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D: When I say Zen, and I'll quit using the word because it's too hard to get a handle on, but one of the things I'm trying to talk about is that kind of participation of the body.

T: You become part of it. Then, when you make bigger things -- that's why I'm making bigger things because you can move along the piece, around it...The brush can flow, can be free, you can walk around, and throw the brush around. And there is a feeling that you dance with the piece, there's a feeling that you're in tune with the piece, with the motion of the dance, with the glaze and the brushstroke....

The motion in tune with the brush. You see, the connection is through the brush...

Recently, I've been throwing some big things, and when you're up there, maybe six food high, and you look down into this big piece -- I don't feel it all the time, if someone is helping me too much I don't feel it, but if I'm alone and working on it, then there's a feeling of a certain gravitational pull, getting into the piece itself, it's a frightening feeling...that you're going to be right into the pot, but that's a fascination that I have, it's dangerous, that it could be dangerous, you might fall in.

D: And lose yourself.

T: Yes. The sensation is fun for me. But if people come and help me with the piece, as they have recently, I can't get that sensation, because I'm not alone.

D: Because the presence of the person is louder than the clay.

T: And then I feel that in the glazing and the brushstroke, then I have complete control. In the making of the piece, it's fine to have help, because it's physically very difficult. But sometimes, when I glaze, I don't want them around.

D: It's just you and the pot.

T: Right.

D: In some of the things you've written, you talk about a sort of dialogue with the clay?

T: It is a dialogue.

D: Can you say more about that?

T: You have to be in tune. The clay has its own life.

D: Is this the plasticity that you used to tell us about?

T: It is not only plasticity. It's much more than that. You can't