Bric-a-Brac

Yesterday, our Major class revisited the Fitzwilliam Museum. During our first visit, students wrote prose pieces inspired by paintings in the portrait gallery. This time, we focused our attention on rooms filled with dainty porcelain figurines, teapots, vases, and plates. Inspired by a passage in L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz (1907), in which characters are transformed into a series of ornaments, students were encouraged to select (and write about) objects that represented elements of their personality. We regrouped after an hour to share our objects (and our stories!). 

I sit, motionless and inanimate, behind a sheet of glass alongside other porcelain dishes and objects. There is a reason why we are all here, here behind this sheet of glass; stuck in a Museum. We, the motionless and inanimate, represent time periods, histories, family lineage, where we come from; we symbolize emotions, fears, and hopes. These concepts remain the synonymous bridge between the porcelain and the people. We are the products of centuries of family history.

I am a fairly small Ovoid jar of soft-paste porcelain and a tin-glaze. Soft for my features and complexion, with a tin-glaze for my lack of sensitivity. I have a lid that lets no one get to me, on which a few flowers are set; I will reside to happiness even in the hardest of times. I am enameled in Kakiemon, a Japanese porcelain style for my Grandmother Sanae Hagino. I am a novelty piece of Caltagirone potters of Sicily for my Grandfather Salvatore Spera. I have a pewter handle from the German Knöller period for my great grandfather August Biche. I have a white tin-glaze with small Scottish stones at my base from William Littler’s craft, for my great grandmother Winchester Willoughby. I am detailed with butterflies, peonies, chrysanthemums and other flowers with other paths and verandas, that wind open ended for me.  

We are all pieces of porcelain with different histories and background.   - Winter

Clock - The Rape of Europa; French 1770

 

If I were an object, I’d never be white—not black nor gray nor blue
From my metallic surface would sprout a million colors, a million birds that flew
And through my hands, my woven little hands, comes those soft and aching gusts
Those gusts of that haunting and chilling wind, we all know, we all know, and thus
I’ll sing and dance and tell my way through stories, you’re stories, as well as theirs
Stories of laughter, tears and sorrow, of wars, of playtime, of those heartfelt dares
I’ll run and I’ll tick, the tick, tick, tick, I’ll bellow that song with all my might
And sing I may and cry my way through your, yes your, songs of flight
For I am a clock: the most intricate clock, with my fingers knotted together
I’ll remain silent, screaming, deafening behind glass, my whispers soft as a feather
While I sit, placidly, and you’ll ache that dull ache, and I remain total
I am your reminder, your heart, your soul, my pain: I am forever and you are mortal.

- Kendra