For the entire year of 2022 I dedicated my time and my healing to art. After an injury I sustained the year before, I was unable to attend my yoga mat for my daily quiet breathing times. A few years earlier whilst studying art therapy, I discovered the healing properties of clay and how the creating process kept me present and my mind quiet. So I pulled out the bags of clay once more and embarked on a new daily yoga practice, one that did not require me to roll out the mat.
This is where my 108 Sadhana Ceremonial Cups project began.
Sadhana Ceremonial Cups
A Japamala is for devotion, meditation, mantra, prayer, intention manifestation. In Hinduism 108 is the sacred number for the 108 stages on the journey of the human soul or for reaching enlightenment.
This was a journey to create a physical form of my own daily mala practice. Within one full breath cycle, along with the mantra So Hum (I am the breath) I had my hands in earth, in the moment, creating ceremonial tea cups.
I set intentions and dedications for love and peace.
One cup a day for 108 days straight.
Each cup was completely different from the next and designed by pure intuition. I gave away all judgements and expectations of perfectionism or formal technique and just like yoga, became a witness to the creation that unfolded in my hands. I kept a mindful journal for the duration of this time as a reminder of the breath, the mantra and my personal journey of the time.
My clay came everywhere with me over those 108 days. Camping trips on the beach, forest walks amongst rivers and at the base of mountains I climbed.
I did not want to miss a day no matter the circumstance.
I explored new ways of firing in the winter and built a pit fire in the garden. This was another way for me to connect with the season, the clay and the outdoors on a deeper level .Sealing some pieces with local bees wax was a slow quiet moment in itself. I even harvested wild clay from our local rivers, processed it and threw a cup on the wheel. With the intention to really learn about my country, landscapes and how the clay works. This cup was very important as it was in honour of a family member who passed that year, it represents the fragility of life.
When hand building, I used slabs, printed with my own carved linos, imprinted with microscopic images of plants, algae, moss and mushrooms. I pinched pots, coiled and sometimes threw on my old second-hand wheel.
I now have an unusual, raw and simple collection of 108 ceremonial cups. Some thrown, but most hand built, fired with minimal glazing to expose the natural body of earth. Each with its own story, own intention and 108 cycles of breath.
