I‘ve been collecting ceramics from Romulus for a long time, since I was a teenager. Most of them are from the back room where everything has an error and is half off. I’ve gotten a few firsts, and I even have on real fancy piece. I don’t remember what financial situation or boon I enjoyed that allowed me to purchase it, I suppose it doesn’t matter. There’s incense burning in there right now, incense I buy from church. 

Roby eats her food off of those plates, we have holy sand in another bowl on an altar to Mary in our bedroom. We keep slivers of porcelain, I’ve repaired more than I can count, sanded down chips and repurposed lids. they fill ever nook and cranny of our home from our toothbrush holder to the box that contained Abby’s engagement ring. 

I went to visit them with a friend today, it was her first time. Mostly we played with Roby; she ran around with a cart, pushing it through the studio again and again. My friend bought two bowls and a cup. She said she has plates and that she’s more concerned with bowls anyways, they feel more nourishing. Of course she’s right. 

Selecting the right bowls felt shamanic, ritualistic, sculptural, artistic, a real personal type choice. We laid out plates and bowls and cups and odds and ends and dowsed which felt right. The seriousness of that decision and the aesthetic weight of them selected and elevated and purchased in the studio feels somehow pretty different from the ease with which they find themselves in our lives. 

I’ve poured water over Robinia’s head at bath time with these cups. And that feels the most right use of them.

I’m sure that my friend will enjoy them with utter seriousness and nourshing joy for a long time and then they will become a slightly more normal and beautiful background, having improved her life.