Have you ever found yourself admiring your favourite flower in the garden, wishing you could preserve its beauty for longer?
Back in 2010 when I met Ian and Denise they had some much admired agapanthus flowers growing in their garden which they could see from their kitchen window. They wanted me to make them a lamp and I suggested that they use a favourite flower.
Denise said “We were immediately attracted to her work the light, almost fragile forms and shapes were so appealing. We spoke with Liz and decided to commission a bespoke piece of ceramic art from her. We wanted to incorporate images from our garden and, at Liz’s suggestion, we brought to her studio, from our garden, some favourite Agapanthus blooms”
Denise and I then spent an enjoyable afternoon arranging them to be pressed into her lamp. I then made the lamp for them – using cobalt oxide to create the colour.
Denise then went onto say: “We loved the active participation of the commissioning process and the opportunity to use our own plants in the creation of the piece. Working with Liz was a real pleasure and treat – educational, involved and fun. The memory of that experience adds to the joy the piece gives us. It remains a very special piece of art for us and has pride of place at the top of our stairs beside a picture window that frames our new garden in Cornwall – in which we still have Agapanthus..”
Last year Ian got back in contact to tell me that their beloved lamp had been accidently smashed when the picture window fell in on it!
Would I be able to make them another agapanthus piece for them, but without the electrical fittings? They would like it to be solely a sculptural vessel. They sent images of the broken lamp and ones that they could find of it when it had been in one piece.
Luckily they understood that they would not be able to have something exactly the same.
Since first meeting Ian and Denise in 2010, they now had the addition of 2 grandchildren in their family. With this knowledge, whilst laying out the flowers to press into the lamp, I was thinking about each flower representing a family member.
Whilst I was remaking their new piece Ian enquired about getting the broken lamp repaired in the Japanese style of kintsugi. I asked Geoff Osler, my husband, who is a gilder and restorer of antique furniture. He decided to take on the challenge.
There were quite a few pieces, large and small, that had to be put back together!
The joins then had to be gilded in a sympathetic manner. In order for the piece to work as a whole.
