by Paula Halpin
It’s a glorious morning in March. I’m nursing a warm cappuccino as I gaze idly out my dining room window searching for early signs of spring. Nothing doing. The back deck is still a glistening moonscape of snow-covered mounds and troughs. The picnic bench is still sporting a 3-foot-deep shiny white top, reminding me of an iced lemon loaf. A blue jay, squawking and ruffling its feathers, is duking it out with a woodpecker over access to the winter bird feeder. In the bare-branched trees, black-capped chickadees wait patiently for the big birds to tire of their battle so that they, the little birds, can snatch some breakfast.
My eye is suddenly drawn to a terra-cotta wall sconce hanging on the railing, a clump of snow tucked into its little flower holder. I must have overlooked it when I put away my garden ornaments last fall. I’ve owned this hand-made object for almost 35 years. Each summer I find a place in the garden to display it. It has become so familiar, I barely notice it anymore. But this morning, for some reason, I recall that during one of my house moves over the years, it went missing, along with a lovely Waterford Crystal decanter. I was more pleased when the wall piece showed up than when we found the decanter.
As the bird feeder empties and the chickadees depart to some other yard for lunch, I summon a memory of when and where the terra-cotta piece came into my possession. The year my now 45-year-old daughter, Jane, turned 10, she came home one day from the Harbourfront Art Camp in Toronto, eager to show me the piece she had been working on that last week. Not stopping to take off her jacket, she knelt on the hall floor and began rummaging through her backpack, hauling out papers, markers, and hair scrunchies, flinging them aside to get to her Calvin & Hobbes lunch bag. “Look Mom, it’s my final art project. I made it for you,” she said, as she triumphantly passed me the tissue-wrapped object from the bag.
Yet another art “project,” I thought, prepared to say that I liked it even if I did not. As a single mother of three, struggling to establish a career in journalism, I was often distracted and anxious. During those chaotic times, I seemed to be on the periphery of my children’s lives rather than at the centre. I’m sad to say I didn’t pay enough attention to the arts and crafts they worked on at school. There were so many of them, it was hard to muster enthusiasm when they were presented by my young artists, their expectant faces looking up at me, waiting for my response.
I knew other parents’ fridges were festooned with their kids’ crayon drawings and finger paintings. The more “abstract” works were sometimes framed and proudly hung on walls as if they were early Picassos. Then there were the curious, unidentifiable objects made of papier mache or rice crispies or pipe cleaners. Was that a horse or a praying mantis? Once I offended my son by calling his piece a green cat. It’s not a cat, he snapped, it’s Oscar the Grouch.
Jane, my youngest child, worked particularly hard to win my attention with her art work. That day, I looked at her sweet earnest face as I pulled back the tissue for the big reveal. The wall sconce. I did not have to feign delight. I loved it. I bent down to where she knelt on the floor and hugged her.
Jane had molded clay to make the piece. She had painstakingly carved eight interconnected leaves on its surface and then attached a cup at the centre, big enough to hold a single flower. She had punched holes for hanging the sconce. After it dried, she had fired it in a kiln and carefully glazed it to enhance it reddish brown colour.
Over the years I’ve stuck different blooms in its cup — a single rose, a petunia fallen from a basket, a tiny bouquet of pansies.
Yesterday, I sent Jane a photo of the sconce. She was delighted to be reminded of summer art camp. She remembers the little sculpture as one of her proudest childhood accomplishments. We marvelled at how it has lasted year after year as a garden ornament. It’s practically an heirloom at this stage. I’ve made a note to leave it to Jane in my will.
Wandering Wakefield 