I received a lovely call from Sherrie Ruhl in Maryland a couple of weeks ago. She had a shard of 19th Century china that she wanted me to make into a pendant for her. She was full of compliments about my work and wanted to leave the design up to me. I found the story of how she found this piece of china fascinating and wanted to share it with you and Sherrie has kindly given me permission to do that.
"I dug that shard up out of my tiny backyard when I was homesteading in Ridgely's Delight in Baltimore City, now known as Camden Yards because Ridgely's Delight is next to the Orioles stadium. My house was built in the early 1800s and the whole broken bowl would have been buried in the yard - though I found only that small piece when I was renovating the property.
"I think the bowl is simply transfer ware - a common kind of pottery used in the early 1800s, probably exported to the USA from China.
"The shard has tremendous sentimental value to me - I remember the hot day my neighbor and I dug up the back yard and turned it into a beautiful courtyard with trees and roses and lots and lots of flowers. We also found old medicine bottles and an old gold ring."
And here's the finished pendant!
I sent a photo to Sherrie and she was very pleased with the finished result. She said she now can wear it instead of burying away her memories in a dusty box. It truly does make me happy to be able to transform a shard of china like this into something people can treasure for many years to come. I'll be sending this pendant off to Sherrie first thing in the morning and will be smiling all day. :)
