy cone. “Is that where the painting comes from, too?”
My smile dims slightly. I start aggressively pressing down on the next ball of clay, feeling the weight of the moment.
I shrug self-consciously. “No. I taught myself to paint. I’m mostly self-taught, actually.”
I try to change the subject, focusing on my new lump of clay. “Anyway, I’m not exactly too happy with my mom right now. So maybe we don’t talk about her.”
Zachary is quiet for a moment, letting me work. His wheel is stopped. He’s just watching me. “What’s going on?” he finally asks.
“She called the other night. Again. To beg for my permission to submit that painting to the auction.”
“The series of paintings, where you’re the subject?”
“Exactly. The one of me after my first major flare.” I sigh, running the tip of my finger around the rim of the small, forming plant pot. “She called to say she’d do a smaller version as a compromise. That it wouldn’t be the full, life-size portrait. That it would just be a small, charcoal sketch or something.”
“And that’s not enough of a compromise?”
“No, because I didn’t even realize she’d done the painting in the first place!” My voice is sharper than I intended, and I wince slightly. “The last time we spoke about it, she pitched the idea of a series. She asked if I would be okay with it, and I told her no. Then, she went ahead and made the painting anyway! She made the series, and then she called to tell me about it.”
I feel the familiar heat of anger spreading across my chest. “I’m livid, Zachary. I feel like she completely went around me. She asked for my permission and when she didn’t get the answer she wanted, she did it anyway. She just decided my illness—mypain—was good material.”
Zachary leans back on his stool, letting his own untouched clay sit on the wheel. “I get why you’re angry, truly. She shouldn’t have gone ahead with the series without your permission.” He nods, validating my feelings, which already lowers the temperature in the room.
“But listen to this for a second, Maya. Think about what you just said.”
I stop sculpting, my hands hovering over the turning clay.
“You’re telling your mother that she cannot release her art into the world because you are unhappy with the subject matter and the timing, and because you feel exposed by it.”
I feel myself bristle. “Yes! She’s usingmyface andmyillness without permission!”
He smiles gently. “I wonder if, in some ways, you are asking your mother to censor her art in the exact same way Trevor is asking you to censor yours with the Halloween gourd display,” he says, with no accusation in his tone.
The comparison hits me like a splash of cold water. I stare at the whirling clay, the logic of his argument making a nauseating, slow spin in my head. “That’s different,” I argue weakly.
“Is it?” He asks kindly. “She’s an artist, Maya,” Zachary continues, his voice soft but firm. “The way you use your painting and your clay to process how you feel about your illness, about being toldnoby the doctors and your body—doesn't she need to do the same? She’s your mother. She watched you go through that first flare. It must have been terrifying and awful for her, too. Maybe she needed to make that painting to processherfeelings around your illness, her fear, her grief, her helplessness. And being told not to is as stifling for her as Trevor’s demands are for you.”
