Saturday afternoon, when I was having my blissful alone time, I took some pictures of the winter garden and all of my pottery scattered around in it. I don't know about most potters, but I have a hard time pitching a platter, plate, birdhouse, whatever that looks nice except for, say, the small glaze crack the middle of it. I still like the design, I love the leaves that I used in the piece, but it is not functional, not food safe, not really nice enough to use as a display-only piece. This catalpa leaf platter is one of these pieces, so I wired it to my fence. It sits behind a wild, rangy flowering quince, next to a japanese maple bowl, next to a broken sea urchin, next to a porcelain bird's nest, next to a warped and cracked St. Francis. They are all more or less lined up on the upper portion of the fence, wired tight to the lattice, peeking out from behind twiggy bushes and wisps of Carolina Jessamine hanging down from the trees. I'm not sure if they look junky or creative, but they mostly make me happy.
I've planted oxalis and other tiny bulbs in cracked cafe au lait bowls, half-buried in flower beds, and I keep a couple of smallish bowls on my potting bench for scooping potting soil or collecting currant tomatoes in the summer. I remember when my mother was visiting at our old house she rescued some of these bowls from the yard (one in particular was turned over to provide a resting place for the toads), incredulous that I'd put them out in the dirt or filled them with birdseed. Recently, at her house, I spied one of these imperfect old bowls in her cupboard. It is her favorite guacamole bowl, she said.
Today is my desk-day. I'm working on taxes, so this post is as close as I will get to pottery until tomorrow. I hope you all have a beautiful week!
No comments:
Post a Comment