I come from warmth and welcome. I
come from long dinners around a table heavy with food, where conversation carries
on for hours. I come from holidays spent with family, rejoicing in being
together. I come from living in near community, from the confidence of having the
support of close kin to fall against. I come from the security of never having
to act a part to please those around me. I come from watching those who know
well the art of comfort and hospitality.
I come from saying goodbye, again. I
come from fingers forming the sign, thumb,
index and pinky out, waving: I love you. I
come from picking up and starting fresh. I come from building family around me;
piecing together community. I come from learning there is always room for
another. I come from opening my heart once more.
I come from always building,
crafting, making. I come from days taken off from studies to make art. I come
from play-dough and oven baked clay figures. I come from working with my sister
to make anything we did not have. I come from watching my mother draw and
hoping I would someday be as good. I come from imagined worlds and stories so
vivid that they seemed tangible. I come
from a lifetime of creativity.
* * *
I come from always building,
crafting, making. My foundation, my beginning is here, though I cannot point to
a time or real defining moment. I have never been one to experience things in
flashes; my growth usually takes a form more like a sunrise, with a steady and
gentle turning from black to grey to light.
All I can see is a consistent thread of creativity running through my
life. I remember drawing, always drawing, coloring or painting. I drew because
my mother drew. I wanted to do it as well as she did someday. I remember playing
“dress up” with my sister, decorating ourselves, spending time crafting the
perfect outfit to fit our imaginary games. I remember hours spent in the woods,
scavenging materials to build a fort. We helped ourselves to a roll of our
Dad’s twine to bind the sticks together into something somewhat structurally
sound. These are my memories of those things that have brought me to this place.
I come from saying goodbye. There is
a changing, a growing that happens when you wave goodbye to all you have known.
A young girl, excited for the new, I only half felt the sorrow of leaving them
behind. My family gathers at every farewell. Those that are left wave until the
last sight, hands raised, forming the sign I
love you. I look back now at that leaving and feel what I did not know to
feel then, when I said goodbye to a security and simplicity that would never be
the same. It is a new place now and I have said goodbye once more. I drove away
from my family, that place of refuge, once again not fully aware of how much a
part of me I was leaving behind. But in this new place I see family too. Pieced
together into a whole, they are all around. It is a new home that I have made.
I come from warmth and welcome. It
was my grandma and mother that taught me what these meant. I have watched the
ritual, the art of creating a place of welcome. An open house, clean and still,
rests after the flurry of preparation. It is peace that greets all who enter,
like the hostess herself, arms open to her guests. The table waits, offering an
invitation to sit, to partake in a meal, to linger, together as long as
possible. This is the welcome I have known. I can see traces of it in the work
that I make as an artist. My ceramic work is simple, not cluttered with
busyness, but a place for the eye to rest. I take time with even the small
details so that the experience of each pot in its entirety is a positive one. I
want my work to be approachable, not appearing too delicate or rough to come
near, touch, or use, but simple and sincere. I want my work to draw people in
to look again, to look closer, to try to know
it. Gather at the table, this is my offering, the work that I make. Stay awhile
and rest.
