I don’t remember exactly when we got cable T.V. in my house, but I’d like to assume that it wasn’t an entertainment option on the day that my sister found one of my old journals and decided to read it aloud. Unfortunately she’s a pretty good actress, so when she read my thoughts such as: I hate my life. I can’t find my soccer socks. Why can’t I have a sports shelf in my closet like Sarah? Weirdly, they sounded ridiculous. In reality I can assure you, my absentee soccer socks were a very serious problem.

I didn’t have my own bedroom growing up but the room that my sister and I shared did have a closet. Although it didn’t have a sports shelf, it did have a laundry basket on the floor piled high with retired stuffed animals. This made a reasonably comfortable seat, so whenever I wanted some privacy I would hang out in the closet on top of the stuffed animals with the door closed. Maybe that limited privacy early on is the reason why as an eighth grader I felt a bit funny reading Anne Frank’s diary (which admittedly, did have a bit more gravitas than my own).

More recently I was visiting the Prado when our tour guide pointed out a ghostly leg emerging from behind a figure in a Velazquez painting. The phantom leg, which was part of the original composition, has revealed itself over time as the layers of paint covering it have faded.

My sister, peeping Toms, and guys with metal detectors on beaches all know that seeing something that isn’t meant for our eyes is uniquely compelling. In their work, artists make choices about revealing and concealing parts of their creation process. Alas, as Velazquez would be shocked to discover (if he were to be resurrected and visiting his own paintings in the Prado) that choice isn’t entirely in the hands of the artist.

Have you ever tried throwing a pot on the wheel? If you have, you know that your pot may go through some ugly duckling moments where the shape might be distorted. You can be clever and fix the pot. But clay has a memory, and sometimes those distortions reappear after the kiln firing. This reveals an undeniably awkward past which is a lot like having someone find high school yearbook photo or your middle school diary.

One more thing in the spirit of balancing the scales with my big sister –a few years after the diary incident, I found an unsent letter that she had written to Bon Jovi. She had enclosed picture of herself, flat-chested wearing a straw hat and a tankini in front of a beach house in Cape Cod. On the back she had written, “This is a picture of me in front of our family’s summer home.” Just for the record, she was actually on another family’s vacation in front of their beach house. She was their babysitter.

For whatever they reveal, I hope that you enjoy my most recent pots.