Matan Shamai
121 Cylinders | 2022
In the middle of the third year of my degree, I wanted to escape.
I wanted to fly as far away as possible.
To escape everything that happened in my life.
I wanted to escape the impossible routine of being a student at Bezalel, from the draining work to the commitments and volunteering; to escape the frustration of failing in my relationship, with my family, and especially not having time to do things for my soul like a bit of yoga or sitting in a cafe with friends.
I wanted to escape from my academic failures, from my self-judgment, and from what I'm not good at.
I wanted to escape, and that was the plan...
I was supposed to go abroad with a friend for a student exchange in Seoul, South Korea.
I was so looking forward to the opportunity to escape and start anew, in a new place.
To escape from everything, as I had always done in the past.
But in the end, reality took its toll, and things happened that made me decide to stay close to home.
It wasn't easy to stay, but it made me choose my routine again, my studies, my work, my relationship, my family, and especially myself.
I decided to confront my difficulties and fears, including one of the biggest of which over the course of my studies - the potter's wheel.
Before that period, I took a wheel course and it didn't go well for me at all. After two and a half years of studying, I felt that I simply couldn't control the thing I was supposed to be best at.
I felt that every time I came to the wheel, I didn't know if I would succeed, didn't know if something would come out of it, and mostly felt that the wheel controlled me and not the other way around.
So I decided to challenge myself - a simple challenge - to make only cylinders on the wheel.
A cylinder is the simplest and easiest shape on the wheel, from which one can branch out to the entire world of wheel-thrown pottery.
So the challenge was this: to make 10 cylinders every week, including the second side (preparing the bottom of the cup).
I decided to make 400-gram lumps and thought I would stick with this weight throughout the challenge because I was so convinced I wouldn’t succeed.
After two weeks, to my surprise, I succeeded in making cylinders, but still thought it was by chance. Every week I added 100 grams, so in the end, I reached a weight of 1.5 kilos.
1.5 kilos might not be a large weight, but for me, it seemed impossible at the beginning of the challenge.
Slowly, week by week, I built my confidence, invested in small goals, and saw my improvement on the wheel. I saw how I started to work more efficiently, orderly, and cleanly; something that influenced my work in other courses that semester. I began to feel that I was developing work habits that I wanted and chose to cultivate for myself (needless to say, I'm quite messy by nature).
I worked on this challenge most of the semester, for a time I can't quite quantify, but weeks to months.
I recycled the clay from the large jar I made in the "Not Fired" project (you can read about it here).
I recycled and kneaded more than 100 kilos of clay.
I made 121 cylinders (including “one to grow on”) over the 12 weeks of the challenge.
I documented everything. Initially, it was for myself, but later I used it for the display.
And how can I not mention the display, the planning of which took up a significant portion of my time?
At the end of the display, I invited people to choose a cylinder and throw it into the water, allowing them to be part of the clay recycling and part of this release from tangible material. Because even after all the hours and effort I put in, it's still just earth.
I take with me the journey, not the outcome.
In the end, I'm so glad I stayed here and chose myself again.