For over twenty years, taking a pottery class was an item on my bucket list. An astrologer friend once told me that I would excel in ceramics and that it would help slow my mind down. Skeptical, I didn't take the advice immediately. Over the years, I pursued a different artistic path, working as a corporate art consultant. This career allowed me to connect with artists and experience the excitement of visiting their studios and marveling at their creative processes.
In 1998, I started my own art consulting company and thrived in that role. However, starting in 2005, life brought a series of heartbreaking losses. My husband and I both experienced the loss of close family members and friends. It took time to process these losses and start living fully again, a journey that began with a trip to the UK. Obsessed with ancient civilizations, I visited megalithic sites like Glastonbury, Avebury, and Stonehenge. The trip reignited my sense of wonder and curiosity about the world.
During our travels, we discovered a quaint cafe on the Isle of Skye, run by three artist friends who created art in the winter and sold it in the summer. This encounter was profoundly inspiring. The thought of making art with friends seemed idyllic. I took a photo of the cafe window and bought a small ceramic bird, which I keep in my studio as a reminder of that moment. A year later, in 2015, I finally enrolled in my first ceramics class at Shemer Art in Scottsdale. I decided to let go of my fears and simply enjoy the process. In that class, I made wonderful friends, and we spent hours working on our projects, discussing everything under the sun.
It was in these classes that I truly realized everyone struggles with their own sorrows and battles. Life isn't easy for anyone, but ceramics made it easier for me. There is a profound satisfaction in creating something you had only imagined. We are all creators, really, and that, I believe, is a fundamental part of being human. I became obsessed and built a small studio behind our house. My husband bought me a kiln for my birthday, and I was more excited about that present than any other I had ever received.
I continued creating, never thinking about selling my pieces, despite my background in art sales. Then, an artist I had represented over the years, who had opened her own shop in downtown Phoenix, asked if I wanted to sell some of my pieces in her store. It was intimidating, but I took the plunge, and people bought my work. This experience led me to open my Etsy shop, "Life Like Eden." For me, living a life you love, surrounded by nature, beauty, and friends, doing what you love every day, is Eden.