"TEAOPIA"

Delicate, fragile things.

Bone China, hand crafted.

My mothers mother, 

My fathers mother,

 My mother, 

the tale of teaopia....

My mother's mother met her Irish husband on a ship crossing the ocean from Britain. They were in their late teens and searching for a better life. She cleaned castles and had an appreciation for high tea.

As a child visiting my grandparents on Sundays, tea was a cherished well crafted process. My grandmother would go to great lengths to make the perfect pot from loose leafs, steeped to perfection, poured thru a never to be washed strainer into a bone china teacup. She was a woman of very simple means, raised nine children with a lifetime of hardship and mental illness.

My mother liked to collect fragile things. She was self employed from her early teens and owned a china cabinet full of delicate bone china tea cups when she died. Her favorite flower was yellow roses. She could never make a cup of tea as well as her mother, but shared tea often with my fathers mother - a french Canadian. 

They became great friends, often traveled together to sunny warm relaxing places. My fathers mother cherished the times spent with my mother and has guarded the now downsized collection of bone china tea cups for the last twenty five years since my mothers passing. My fathers mother now suffers from Alzheimer's is in her 90's and is no longer in possession of them and is herself in a delicate state.

During my last visit to Montreal to visit with my french Canadian grandmother, I made a point to photograph my favorite cup from the fragile collection - too worried that it would break on my travels back home. I was apprehensive when I was photographing her belongings, my mothers belongings. I felt intrusive. I held my camera over my head and shot this tea cup "Hail Mary" style, as it sat high atop of her kitchen cabinets, never touching it let alone being able to see it from my vantage point. I got one shot, not knowing if I even got it in focus. I've always loved this cup, and was even allowed to sip from it on occasion on those special Sunday's with my British grandma when I was very young. 

I've painstakingly revived the "Hail Mary" color photo of the fragile cup, modernized it with a black and white flair and will be printing it on metallic paper to be later hand painted with yellow roses, in an acrylic glass bead gel medium.

I've lost track of the location of the cup, as my grandmother has been moved into assisted living. I hope to be reunited with it one day and maybe even take it to Alyson's mother - the strongest woman I've ever met, and the only woman I've ever known who makes tea the same way grandma did. 

It is a magical thing, tea, and the tales of the strong women who've survived to tell of it, and the ones too frail to enjoy a cup of it as it ever was.

Original photo in its location atop of grandma's  kitchen cupboards