Then no, ow, OW! What was that awful scraping? He wanted to take the potter to task, who did he think he was making?! More slip tears squeezed from his little clay eyes as each tiny chisel caught him by surprise. Prodded and poked from every seeming direction, what had he done to deserve such destruction? The potter paused, he felt every tear and he held the little clay bird very, very near. And he whispered so gently, “this won’t take forever, but to fly you must have your beautiful feathers.”
The Little Clay Bird is a poignantly beautiful short story for all ages, written in rhyming prose, which explores one aspect of the relationship between ‘maker’ and ‘made’.
From the little clay bird’s perspective, things look bleak and he constantly doubts his sculptor’s affection for him whilst he is being formed. But the Potter – and increasingly the reader too – is in no doubt that this creation process is a labour of deeply focused love which will ultimately lead to something so good, the little bird can’t even quite imagine it.
We’re thrilled to be sharing it with you, and also to be bringing it to life as an art installation for the next month or so, as our last story window at 6 Church Street – offering passers by the chance to take a printed copy from our window-mounted dispenser too:
Special thanks to:
• our author, Liz Baddaley for giving us permission to share the story of The Little Clay Bird with you.
• our photographer and bird sculptor, Barbara Macnish for all her beautiful and brilliant work.
• our bunting shaper: Emily Tysoe for spending a mucky morning creating our template and organising help from…
• Create Café (Victorian Arcade, Ilkley) for kindly lending us some of their pre-painted items to furnish our ‘potter’s studio’.
If you live anywhere near Ilkley, you can enjoy painting any of the biscuit items featured in our window (excepting the little clay bird himself!) and more at Create Cafe’s brilliant premises this summer. To find out more, visit their website or call 01943 817788.
But wherever you live, our prayer is you’ll be blessed and inspired by the little clay bird’s story and the potter’s extraordinary love.
