Mother's Teapot: The Sketch and the Story That Goes With It.

When I was young, I was playing dodge ball with another young family member inside the house. We were playing near my mother's hutch where she kept her collection of pretty things...breakable pretty things like China plates, her large collection of salt and pepper shakers, and a couple of tea pots. And during one of the throws (our "ball" was a waded piece of paper) my playmate backed violently into the hutch causing the whole thing to tip over. The crash was so tremendous, I'm sure my mother thought that someone had died when she heard the noise, which seemed to last forever.

My playmate and I stood there wide-eyed and aghast over what we had done, waiting for my mother to come flying downstairs screaming "what happened!!!!?" which she did. Needless to say, she was very upset. Nearly everything was broken.

As punishment for about a week after school she made me sit at the dining table and glue her broken collection back together. I successfully reconstructed only a few, many were broken beyond repair, and I would forever have to face my guilt every time I looked at salt and pepper shakers without a match.

This teapot was a survivor on that dreadful day, and I keep it in my kitchen, high on a shelf out of harms way. I was thinking about this memory very recently and thought it was time to paint my mother's pretty pot. It was a favorite of mine and I remember handling it often as a young child admiring it, carefully lifting the lid and placing it back again. There was something about the shape and the flowers that drew me and still does.🌿🌼🌱🌿