John makes secret-keeper pottery (2023)
story · status: told 2×, last update 2024 · last event: update (2024-08-06)
John makes small closed clay forms he calls secret keepers: you whisper something painful into them so the form holds it for you. He showed them in February 2023 and again in August 2024, when he admitted they do not really work.
About: pottery
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-01-10 | told | John calls the forms secret keepers: you whisper difficult, worrisome or traumatic things into the holes so the worry lives in the form, not your head. | Introducing: The Format 00:02:37 |
| 2023-02-21 | told | John makes closed clay forms he calls secret keepers: you whisper something difficult, painful or traumatic into their holes so the secret lives in the form, not your brain. | Maybe Art Only Needs to Be 00:00:23 |
| 2024-08-06 | update | John makes small closed forms he calls secret keepers: you whisper secrets or traumas into them so they hold them for you; asked whether it works, he says not really. (playful) | What Helped Through Depression 00:00:29 |
What is said about it
4 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2023-01-10 · Introducing: The Format — John, a pottery beginner, has lately been making small wobbly hollow closed clay forms, shown drying and then glazed and fired. — 00:02:37
- 2023-01-10 · Introducing: The Format — John says the secret keepers probably do not work, but he likes them conceptually. (hedged) — 00:03:06
- 2023-01-10 · Introducing: The Format — John: After whispering a secret into a finished secret keeper, John likes holding it and thinking that he survived it. — 00:03:06
- 2024-08-06 · What Helped Through Depression — John: For the first week or two John got a lot of counseling and sought a path forward, spending the rest of his days on something engrossing but undemanding: making pottery. — 00:00:00