At age 4 Paulus Berensohn asked his parents for dance lessons. "Boys in
our family don't dance," was their response. That didn't deter him. When
his mother complained to a friend about his persistence, her friend
exclaimed, "But Edith, to dance is to spring from the hand of God!"
Berensohn would go on to study dance at Juilliard, but his life took
another unexpected turn when he witnessed Karen Karnes, a famous potter
of the time, at work. The play of breath, energy and movement in her
practice of the craft led him to a deep revelation of his own
aspiration. "What happened was a desire to de-professionalize my
interest in art," says Berensohn, "I was suddenly overwhelmed with a
longing to learn that dance. The bridge for me at first wasn't so much
the clay itself and what one made of it, or so I thought, but the dance
one dances with it." Paulus pivoted his life towards pottery and a
profound inner exploration. In his words, "I am very interested in the
behavior of art rather than the achievement of art. I see all the arts
as apprenticeships for the big art of our lives."
A new documentary, "To
Spring From the Hand" pays tribute to this extraordinary potter and his
enduring legacy. You can watch a few excerpts here.
