what mary made: Strawberries in clay

Something you may not know about me - I have a weakness for miniatures. If it's a tiny well done re-creation of a larger thing, I may just stare at it for hours, transfixed, or pay stupid amounts of money to own it and stare at it for hours. There's just something incredibly fascinating about miniatures.

My favorite kind of minatures (the kind I find myself willing to pay stupid amounts of money for) are plant minatures (made of clay) and food minatures (the best are also usually made of clay). I have a collection of beautiful minature clay flowers I keep on my desk and my Etsy favorites are full of tiny clay foods with glazes and delicate coloring to imitate the golden brown of baked goods or the shine of syrup or milk.

I recently purchased on clearance a tiny bell jar on a pedestal, and being a fan of minatures as I am I thought long and hard about what kind of minature I wanted to fill it with. A tiny cake seemed like a good idea, but the dome was tall and a cake just didn't seem the right shape to properly fill the space. The same weekend I purchased the dome I went to Pike Place Market with a friend and stopped by my favorite clay flower artist's booth there. And saw she had added tiny strawberry plants to her collection of creations.

That's when I got the idea of putting a minature clay strawberry plant inside my dome.

The strawberries the seller had were too tiny for what I had in mind, so I went home and I did some looking around online. I refined my idea and then contacted a seller on Etsy who creates beautiful clay flowers and takes custom orders. She created the plant for me based on pictures I sent her and a description of my idea, but unfortunatley she didn't follow the dimensions strictly and the plant was too squat and full to fit under the dome (plus, she put it in a paper basket which wasn't what I had in mind). This artist works out of Thailand so English isn't her first language, plus she doesn't charge much at all for the quality of her work - so honestly I can't really complain. Especially being a capable artist myself and having an exact idea in my head to execute. So I took apart the plant she sent me, pulled out my paper clay and fashioned a new pot in the shape and size I wanted. After days of drying, sanding, shaping, and finally glazing, I filled it with floral clay and took the elements of the strawberry plant I'd dissassembled (it came apart into individual leaves and strawberries and flowers, nothing was attatched in groupings) and made a new arrangement in my pot.

a few of the leftover pieces of the strawberry plant after I deconstructed and rearranged it.

You could say it kinda became a collaborative piece - one that came together between Bath & Body Works (where I bought the small glass dome, of all places!), the Etsy artist, and myself.

Here's the final result - a realization of what I imagined.