What makes a beautiful pot?
The same thing that makes a beautiful person. Confidence. The beautiful pot must have, know, and genuinely live its reason for being. The beautiful pot has a soul-deep purpose – and yes, of course, the beautiful pot has a soul.
The purpose doesn’t have to be functional, but it needs to be. It could be whimsy, or functionality, or anger, or green. It could be porcelain, or delight, or grace, or shame – volume, or lightness, or comfort. The pot’s purpose could be to decorate. To shine in a particular way. To hold just the right amount of coffee.
Whatever it is, the beautiful pot is about something, and it fully embraces that thing. Any lack of commitment or failure in execution would betray a lack of authenticity, and the potential for beauty would be lost.
Just like with people, that kind of confidence and actualization is sometimes present at the point of making and sometimes grows over time, through use, context, and exposure, through the vision and admiration of others, through experience.
Not every pot is beautiful or even has the capacity for it. But. When the unrealized potential for beauty exists, that’s alright. If there’s one thing a pot has, it’s time.
Oh, you beautiful thing.
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