In July, I was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. The artist and critic Stephen Westfall was visiting and at the conclusion of his talk, smiling, he offered one word: Mirth - an eloquent reminder of the pleasures and amusement of the creative process.

My assigned studio was next to two kilns. Years ago, I came across a small, 18th century Japanese polka dot ceramic bowl at the Brooklyn Museum. Its pattern had been created using a cut paper resist that burns out in the kiln. Wanting to experiment with this technique, I began my day by taking clay and pressing it around found logs and branches to create forms. For burnout material, I clipped leafy branches from a nearby tree. Looking for a quick way to push the foliage into thick slabs of clay, I channeled some of my favorite art-making notes. Like the artist Jackie Winsor dragging her sculptures over the cobblestone streets of Soho with her truck in the 1970s for a distressed finish. Or the "big woodcut" class I keep hearing about, where large sheets of plywood are carved and printed with a steamroller. My Volvo station wagon would have to suffice. Out in the parking lot, I ran the front tires back and forth over a twenty-pound lump of clay and tangled greenery, flattening and fusing - feeling like a housewife gone awry. Slumping the results over stacked cross sections of tree trunk, as it dried parts would crack, falling away. Black glaze brushed on, into the kiln, burning and smoking. Out of the kiln and still intact: mirth.