Story of the Piece: Crystal Garden

Some pieces begin with a vision. This one began with a broken vase.

The base of Crystal Garden was originally a slump glass vase stand — beautiful in its own right, but incomplete without what it was made to hold. When the vase broke, most people would have seen an ending. I saw a beginning. The stand itself had a presence, a weight, a particular quality that told me it wanted to become something else entirely.

The Swarovski crystal leaves had been waiting for years. I purchased them long before I knew what they were for — the way you sometimes acquire things because something in you knows they'll be needed, even when you can't yet see for what. When I started making the flowers by hand from gold wire, shaping each petal individually, the leaves found their purpose. Each flower is entirely handmade. Each leaf is Swarovski crystal. The raw crystals at the base were chosen to catch the light from below — because this piece has two light sources. The small integrated light at its heart. And the sun, which moves through the Swarovski leaves differently at every hour of the day.

I will never make another one. The materials that made this piece what it is are gone — used completely, given entirely to this single work. Crystal Garden is not just one of a kind in the way all my pieces are one of a kind. It is one of a kind in the most absolute sense. There is no version two.

There is only this one.

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