Holding the Center

Holding the Center - Ceramic pot

If ekphrastic writing describes visual art in words, this ceramic piece could be called ekmorphic. It gives form to the words in Jeffery Beam’s poem, “Dame Kind.”

The wideness of things amazes.
Not the quantity
but how objects expand & heave
with the regularity
of lungs. The shimmering
chinks
holding the center.

The poem repeats twice on the vessel, spiraling down from the top and up from the bottom. They end on opposite sides, in the middle, literally “holding the center”.

13.5″ x 15.5″

Glazed Stoneware

Collection of The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. Gift of Jeffery Beam and Stanley Finch.

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