Potters Working Beside a Wildflower Field

A thatched-roof shed opens onto a meadow thick with daisies, poppies, and irises rolling toward blue hills in the distance. Two potters sit at their wheels shaping clay, one man in an apron and a woman beside him, both surrounded by buckets of water and heaps of raw clay. Shelves along the shed wall hold glazed jars, jugs, and bowls in green, blue, and burnt orange, their surfaces etched with simple bands and spirals. A woven basket of thin tools sits on a side table next to a bowl of fine sand, and bamboo blinds are rolled partway up to let in the breeze. Each pot on the wheel takes its shape from the same lump of earth the meadow itself was made from, spun into something a hand can hold and, in time, come apart again piece by piece.