Considering the purple mountains’ majesty helps us envision Katahdin Katy’s private world. Katy herself is majestic, tall, and slender with basic but chiseled features. She takes long, reflective walks barefoot from May through October. Sometimes after jogging or spending quiet time on the mountaintop she performs intricate Yoga poses. Waking before dawn each day Katy begins with stretches, hanging from her yoga sling hung from a beam in the log cabin studio ceiling before her trek to the summit of Mt. Katahdin. Sitting patiently on a large granite overhang, she waits to catch the first rays of sun licking ever so slowly over the land, casting a crimson hue over the mountaintop, warming her tanned face.
Some days her hike is strenuous and invigorating, ramping up her energy to accomplish more in that day than in other entire weeks. On other days her thighs felt as though they each weighed a ton and were challenging to lift left, lift right, walk forward. It seemed nothing productive or inspiring was accomplished and that seemed to depend on whatever she allowed her mind to harbor. She rented too much space in her mind for the troubles of others she cared about and allowed worry to affect her negative or positive choices, impacting entire days. There existed no “best friends” with whom she consulted. Oh, she had friends but was cautious about savoring the few people whose company she rarely did enjoy. She enjoyed visiting them at her leisure and infrequently when driving around local towns, some days more appealing than hiking alone.
Along the return trip to her cabin, she stops, stretches to breathe in the clear mountain air, bending to pick a fresh bouquet of mountain laurel, knowing the bright red berries will remind her of the mornings’ blazing sun. Even through the drizzle on any misty day, Katy is inspired to integrate each color, shape, and texture her eyes have absorbed, translating them into her pottery.
She sat gazing wistfully out her wide studio window across the abandoned paper wasp nest, peering through the pinecones, between the pieces of pink granite, and onto the sparkling line of blue stones on her wide windowsill. Katy pondered a moment to consider how she could incorporate the scent of the cleansing raindrops beating down on the rocky cliffs or how the fresh dewdrops evaporating from the blossoming flowers could be included somehow in her clay.
Her breathing was the only sound inside her studio. Perhaps the bird songs outside the studio entertained, soothed, and inspired her? She began the process by energetically slapping a couple heavy handfuls of cold, raw, grey clay onto her pottery table. Mindfully kneading it, warming it, she guided it into a beautiful example of the design she saw in her mind on her manual pottery wheel. Fascinating swirls, lines, and patterns were carved into the formed pottery, slip colors applied, and when firing was complete, Katy held the cooled object of beauty up high, bringing it into the light.
Katy hopes her pots and vases somehow reflect the love of her life in this extraordinary place, revealing a glimpse of her rare moments of wonder on the mountain. Katy hopes to enrich other lives with those not familiar with the beauty of where the mountains meet the sea.