19. Boulder: “Colorado Ceramic Arts”

The pottery’s back door is open, releasing a vacant fluorescent light on the asphalt of the lot adjoining. In the white doorway, Ralph stands, a spooky figure because there is no radio playing and he is not smoking or even leaning and when Ralph isn’t moving he is absolutely still – even his hands, even his lips. It’s very dark tonight, starry but moonless, and now, at 1:00 A.M., the small-town air of Boulder has taken deeply. You only hear one car at a time, hear dogs bark and doors close.

He is tall with harsh, aquiline features; black hair chopped short; big, chapped, calloused hands. His frame is not athletic but workmanly, the brawny arms suggestive of use. His jeans are patched with drying clay. His hair and the stubble on his cheeks are grizzled with it.

Behind him the concrete floor has a kindred patina, clay gone hard in all the pores. The walls, too, are splattered. And, in ranks, on long, unfinished timber shelves, sit jugs, vases, plates; drying or bisque, in a few fundamental shades of brown and gray. Every day, Ralph produces many times his weight in pottery.

He’s been in the shop since 7:00 A.M.: this is his usual work day. He drinks three liters of water in that time and sometimes bathes his head and upper torso under the cold faucet in the deep mud-streaked sink. The kilns’ heat takes it out of him again.

Since, alongside the usual cute pots, Ralph is making works of deeply meant and particular art, there is an air of high stakes about him; integrity. Sorrow, too – how he’s soiled with trying, and even the keen air of night does not cleanse him.

He also sells dope in the back of the shop to friends and friends of friends. Their children are allowed to make clay ponies while the grownups puff. For these transactions, Ralph accepts food stamps.