Porcelain
The green of Northern Ireland rolls by like a dream. From our little putt putt Peugeot, lush hills and grazing sheep rim the roads, watching the cars pass, the days moving one into the other, as it has been for centuries. This place has depth.
We came to visit our friend, Felicity Graham. At 78 years young, she is spry, fun, and totally game for a good time well into an age where many others have conceded themselves into the mental baubles of endless daytime TV.
This just isn't the way for Felicity. She has far more afoot than bingo Wednesdays. She is an artist, author, antique dealer and entrepreneur.
We arrived at the entrance to her manor, looking so very “secret garden” that we missed it on the first pass. Its long narrow driveway was crowded close with reaching tendrils arching towards us from both sides of the lane.
Just off to the side of the main house were a couple of buildings she uses as her ceramics workshop and artist studio. However, to say she works in ceramics is like saying Michael Jordan shoots hoops. Felicity creates three dimensional sculptures, art as creative in thought and design as it is difficult to execute in clay. Click through these images. When you see her back-lit book shelf filled with folios, you’d swear it was leaves of parchment. In fact, every sheath is a delicate fragile page of porcelain.
When you view the actual Papal Bull issued by Pope Honorius III, dated 12 June 1219, in white on white, glowing like Elvish on the one ring, you do a double take.
How did this even happen?
We are so used to seeing crazy CG things happen on screens, big and small, with dinosaurs attacking Jurrasic Park visitors and Jim Kirk somehow coming back to the modern day San Francisco to save a whale or whatever, that the porcelain perfection in front of us is just cause to pause.
She explained in her crisp Irish lilt about the complicated techniques she concocted, starting with the chemical photo-etching of a 900 year old document onto a large copper plate, pouring the liquid porcelain over the etching, then gently peeling back the clay sheet before it dries so that it can be flattened and fired in the kiln. Even after the explanation it’s still CG.
Yet one more thing this amazing woman has done is to bring in local artists to be in residence in her studio. The result is that some truly gifted people are afforded the opportunity to create art that halts you, gives you pause, and humbles you with their mind-boggling talent.
We’ve turned off the automatic paging so you can take some time with each image. Look at the phone, the sewing machine, my god look at the typewriter. Each of these pieces were created by placing layers of small porcelain pieces upon one other.
Here’s the kicker.
Each tiny oval, slice, and oblong layer to the overall 3-D image had to be fired beforehand. In other words, she saw the entire thing completed in her mind as she was creating the parts required to complete it.
We love the image of the bowl being revealed from the stone, and the electric blue lightning bolt into the porcelain purity of the cubic stone.
Dottie’s mother was also an artist and a potter, and she worked in her mom’s studio as a teenager. After Felicity’s kind offer, Dottie was absolutely giddy to throw on a bib and “throw a pot”! And after upteen years, her hands still remembered the roll and slip of the wet spinning clay beneath her fingers. What a gift to rediscover this connection with her past, and sharpen the memories of that special time in her life.
The bottom line is that beauty and grace are all around us if we but look. Felicity and her artist friends work in this old stone building on a nondescript overgrown road somewhere outside of Belfast in Northern Ireland. And that's the point really, that artists dripping with talent like Felicity’s are all around us, to inspire thought and our own creation.
And for all the grace and precision of her work, Felicity is completely understated, a joy to spend time with, and a gift to know. Finding Felicity Graham is like finding a treasure you never knew was lost until you stumbled upon it. We left Felicity in love and gratitude for the gift of her art, the sparkle in her eye, and the joy of her company.
