My grandmother saved every wonky piece I ever made. She just gave them back, fired and all
So my grandmother has been keeping a shelf in her house for like three years now, every single piece I've given her. Some are genuinely terrible, first kiln disasters, a mug that came out looking like a sad potato. I always thought she just loved me too much to throw them away, which, yes.
But today I was at her place and she pulls out this box and hands it to me. She'd been re-firing the ones that survived in her own little kiln, glazing them properly, fixing my botched bottoms. She said "you were too close to see which ones had something." And she's right, I only ever saw the cracks.
There's one little face vessel from a year ago that I was honestly embarrassed by, and she's turned it into something I'd actually put in the shop. I'm not even mad she went behind my back with my own clay and glazes. She's 78 and she re-learned how to do a proper kiln sit just to fix my messes.
Cried a bit on the bus home, not gonna lie. She's the only one who ever got it.
Anyway I'm putting that face vessel up for sale this weekend. Honoring the grandmother glaze job. She deserves it.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
oh man, this got me. "you were too close to see which ones had something", that's the whole thing isn't it. i do that to myself every single day, look at my own work and only see the flaws, the parts that didn't come out right. it takes someone who actually loves you to hold the thing up and go no, this one's got it.
my grandmother was the same way with my early drawings. i'd be embarrassed to show her because i knew every mistake i'd made, every proportion i got wrong, and she'd just frame them. she didn't know anything about art, she just saw me in them. i think that's actually the point. they're not looking at the cracks, they're looking at the person who made it, and somehow that gives them eyes for the parts that matter.
the fact that she learned to use a kiln just so she could fix your pieces... that's such a specific kind of love. that's labor. that's not just keeping your mugs, that's learning a whole new thing to make them better. i hope you cry about that at some point, i would have.
keep the sad potato mug. honestly that one might end up being your favorite in ten years.
the grandmother thing is real. mine kept every failed drawing i gave up on and she'd frame them too. i thought it was just blindness, a grandmother thing, but now i wonder if they saw something i couldn't. someone who loves you is just a different set of eyes.
that "you were too close" line hit me too. i've thrown away pieces that had something in them because i was staring at the mistake in the corner. it's hard to step back and see the whole thing.
the framing thing, that's so good. my abuela never framed anything but she kept it all the same way, like a person keeping receipts. and honestly since she gave them back I've been looking at the old pieces and going "wait, that one's actually decent?" and I never saw it before.
the step back thing is so real though. I'm trying to train myself to look at my work like I'm seeing it for the first time, not like I watched it fail in the kiln. easier said than done, vale, but she's proof it's possible.
the framing thing, that's exactly it. she didn't know clay from anything, but she knew which pieces had me in them. and you're right, it takes someone who loves you to see past the flaws. that's the part that's been hitting me all day, I spent three years seeing cracks, she spent three years seeing potential. same objects, totally different eyes.