new pottery from old places

As the car meandered the twists and turns of the highway between Hurricane (pronounced hur-reh-kehn) and Springdale, I finally realized why I love pottery so much.  For as long as I can remember, part of our annual trek to Utah as a family was a trip to the Worthington Gallery in Springdale.  There, my parents painstakingly picked new pieces from a local potter to take home that would eventually make up the body of our everyday dishes.  No basic starter sets for us..nope.  We ate off of art.  I never knew this to be unusual until later in life, when none of my friends searched out local artisans to add spice to their day to day life.  Nope, this was purely a family thing.

My last minute trip to Utah also coincided with my birthday, a blissfully wonderful happenstance that gave me the opportunity to celebrate with my mom  for the first time in who knows how long.   Once it dawned on both of us how close we were to Springdale, a birthday plan was set.  We would drive the hour south from Cedar City to greet the little gallery as it opened so we could be in Sundance up north by lunch with my brother.   It was a long day of driving but so worth it.

I walked up to the craftsman home that is the gallery and remembered picking out a handcrafted wind chime as a girl.  (Driftwood with pink handblown chimes dangling off of it.)  I marveled at pieces of art that my younger eyes never appreciated and reverently picked out a bowl in the same pattern as my parents had collected years ago.  The early morning sun danced on the red rock canyon, beckoning us to enter Zion National Park mere moments away.  New and old coincided that morning and it was so, so wonderful.  Same artists, new artists, same Engquist, new Engquist.  My mom and I had the time of our lives, explaining to the gallery attendant that we had been shopping there longer than she had been on the earth.  This was our little piece of home and we got to share in it again together.