The way of vessels
Somehow she knew she was to do something with the paper, that she was meant to find it. Or maybe it found her. Because it seemed the vessels were trying to show her something, another way.
She was looking for something in her tall bookshelf, reaching up on her tiptoes to an upper shelf she couldn’t see. Her fingers were feeling the way, rummaging past piles of big paper and art and she wasn't sure what else. She was searching for a big enough piece of cardboard to work with.
Then something fell out and onto the floor, then another thing, and another. She turned around and on top was a small stack of Lao handmade paper, big sheets which had been folded to a size that fits at the bottom of a suitcase. Surely it was from one of her trips to Laos, likely from the weaving and paper-making village of Ban Xang Khong.
Somehow she knew she was to do something with the Lao paper, that she was meant to find it. Or maybe it found her. Perhaps, she wondered to herself, if this is what she had been looking for all along in her quest to make vessels. She had written:
“It started with this desire to make vessels, for containing and not containing anything, or for whatever is needed, maybe even ‘uncontain’ what is needed...”
You see, after trying other materials to make vessels a few months ago, she really wanted to make vessels using more traditional Lao materials. The handwoven Lao fabric she used in her other artwork had eluded her skill and craftsmanship for this kind of artwork. The fabric frayed easily, the hand-stitching to the armature was messy and not holding. It just wasn’t working. She had seen other fiber artists making vessels and that inspired and prodded her to try again, yet in her own way. What was her way?
It seemed like the traditional saa (mulberry) paper from Laos that had fallen to her was the way. It’s made from the natural ivory-colored fibrous inner bark of the mulberry tree. It was bumpy in places, thinner in other spots. It was soft, yet not smooth; flexible and also tough. It was like the middle way, or a way that is both and neither.
After she made the wire armatures for the vessels – one a bowl, the other two more pod-like – she tore strips of the saa paper to size. Using glue stick to gently attach the paper around the wire and to itself, little by little she covered the vessels.
It was easy. Simple. It didn’t take a lot of time. She went at her own pace, and delighted at seeing them come alive.
Was she really figuring this out? This way that wasn’t full of complication, or expectation, or trying too hard, which is what she remembered in her last attempts.
These vessels contained all that memory, but also uncontained it. These vessels were unexpected, yet not unfamiliar either. These vessels tried to show her another way. It’s not hard. See? Be at ease.
She held the vessels in her hands. They were light and bouncy, almost playful. She peered in the opening to see inside.
Outside/inside. Paper/wire. Soft/hard. Containing/uncontaining. Unexpected/familiar. Hard/easy. One needing the other, just so, to be a whole vessel. Inseparable.
Was this the middle way, a way that is both and neither? She was sure she had found the way. Or maybe the way had finally found her.
May you find your way, and may the way always find you...
✻
LouLou
“The way of vessels” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Patreon supporters in September 2022. Now it is public to you, too!
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