One of a Kind Piece of Art

My Mom is a creative-crafter.  Such an odd statement, I know, but it’s true.  My Mom has the unique ability to be both creative and crafty; she’s a dreamer and a doer – it’s a rare combination and one that can lead to creating great things.  In this case, she created an absolutely gorgeous piece of artwork with porcelain.

Originally, the concept was to make one large branch that would be adhered across 3 8 x 10 porcelain tiles.  But after the first fire the branches separated into three pieces that easily fit onto 3 individual 8 x 10 tiles.  This resulted in 3 individual one-of-a-kind pieces of art.  Mom gave one to me, one to my brother and one for herself.  Mine has yellow finches, my brothers had a red bird, blue bird and a butterfly, Mom’s has blue birds.

This is hand made, every single piece, from porcelain that she poured, cured, fired and painted.

When I say she made every single piece, I mean every single piece!  She made the porcelain birds by pouring slip into a mold, handmade each petal of the flower and pieced the flower petals and stamens together, let them cure, fired them and painted them with china paints.

At one point she became discouraged that her vision wasn’t quite what she had expected and wanted to trash the whole thing.  I, thankfully, told her to keep at it.  Even before she pieced it all together and painted it I knew it was going to be gorgeous.   Fortunately, she backed away from the project for a while to rethink it and then went at it again with fresh eyes.

She sought out opinions from all of us.  I think it was Dad who suggested that she add shadow leaves to the piece (before the branch laid on a simple white background).

Like many great pieces of art, this was not an overnight project.  She worked on this off and on for about 6 months.

Not only is it gorgeous, it is a timeless beautiful piece of art that will be handed down from generation to generation.  I am in awe of it every time I look at it.