From the Inside Out

Ceramic cups, pots and vases on a drying rack.

In high school, my sculpture teacher used to always tell me that pottery is built from the inside to the outside: “From the inside out,” she would declare. As a ceramic potter, I had mastered the pottery wheel. When I was bored of chemistry or calculus, I would turn to ceramics and feel rejuvenated. During my senior year, I spent hours on the pottery wheel: centering, opening the form, thinning the walls, and creating distinct works of art. However, I never truly believed that my pottery was built from the inside out. As long as the outside looked beautiful, wasn’t the entire form considered beautiful?

Then I came to Yale, and beauty took on a whole new meaning. Forget pottery! Every minute I wasn’t in the classroom, it felt like I was walking around campus with my point-and-shoot digital camera. Photographing castle after castle in the middle of the city of New Haven, I was enthralled by my surroundings. I never thought I would get used to living in a fortress, dining in gothic halls, or going to class in buildings with turrets and gargoyles.

While I am still amazed by what I see around me on a daily basis, my architectural amazement slowly wore off around the middle of February, and my soul began to crave something new. However, it took me a while to figure out exactly what that “something” was. I returned home for Spring Break to spend time with my family and get my wisdom teeth pulled (definitely the most exciting break of all time). With two ice packs on my chipmunk cheeks, I had plenty of time to think about my life at Yale.

Although my surgery was not the most ideal Spring Break adventure, I finally figured out exactly what was missing in my college life: pottery. During the first week of school in September, I went to the master’s office in Calhoun College, picked up the key to the pottery studio, and thought I would be there every weekend! Then, I joined a few clubs, got a job on campus, and made a bunch of awesome friends. Oh, and I did some schoolwork in between! To tell you the truth, I barely had time for pottery.

I don’t regret taking a break from ceramics because it made me appreciate it even more. When I got back to campus from spring break, I headed right to the studio to start where I left off. Everything came right back to me, and it felt so natural to get back on the wheel.

Although not many other Yalies can tell you the same story about rediscovering their passion for the ceramic arts, all Yale students come to college with some sort of cool (and maybe quirky) talents that get lost in translation. The first semester at college can be very busy, and some of the things that students pursued endlessly in high school may be put aside for new passions. Eventually, I think that many Yalies come to realize that those talents are what make us unique amongst our peers. Whether it is magic, rock climbing, viola, woodwork, swimming, or juggling, Yale has the resources to help all of its students pursue our talents (and the money to fund us too!). However, the students are the ones that have to make the effort to pursue these passions: they won’t come to find you.

After all this time, I’ve realized that my sculpture teacher was right: pottery really does come more naturally when you throw a form from the inside out. Maybe that’s true for me as an individual too: feeling happy on the inside is just as important as radiating your happiness to others on the outside.