Your Life Is Performance Art. Do It Fearlessly.

Toshiko Takaezu, my ceramics professor at Princeton, was terrifying.

She’d routinely hurl our work in the garbage and gave no fucks about anything but her art, her garden, and her students. She was from Hawai’i, of Okinawan descent, and her work was unforgettable.

I envied her fearlessness.

She taught me three valuable lessons about art, applicable to life. 

1. We started throwing pots standing at a kick wheel, rather than sitting at an electric wheel. The kick wheel forces you to concentrate and engages your entire body when you throw a pot. Bring ALL of you to life, because life equals art.

2. I had a classmate who asked about using molds. Toshiko bit her head off. We were making ART, not production pottery.  You should live your life like you’re making art. Don’t use a mold. 

3. Toshiko took a new apprentice each year who lived with her. I remember one visit when she sent her new apprentice to pick peas. He came back quickly. She made him go out and do it again.

He left and returned. Toshiko sent him back out again, this time telling him to take his time and pay attention. Whatever you are doing, stay present and in your body. Just pick the peas. 
I have never forgotten those lessons. Our lives are art -- performance art -- and the present is not a transfer point between the past and the future. We should live each moment fully, no matter how mundane -- picking peas, washing dishes, or throwing out students' work.