Petal & Gold

The lotus opens before it is ever touched by the sun. This brooch holds that interval: the moment between bud and full bloom, preserved in fired clay and gold. Each petal was pressed and coaxed by hand, the ruffled edge shaped one fold at a time. The mauve glaze was applied in successive washes, so the underlying clay texture remains visible beneath the color, like the memory of the earth still present in the flower. The gold luster along the rim is not decoration added afterward; it is the edge where the piece was decided, the boundary between the made thing and the air around it. Worn close to the body, the brooch carries that quiet: the small, particular gravity of a flower that has always known how to hold itself still.