“You say that nothing is created? It takes the earth’s mud to make a cup for your brother to drink.” Antonio Machado
This summer I took to making churros out of mud. The ground where my family and I spent our summer vacation was made of clay, and I spent my afternoons sitting on it with a bucket of water. The water permeated the ground and I made a mountain of churros with my hands. What did I enjoy most? My hands being covered in clay and the sound that it made when I worked it, nothing else. It’s something I talk about in my workshops, that today more than ever we urgently need to connect with the earth.
It’s important to note that not all mud equals wellness, just as not all clay denotes health. Just as not all foods provide equal energy, clay contains a specific series of beneficial nutrients The type of clay that we work with at The Healthy Art Club can be considered a vitamin for the soul and skin. It took me a while to find the best, but once you come into contact with it, its properties are instantly felt.
The virtues of clay are many, but today these are what I consider the most important :
1. EMBODIMENT. Think of all the ideas you have in a day which don’t end up concretising thanks
to the (digital) ‘Cloud’ we rely on. We sign contracts without paper, shop online without human
contact, or follow a video recipe without staining a cookbook.
While we are aware of the time and
space we save, more and more doctors and psychologists are warning us of the danger of disconnecting from the physical when it comes to making decisions.
Mud helps us embody our
ideas with something we can touch, transform and feel the weight of. It allows us to link ourselves with our life.
2. TOUCH. We constantly have fewer reasons to touch. By this, I mean touching warm and natural materials with our full attention. The hours we spend with screens and smartphones are also increasing: using our digits to interact with the digital, which directly relates to thinking with reason. But where do we keep our hearts? In the palms of our hands. When we work with clay at The Healthy Art Club our whole hands are used to touch, and that’s how we tackle issues.
3. LANDING. Clay is an element of the earth, the solid material which is most alive. Faced with the inertia of soulless activity, of superficial feeling, clay allows us to bajar las ideas, “poner los pies en la tierra”.
4. REDUCING APATHY. When you work with clay you’ll find a healthy increase in appetite of healthy food and liquids. The ‘vital forces’ within clay help us be more eager to live and “consume the world.” This is activated exponentially to help us feel enthusiastic in our day-to-day lives.
On joining The Healthy Art Club, many of you tell me about previous experiences with clay, and these often include the use of a potter’s wheel or creating decorative pieces such as vases and plates. Beautiful though they may be, I consider this to be a leisure activity rather than an experience of earthly warmth. Focusing on a piece to exhibit is less about working through deep-seated ideas, and at The Healthy Art Club, we aim to reconnect with our thoughts and emotions, which we can purposefully do with our hands. It’s at this point that many participants say that “time and space stops”, because we have dedicated a moment of our body and soul to the group and not simply individual time.
This is why one of my key workshops is: ‘The Art of Listening from the Heart’. Through group
exercises with clay, the benefits I have shared here become evident. But they also help you calm
your mind, pace your breathing, empathise and understand others, stop taking things personally, and
create bonds of respect with your collaborators.
These types of courses are perfect opportunities to dedicate time to yourself. They’re fun, and leave
you with the confidence of having discovered a new version of yourself. They need between two
and three hours of your time, and you can subscribe to the newsletter to find out our latest date
