Then, I Almost Died...

Last summer, I began to learn how to be a potter. This has certainly been a wonderful experience!

Who would have thought that pottery will probably be the death of me?

A few weeks ago, because my back was hurting, I decided to try something different. I stood up from  a session and found that I needed to convince my spine of it's proper place in the world. I spied my big blue balance ball nearby.  I thought, "Surely you can't sit on a balance ball and throw pottery?"  Another part of my brain reasoned, "Why not?"

So, I started balancing on my balance ball while I balanced clay on the pottery wheel. It helped my back very much. Everything's gone all right up until tonight.

Yesterday, I started a two part piece.  It would require that I throw two separate pieces and then, join them together. I was pretty tired last night.

After making the first half, I decided to wrap it up and make the second half this morning.  Things were going well. I got the second part made this morning and set both aside to firm up a little bit so I could join them together.

Tonight, I started cleaning the two separate pieces so that they could make one finished piece.  This, is where things began to go really wrong.  First, I ruined one of the pieces with a silly slip of the hand.  Not defeated I decided to remake the second piece.

I sat down on the balance ball at the pottery wheel, as I have done many times before.  I made the piece and I got it just so and then...

I stood up. Except, it wasn't exactly standing up. It was some crazy acrobatic, yoga-esque, slow motion travesty of movement made even more tragic because I realized as I was going down that the first piece of the two-part pottery project was behind me and about to be crushed under my foot. This, is when I went into save the pottery mode and forgot to save the body. 

Surprisingly, it worked. (I know you were all worried about the pottery. Or actually, in this state, it's really just mud squished into shapes.) The pottery was salvageable.  However, I wonder if I should have a safer hobby?