Meet Me At The Grove: The Meaning Behind the Collection

Meet Me At The Grove: The Meaning Behind the Collection

I’ve toyed with writing this for a long time. Would this information unintentionally hurt someone? Would it make the collection less appealing? Do people really want to be THIS inside my head?

The Grove mugs collection

The reality is, yes, this post is likely going to be hurtful to people out there I don’t intend to hurt. I’m sorry. And no, you probably don’t want to be THIS inside my head. 


The TL;DR: The Grove Collection has been a sort of grieving process for the childhood I wish I had, my dad, and the grandparents I wish my child got to experience. It’s also been a strangely cathartic opportunity to identify those things and celebrate the life I’ve created instead. 

The Grove stacked teacups
My first hit of inspiration for this collection came while I was at a friend's house. She collects old Florida glassware and has a set of orange juice glasses and I absolutely adore them. They felt like something that would be instantly at home in my grandmother’s neighbor’s house in Sacramento, California. Growing up, visiting my grandmother was always a tense experience. I’d go for a week and feel decidedly like I didn’t belong. Each year, the visit was more strained than the last. 

But across the street lived Oscar and Yvonne in a perfectly maintained time capsule. They’d built their home, along with the rest of the neighborhood, in the late 1940s and updated it in the 1970s. When I’d visit in the 1990’s and early 2000s, the predictability of wood tones, shag carpet, and the stash of hard fruit candies, served alongside drinks in pristine amber Libby glasses, brought immense comfort. Yvonne kept a bowl of faux wax fruit on the round dining room table, almost perpetually set in what felt like anticipation of my visit. Oscar would sit in his recliner in the room with shag carpet and ask me about school and my artwork. I can vividly recall the space, from the low ceilings and dark woods to the smell that was so uniquely their home. 


For several years now I’ve been working (with the help of a therapist) on moving past some challenging childhood events, grieving the loss of my father, and managing my anxiety. Seeing those orange glasses at my friend’s home brought this overwhelming sense of nostalgia, tinged with a heavy dose of sadness and hurt. I began working on The Grove almost immediately. 


It’s no mistake that oranges are associated with the two places I’ve lived the longest: California and Florida. (I even made a point to photograph my initial launch of The Grove with California oranges, a nod to this.) Opposite ends of the country and the representation of some very opposing feelings. 

The Grove After Dark: sgraffito collection

Working through multiple iterations of The Grove collection has allowed me in many ways to begin healing. The steady subject matter has become an almost comfort in exploring new surface decoration techniques, forms, and clay bodies. The pieces themselves have begun to feel almost as though they belong in Yvonne’s kitchen, alongside her avocado refrigerator. And the fruit now brings memories of my relationship with my dad, when it was far better than it had been the last decade or so of his life. 


The Grove is a collection I have come to love, and have a bit of a hyperfixation on. I keep a small sketchbook with me all the time, and it’s filled with random orange drawings, shapes and designs. Slowly, it’s begun to feel much more like mine, and less like it belongs to my past. My most recent iterations really reflect the style of painting I’ve done for decades now- loose and flowy with a crisp overlaid outline. Soon, I hope to launch a set done in a sgraffito style and a set done using real gold overglaze. In the meantime, you can expect to see a re-launch of the collection September 19, 2024

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2 comments

Thank you for sharing a bit of personal information. I recently purchased a few pieces of your darling Halloween collection. Now, I’m looking forward to purchasing some pieces of The Grove. It will be even more special now that I know some of the meaning behind it.

Tracy Padhya

Thank you for sharing your inspiration. Enjoying a cup of tea in your beautiful creations has even more meaning – and memories – for me.

Janice Mayo

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