Meet Clara

This is Clara, the orchid, rescued from the week’s trash on my Wednesday night walk.

She’s only my second plant rescue, the first being, about 15 years ago, a then-unknown-to-me Sum & Substance hosta tossed out, like Clara, in the week’s trash. Sum & Substance went on to thrive spectacularly, and hugely (seriously, it is a big plant) in my garden. It was a long time before I finally discovered its name.

Back to Clara. This latest trash rescue is named for a former ceramics classmate, Clara, whose last name I can't remember. She lived in my Dormont neighborhood in the early 1990s; I was either working nights or unemployed and we got to know each other during once-a-week pottery wheel classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland.  Those were nice mornings; class was about 3 hours and teacher was a crusty immigrant from Latvia who smoked. She still shows up at Pittsburgh art fairs. Boy, could she throw. The rest of us had varying skill levels, but mostly, it was just a nice girls morning.

I loved the camaraderie (girl-a-raderie?) but after about four years, felt I had hit my wall. I wasn’t getting better – throwing is hard, and before the wheel, you have to  mash your clay into an air-bubble-less pile, also hard (on the shoulders) – and I never got the hang of throwing bigger than you want your finished product to be, because the kiln always makes it smaller.  So I stopped, but not before Clara had gifted me with an orchid in exchange for lifts to class.

She had an amazing collection. Her old Dormont house had a dampish basement with green painted stone walls where she and her husband had set up an orchid greenhouse. There were racks of fluorescent lights hung claustrophobically overhead, shelves and shelves of labeled orchids, supplies, misters and not to mention the washer and dryer.

I lost track of Clara. But I remember how I learned from her that passion looks different to each person. Her dampish basement was nothing to behold, but what grew there most certainly was.

Anyway, here’s to the Claras. The lady and the plant. Best to you both.