This passage from a favorite book rings so true in my soul:
But I do know that when Pat Geohagen, my ceramics teacher, comes to sit, she had curled her hair, put on mascara and a stylish sweater. I don’t know what to do. I love her for the dirt under her fingernails, the clay-smeared pants and torn shirt, her hair tied carelessly under a bandanna, bags under her eyes from a long night of coffee, cigarettes, and firing the big gas kiln. But she’s my teacher and she honors me, not just by coming to sit but by presenting her “best” face. I just smile and start to paint… Best faces are not what I need to learn about, not what I’m hungry for. It isn’t a face I need to paint, it’s a soul. Truth, not artifice, not persona.
(This is an image I snapped of Becca Olcott. Becca is a really amazing woman who dances in flower fields, and creates magic. I adore her chipped nails, and her heart.)
