Do you frequently drive by a shop and say to yourself,
Man, I’ve gotta stop in there sometime,
and then keep driving and forget about the shop until the next time you drive by?
Me too.
Back in the fall, I tasked myself with making a stop at an antique store just a few miles from my house that we pass on the way to the pediatrician’s office. I could never stop on the way to the pediatrician’s, and as we’re usually nursing freshly-had shots, an on-the-way from visit just wasn’t possible. A stop at Old Mill Antiques was going to take some planning, but I was up to the challenge.
I talked my aunt in to coming along with me to check it out and we are both very glad that we did. Old Mill Antiques had some really unique treasures. While I do not consider myself a collector of antiques in the academic sense, I do like them in my house and I like poking around in a random store here and there to see what I might find. I love just “coming across something” that speaks to me.
I found a wonderful crock that adopted me on the spot. I was in dire need of a larger utensil crock–you know, one that has some extra space so you can push the things around to dig for your favorite spoon, spatula, etc.? The piece that made itself known to me on this particular day was going to suit my needs exactly. The price was right at $19 and it looks very keen on my counter to boot.
I Googled the name on the front of the crock and found a very succinct and informative write- up about the company that had produced it. Hawthorn Pottery was made from 1899-1920 in Hawthorn, PA which is in Clarion County, almost 300 miles across the state from where we live! The piece made it very easy for me to take on my second posting challenge from HiP–to write about a community outside of my own region.
Sometimes, I wonder about my Hawthorn crock and think about when it was made (it’s at least 92 years old), how it got to Chester County and what it was used for before I made a home for it on my granite countertop. Was it used strictly to perform a function? Was it just a “thing” someone didn’t want in their house, or was it at one time, treasured? What else has been kept in this vessel? Perhaps something, or things, better left unknown!
The juxtaposition of the old with the new is something on which I thrive. After a very long time, I feel confident in combining things I love regardless of the their age, or from which store they came. I loved giving this very functional piece of Hawthorn Pottery a chance to be seen not only for its usefulness, but also for its simple and enchanting form. I love looking at it and knowing it’s now part of our homescape.
Maggie is a graduate of Elizabethtown College and West Chester University. She
combines her life-long love of crafts with her full-time job of raising her daughter, and is up to the challenge of helping her little one appreciate the handmade good in a commercialized world. Maggie is the author of The Grey Blog, the children’s book The Big Stink!, and is the proprietor of Evolution Handmade on Etsy.
