Creating Magic with Clay Creatures

2020 brought a double blow that no one could have anticipated. Just as I was navigating recovery from the "C" word, COVID-19 slammed into the world with unprecedented force. The ceramics studio beneath the Sunset Center—my sanctuary, my healing space—shuttered its doors along with everything else. Suddenly, I found myself cut off from the kilns, from the community, from the cycle of creation and firing that had become so essential to my healing process.

At home, my sculptural vessels began to accumulate as unfired greenware. Without access to the studio's kilns, these carefully crafted pieces—each one a meditation, a prayer, a step in my recovery—sat fragile and vulnerable on every available surface. Greenware has a particular kind of anxiety to it; it's clay in limbo, dried but not yet transformed by fire, beautiful but breakable with the slightest bump.

The practical reality became clear: I couldn't keep making vessels that would just stack up in our home, taking up space and creating stress instead of the peace I needed during recovery. Something had to change, and change it did, in the most unexpected and delightful way.

Out of necessity came a creative pivot that would become one of my most joyful artistic periods. Instead of vessels, I began crafting small animals and fantasy creatures. These little beings were perfect for our new reality—they were small enough to store easily as greenware, quirky enough to bring smiles during dark times, and most importantly, they invited collaboration in a way my previous work never had.

My kids, suddenly home from school and navigating their own version of pandemic uncertainty, discovered that clay creatures were endlessly fascinating. Where my vessels had been solitary meditations, these animals became family projects. Little hands joined mine at the kitchen table, rolling clay and debating whether a dragon should have spikes or smooth scales, whether a bird needed realistic proportions or could sport fantastically oversized eyes.

Each creature became an exercise in pure invention. Freed from the functional constraints of vessels, my imagination ran wild. I created animals that had never existed—hybrid creatures with the ears of rabbits and the tails of fish, birds with too many wings, cats with knowing expressions that seemed to hold secrets. The fantasy creatures were even more liberated from reality: tiny dragons that could curl up in your palm, magical beings with impossible anatomies that somehow made perfect sense in clay.

My children brought their own brand of creative chaos to the process. They would suggest modifications that I never would have considered: "What if it had three eyes?" "Can you make its feet really big?" "Does it need fur or scales or both?" Their uninhibited approach to creature design pushed me out of my own artistic comfort zones and reminded me that creativity could be purely playful.

These small creatures thrived in their greenware state in ways that vessels couldn't. A tiny dragon looked perfectly content sitting on a bookshelf, waiting for its eventual firing. A family of fantasy birds could perch along a windowsill, bringing whimsy to the view. Unlike the vessels, which seemed to demand completion, the creatures possessed a charm even in their unfired state—they were like pets made of clay, companions that asked for nothing but brought constant delight.

The kids took pride in our growing menagerie. They would name the creatures, create elaborate backstories for them, and carefully move them to new locations around the house. Each piece became a character in an ongoing family narrative that helped all of us process the strangeness of our confined world.

What emerged during this period was something I hadn't expected: healing through pure play. While my vessels had been profound and meditative, the creatures were joyful and silly. They reminded me that recovery didn't always have to be serious, that creativity could be light-hearted even during heavy times. The laughter that filled our kitchen as we debated creature features was its own form of medicine.

Working alongside my children also created a shared creative language that we still speak today. We developed techniques together—how to attach impossibly delicate wings, how to create expressive faces with just a few simple tools, how to balance whimsy with structural integrity. These became skills we all carried forward, but more importantly, they became memories we made together during a time when the whole world felt uncertain.

Looking back now, I recognize this period as one of unexpected grace. The pandemic that shut down my studio and the recovery that limited my energy somehow conspired to create space for a different kind of creativity—one that was collaborative, playful, and perfectly suited to our strange circumstances. The creatures we made together became more than art; they became symbols of our family's ability to adapt, to find joy in constraint, to create magic even when the world felt like it was falling apart.

The "C" word and COVID were unwelcome visitors in our lives, but they also taught us something valuable about resilience. Sometimes the most meaningful art comes not from grand studios or perfect conditions, but from kitchen tables and shared laughter, from small creatures that remind us that even in the darkest times, there's always room for a little magic.