The Clay Had Opinions

- Chapter 2 -

The next morning, I woke up with the confidence of a woman who had discovered her destiny.

This lasted approximately seven minutes.

Then I remembered I had no plan, no money, no formal training, no studio, and no idea where to buy sculpting clay that would not dry into a tragic brick before I understood what I was doing.

Destiny is beautiful from a distance.

Up close, it requires supplies.

I had spent years making art with a screen between me and the world.

The screen was clean. Forgiving. Democratic in its cruelty. Everyone could fail equally, and everyone could pretend they meant to do it.

But clay?

Clay was intimate.

Clay did not care about my follower count.

Clay did not offer an undo button.

Clay sat there like a small gray animal and waited for me to embarrass myself.

I respected it immediately.

I found the art shop by accident, which is how I found most important things in my life before I learned to lie and call it intuition.

It was tucked between a tea shop and a store that sold phone cases with the emotional range of a hospital gift shop. The sign was faded. The windows were dusty. Inside, it smelled like paper, wood, old paint, and quiet ambition.

A man behind the counter looked up as I entered.

He had the expression of someone who had seen many young artists walk in with big dreams and leave with the cheapest brush set.

I tried to look professional.

This is difficult when you are wearing a bunny hair clip and carrying a tote bag that says, in English, I AM TRYING MY BEST.

“I need clay,” I said.

He waited.

I waited.

The clay waited somewhere in the back, no doubt already forming an opinion.

“What kind?” he asked.

There are moments in life when one realizes that desire and knowledge are not the same thing.

This was one of them.

“The kind for sculpture,” I said, with the authority of a woman who had watched four videos at 2:00 a.m.

He nodded slowly.

Not respectfully.

More like a doctor hearing a patient say they diagnosed themselves online.

He showed me several options.

Air-dry clay. Oil-based clay. Polymer clay. Ceramic clay.

Each one came with its own personality, price, and threat level.

I chose too much of everything.

This is another principle of my life: when confused, overcommit.

By the time I left, I was carrying clay, wire, wooden tools, metal tools, a cheap armature stand, plaster bandages I did not understand, and a small spray bottle the shopkeeper insisted I would need.

“For moisture,” he said.

“For life,” I replied.

He did not laugh.

Some people are not ready for poetry before lunch.

Back in my apartment, I cleared my desk.

This sounds simple.

It was not.

My desk had become an archaeological site of failed intentions.

Old sketches. Empty tea bottles. Receipts. Hair ties. Sticky notes with terrifying little messages from past me, such as:

Finish everything today!

Past me was a cruel woman.

I made space in the center and placed the clay there.

It looked unimpressed.

The first mistake I made was believing sculpture was drawing in three dimensions.

It is not.

Drawing allows you to suggest.

Sculpture demands that you explain yourself from every angle.

A drawing can hide its weak side.

A sculpture cannot.

A sculpture turns slowly in the light and says, “Explain my left ear.”

I hated it.

I loved it.

I opened the image of him again.

The first image.

The one that had stopped my thumb, invaded my imagination, and ruined my ability to enjoy ordinary content.

I placed it on the screen beside my work area.

He looked calm.

Of course he did.

He was not the one about to lose a fight with clay.

I began with the head.

This was mistake number two.

Any book, instructor, elder, ghost, or mildly experienced person would have told me to start with basic forms.

Sphere. Cylinder. Plane. Structure.

I started with the face because I am dramatic and because the face had insulted me personally.

The clay collapsed twice.

Then the nose became too large.

Then the jaw looked like it belonged to another man entirely, possibly one from a history documentary about shipbuilding.

I scraped it off.

Started again.

Scraped again.

At some point, I whispered, “Who are you?”

The clay did not answer.

But it did sag.

Which felt rude.

By evening, my apartment had changed.

It no longer looked like a bedroom with art supplies.

It looked like an art supply store had been robbed by a raccoon with emotional problems.

Clay on the table.

Clay on my sleeve.

Clay on my cheek.

Clay, somehow, on the refrigerator.

The refrigerator clicked.

Judgmentally.

“I know,” I said.

I stepped back and looked at the bust.

It was not him.

Not even close.

But it was no longer nothing.

This was dangerous.

Nothing is easy to abandon.

Something asks to be continued.

I took a picture.

Then I posted it.

Not the reference image. Not him.

Just the clay.

Just the beginning.

Caption:

Trying something real. Pray for the furniture.

I expected nothing.

Maybe seven likes.

Maybe one comment from a bot with a flower emoji and suspicious investment advice.

Instead, within an hour, people began responding.

Not many.

But enough.

This feels different.

Sukmi, what is this?

Why does this look alive already?

It did not look alive.

It looked damp and confused.

But I appreciated their faith.

Then one message arrived.

Private.

Short.

From an account I did not recognize at first.

Is that supposed to be me?

I froze.

The room became very quiet.

Even the refrigerator, for once, held its tongue.

I clicked the profile.

And there he was.

The man from the image.

The interruption.

The subject.

The answer to a question I had not meant to ask aloud.

His profile name was simple:

Malik Rowan

I said it once.

Then again.

Not romantically.

Academically.

A name changes the shape of a person in your mind.

Before a name, someone can become symbol, study, form, mystery.

After a name, they become dangerous.

Because now they can speak.

I stared at his message for too long.

There are many possible replies to Is that supposed to be me?

Some are normal.

Such as:

Yes, I hope that’s okay.

Or:

I was inspired by your photo.

Or even:

Sorry if this is strange.

I considered all of these.

Then I typed:

Not supposed. Attempted.

I sent it.

Immediately regretted it.

Then admired it.

Then regretted admiring it.

He replied:

That sounds worse.

I laughed.

Not elegantly.

A sharp, startled laugh that made me knock over the spray bottle.

The clay received moisture.

Life continued.

I wrote:

It is worse artistically. Ethically, I am still deciding.

He replied:

Should I be worried?

I typed:

Only if you dislike immortality in clay.

He replied:

That depends. Do I look good?

I looked at the bust.

The bust looked back.

No one in the room was prepared for honesty.

I wrote:

You look spiritually accurate.

There was a pause.

Then:

So ugly.

I nearly fell out of my chair.

That was the first conversation I had with Malik Rowan.

Not romantic.

Not profound.

A woman covered in clay telling a stranger his sculpture had spiritual potential.

A man smart enough to be amused instead of alarmed.

This is how many disasters begin.

Quietly.

With humor.

He asked where I had seen the photo.

I told him.

He said a friend had taken it months ago after training.

Training.

Of course.

There was always training behind impossible shoulders.

He said he was in Beijing for work and study.

I asked what kind.

He said language, business, and “surviving paperwork.”

This impressed me.

Not the business.

The paperwork.

Anyone can dream internationally.

Paperwork is where dreams go to be tested.

Then he asked:

So why me?

This was the first serious question.

The kind that arrives in a conversation and changes the furniture.

I looked at the bust.

At the image.

At my hands.

I wanted to say something beautiful.

Something clean and defensible.

Something that would make me sound less like a woman who had seen one picture and immediately bought clay.

But truth is rarely elegant on first attempt.

So I wrote:

Because the light behaved differently on you.

He did not respond right away.

I panicked.

Then I sent another message, which is almost always where dignity goes to die.

Not in a weird way.

Then:

Maybe in an artist way.

Then:

Artists are weird, but with receipts.

Then I placed the phone face down because I could no longer supervise myself.

Several minutes passed.

The phone buzzed.

That’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever received.

Then:

But I’ll take it.

I exhaled so dramatically that even I disliked myself.

That night, I worked until my hands cramped.

Not because the sculpture was good.

It was not.

The eyes were uneven. The neck was too thick. The mouth kept drifting into an expression of noble constipation.

But now the work had a pulse.

Not from the clay.

From the conversation.

From the knowledge that the subject existed beyond the image.

That he could object.

That he could joke.

That he could become more than form.

This should have made the project easier.

It made it impossible in a better way.

The next few days became a private madness.

I woke up and checked the clay.

As if it might escape.

I studied anatomy.

Then ignored anatomy.

Then returned to anatomy with humility.

I watched sculptors online move their hands with supernatural calm, pressing cheekbones into existence as if humans were simple.

They were not.

Humans are badly designed for beginners.

Too many planes.

Too many soft transitions.

Too many places where one small mistake turns dignity into potato.

My followers noticed the shift before I understood it.

My feed changed.

Less color study.

Less cute digital portraiture.

More fragments.

Hands.

Necks.

Shoulders.

Light on clay.

Close-ups of texture.

My captions became stranger.

The cheek is not a shape. It is a negotiation.

Shadow is not absence. It is participation.

Today the ear defeated me. I will recover.

People loved the ear post.

The internet is unpredictable and possibly unwell.

Then came the first underground invitation.

It was not glamorous.

Do not believe stories where everything begins in a beautiful gallery with champagne and intelligent lighting.

This invitation came from a small collective that hosted experimental shows in a converted storage space behind a café that served coffee in cups too small for emotional emergencies.

The message read:

We like your new work. Would you show something at our next event? Theme: Body/Signal.

Body/Signal.

I stared at those words for a long time.

They sounded important.

They also sounded like someone had put two nouns together and trusted everyone else to pretend.

Naturally, I accepted.

I had eight days.

Eight days to make something worthy of public viewing.

Eight days to turn clay, confusion, and a man named Malik into art.

Eight days to become someone slightly less embarrassing.

I named the piece First Study of Light Behavior.

This was a lie.

It was actually the fourth study, because the first three looked like evidence.

I told Malik.

He replied:

So I’m being exhibited now?

I wrote:

Your influence is being exhibited.

He replied:

That sounds like legal language.

I wrote:

It is artistic language. Legal language has fewer feelings.

He asked if he could come.

I stared at the message.

Then at the sculpture.

Then at my reflection in the dark window.

This was bad.

This was excellent.

This was exactly the sort of thing one should avoid if one wishes to remain stable.

I wrote:

Yes.

Then quickly added:

But you may not laugh at the ears.

He replied:

No promises.

The night of the show, I wore black because black says many useful things.

It says serious.

It says mysterious.

It says I did not know what else to wear.

I pinned my hair up too tightly and immediately looked like I was about to either present an art theory lecture or discipline a haunted child.

Good enough.

The venue smelled like concrete, coffee, old wood, and expensive uncertainty.

People stood in small groups using large words.

I recognized this behavior from online art essays.

A woman in silver glasses stared at my sculpture and said, “There is a vulnerability in the unfinished surface.”

I nodded.

The unfinished surface was because I ran out of time.

But vulnerability sounded better.

So I let her have it.

My piece sat on a rough white plinth near the back wall.

A small bust.

Clay sealed just enough to survive the evening.

The face still imperfect.

The form still searching.

But under the warm light, something happened.

The sculpture became less like a failed attempt at Malik and more like a record of looking.

Not him.

Not yet.

But the beginning of my gaze learning manners.

People stopped.

Not everyone.

Some walked past, which offended me permanently.

But some stopped.

They leaned in.

Read the title.

Looked again.

One man said, “It feels like the artist is arguing with the material.”

I wanted to kiss him on the forehead.

Not because I liked him.

Because he understood the clay had started it.

Then Malik arrived.

I knew before I saw him.

The room changed in the subtle way rooms change when someone enters who is not trying to be noticed and therefore becomes impossible not to notice.

He wore a dark shirt.

Thank God.

The sculpture was already nervous.

He found me near the plinth.

For one second, neither of us spoke.

Online, people are contained.

In person, they have height.

This is very unfair.

“You’re Sukmi,” he said.

“You’re Malik,” I said.

A strong beginning.

Literature trembled.

He looked at the sculpture.

I looked at him looking at the sculpture.

This is perhaps the most vulnerable an artist can be without requiring medical attention.

His expression changed slowly.

Amusement first.

Then curiosity.

Then something quieter.

He leaned closer.

“The ears are not that bad,” he said.

I almost forgave all human cruelty.

“It is not you,” I said.

“No,” he said. “But it’s looking for me.”

I hated that.

Because it was better than anything I had planned to say.

We stood there together while strangers moved around us, pretending not to watch.

I became suddenly aware of my hands.

There was still clay beneath one fingernail.

I hid it.

Then realized hiding clay at an art show was absurd.

Then displayed my hands casually, like evidence of labor and not poor hygiene.

Malik turned to me.

“So what happens now?”

A simple question.

A terrible question.

I looked at the sculpture.

At the room.

At him.

At all the small forces that had gathered without asking my permission.

“I keep studying,” I said.

He smiled.

“Should I be worried again?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But artistically.”

That was the night I understood that my work had crossed a border.

Not a national one.

Not yet.

A more dangerous border.

The one between private obsession and public meaning.

Once people see a thing, they begin to own interpretations of it.

Once the subject sees it, he owns something too.

And once the artist sees both happening at the same time—

she is finished.

Or beginning.

Often they feel identical.

By the end of the night, three people asked about buying the piece.

I said no.

Not because I was wise.

Because I was shocked and unprepared to assign a price to emotional evidence.

Also because one of them offered an amount so small I briefly considered reporting him to the clay.

Malik walked me outside after the show.

The air was cool.

The city moved around us with its usual massive indifference.

For a moment, we stood beneath a sign buzzing faintly in pink light.

He looked at me and said, “You know this is strange, right?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Good.”

Then he laughed.

And I laughed.

And something in me relaxed.

Not because the situation had become normal.

Because we had agreed that it was not.

That is intimacy too.

The shared recognition of absurdity.

When I returned home, I placed the sculpture on my desk.

The room felt different.

Not larger.

Not cleaner.

Certainly not cleaner.

But altered.

The clay had entered the world and survived.

So had I.

The refrigerator clicked.

This time, I chose to interpret it as applause.

I opened my notebook and wrote one sentence before sleeping:

The first study was not of him. It was of what happened to me when I looked.

Then, beneath it, because honesty matters, I added:

Also, buy better tools.

That was the beginning of my first body of work.

Not the famous one.

Not the scandalous one.

Not the one that would later travel farther than I had ever been.

Just the first.

Small.

Uneven.

Overhandled.

A little funny.

A little alive.

A little wrong in the right direction.

And Malik?

He messaged me before I fell asleep.

Next time, I want to see the process.

I stared at the screen.

The sensible answer would have been:

Maybe.

The professional answer would have been:

We can discuss terms.

The safe answer would have been:

Thank you for coming.

I wrote:

Bring patience. The clay is difficult.

He replied:

So are you.

I smiled.

Because he was correct.

And because, for the first time, I wondered whether being difficult might be useful.

That night, I dreamed of clay.

Not as material.

As weather.

Soft gray rain falling over Beijing.

Covering windows, streets, phones, hands.

Everything becoming form.

Everything waiting to be shaped.

And somewhere inside that dream, a phrase repeated itself with no explanation:

Sookie sookie now.

Sookie sookie now.

Sookie sookie now.

Not a title yet.

Not a philosophy.

Just rhythm.

Just trouble.

Just the sound of something beginning before I knew how to stop it.