Porcelain Christmas Town

Death, glitter, optimism, and Santa Claus.

My young mother and my eight year old self sat side by side at a large table, buried in our very important work, on the screened in front porch of our home in North Minneapolis. Lilacs and Honeysuckle in the breeze.

We painted with watercolors, made fabric headbands, glue gunning ribbons and lace to them, and attached gemstones to jean jackets. I made booklets with loose paper and a stapler, filled with drawings and descriptions of beautiful ladies I created in my imagination and couldn’t wait to grow up to be; glamorous, sex-pots covered in glitter.

Among our materials were colorful bars of sculpting clay. I loved rolling the clay and smashing it into formations of tiny people and animals to live in my beloved, porcelain Christmas town. We added new buildings to it every year. A church (even though in real life, we never attended), a general store, opulent victorian homes. Every clay person had a backstory, that I’d write down in a notebook. Familial relations, what their jobs were, ex…