When a client reaches out to me about a potential backsplash, we enter in to an interesting creative process together. It is honestly like nothing else: a creative commission. If they are willing, I ask about their life and their dreams and regrets, favourite memories and colours and flowers.
At some point in the process, something jumps out to me. With my most recent commission, the client described a beautiful day with her mom in a field of sunflowers. I asked to see the photos. As she flipped through her phone (as full as mine of photos of people and flowers and places that she loves!) I saw how determined she was to find one particular photo that was obviously burned into her mind’s eye. When she found it and joyfully shared it with me, I was determined to try to translate the feeling of that day with her mom into her backsplash. The flowers were whimsical and stylized to bring a playfulness to the piece.
I added caterpillars and butterflies and huge heart-shaped leaves with jagged edges in a gorgeous new green glaze. That glaze even had some magic in it in my mind. In 2019, when I’d gone to apprentice in California, I found that glaze in a beautiful ceramics shop in SanDiego. I had allowed myself one jar of glaze for my now very over-stuffed suitcase. That glaze is now in Canada thankfully, and it’s a new favourite of mine, Pam’s Green.
Building the backsplash, I had arranged all the tiles and then mounted everything on a mesh in my studio. When I brought it to the client’s house, installation was a breeze. I came back 2 days later to grout it in a beautiful oyster grey. We decided that we will add an additional 2” strip across the top, and the client will be painting and choosing a field tile for the rest of the backsplash to pull the kitchen all together.
The client was thrilled with the end result. It feels so rewarding to me to see it up, but also to see the joy that my work brings to others. It’s truly a collaboration with personal meaning and I feel a huge gratitude to all of my clients for sharing their hearts and believing in me and helping me to grow my small business.
Happy Spring! The world is awakening isn’t it?!
It feels like such a creative time....a new beginning....as the flowers open, and our stores and restaurants begin to open again. Definitely a time to count our blessings.
xx Meg
