This week I created a clay bust of Gertrude Stein as a collaborative project. I forgot how much I love ceramics, and how calming and meditative the process is. I love the feeling of sculpting and having the total control over the piece that clay offers. In relation to the text, it is like our hands are giving life to the clay, and the union between clay/ material and hands, like woman and man, or In-Vitro process and human give life. Also, the way I learned to approach clay modeling is to start with a ball, then from the ball create an egg. The egg is a starting point where anything can be created. If you want to create a woman, the egg is faced up, for a man, faced down because men are usually more top heavy. Animals and other things can be started from the side or any angle. This reminds me of the process of creation in biology.

While working on the project, I learned about Stein and her work, and got a taste of the passion that people have over her work. It was inspiring to hear how Kenna and Cameron felt about poetry, and the magic that words had on them.  Personally I have never been an avid reader or poet, and words never had such a strong presence in my life, but hearing their feelings spoken made my connection with text deeper.