Mom’s 50th birthday piece:
My mother’s favorite flowers are lilacs. My grandfather used to have a gorgeous lilac bush next to his house, and he would often cut fragrant blooms from it to bring inside the house. After his passing, my family made several attempts to plant stems from my grandfather’s original, but we never seemed to get one to take hold or survive for very long.
Mom’s 50th birthday was in October of 2013. I wanted to create something memorable and beautiful for her for this special occasion. I threw a nice vase and decided to cover the outside with porcelain lilac blooms. “She’ll love it!” I thought, “because these flowers will never, ever die.” I worked extremely hard on this piece. For several weeks, my neighbors around the studio would stop in to check on its progress. This piece was truly the first of its kind.
I completed the piece and proudly signed the bottom, “With love, Neeley.” Now, I had to let it dry. Shortly before the big day, mom, my stepfather, stepsister, step-niece and I took our first family vacation together. Before we left, I stuck the seemingly dry piece into the kiln, turned it on and headed off to Florida assured that my timing would be perfect. I thought that immediately after the trip I would pull that memorable gift out of the kiln, glaze it, fire it again and be ready to tie a pretty bow on it before her birthday dinner rolled around.
Too much family fun resulted in me returning from vacation a little sunburnt and a little tired, but I was still very excited to get in to the studio and get the birthday piece finished. When I opened the kiln, I discovered the bottom of the piece had exploded into tiny shards. I was devastated; it was the first time I had ever shed a tear over a broken piece. (My college ceramics professor had often reminded us “it’s just clay” when a piece would not come together as planned. I always shared that sentiment until this piece, because it was supposed to be a very special gift for a very special mother!) After concluding that the piece must not have been completely dry when I started the kiln, I picked up the pieces and began to think of a new plan.
The plan that resulted from the first piece’s demise changed everything in my studio. Partially because of laziness and also because I was now working on a serious time crunch, I grabbed a large, narrow-necked piece I had thrown earlier that week. I began to put lilacs on it as I had on the other piece, but the shapes of the two pieces were so different. The design just didn’t work on the new one.
I stared and sulked for about an hour. And then probably another hour.
Finally, an image popped into my head. I think that instant was the kind of “ah-ha” moment artists wish for when they need to find their way out of a pinch.
When I stared at that vase, I then saw an upside-down bouquet of flowers- a big, beautiful, bunch of lilacs. I furiously worked for several days to complete the new vase (and then had to let it dry for two weeks!)
In the end, the explosion of that first piece, which was something I was so proud of and so attached to, led me to what I had never done and had never seen done before. The ideas continue to build and build from that one “a-ha moment.” And the resulting creations after that first one continue to be the pieces that draw people in to the studio and that make them say, “I’ve never seen anything like this!”
My mother’s (very late) birthday piece was fired, glazed and fired once more. It came out perfect and I had never been so proud of something I’d created.
And the signature on the bottom? That was simple: “With love, again, Neeley.”