Cultivating Place: Presentation Is Everything—The Garden-Based Pottery Of Artist Frances Palmer

As gardeners or naturalists, we often share an urge to display our love – flowers or fruits of the season arranged in bottles and vases, in bowls and on platters. The deep beauty of the harvest and the season have a strong call. As gardeners who harvest food and flowers, as nature lovers who gently forage fallen moss, lichen, stones, feathers, or cooks who prepare our fruits, vegetables and foraged edibles we all experience that moment – perhaps daily of saying: what will I put that in? What vase, large or small, what dinner plate, what cake plate, what bowl? Thirty years ago, Frances Palmer answered this question in its various forms with this answer: I will set my table with items I have hand formed from an idea in my imagination, from the energy of my hands from the earth beneath my feet. Almost ever since, her hand thrown and built terra cotta, porcelain and earthenware creations have been sought after by gardeners, cooks, floral and tablescape artists. This week I am joined by Frances Palmer to hear more about the symbiotic relationship between her garden and her art. She joined us via Skype from her studio in Weston, CT.