If you’re holding this magazine, you’re almost there.
Where? The tangible world beyond the digital realm...a place full of objects you can actually touch. Feeling these pages against your fingers you understand this. There is something sacred about it. After all, with our attention commoditized to the half-second, is there not a certain reverence to slowing down, reclaiming a moment each day for yourself?
Which brings us to Anna Flowers. Ceramic artist. Boulder local. Purveyor of space to find these moments. “I think my pieces give people an opportunity to just...stop. Even if only for a minute,” says Anna. Her ceramic vessels and altars tap into something the modern world cannot touch.
The hand-building method Anna uses is an ancient form of pottery, developed by humans thousands of years ago. “I love folk art,” she says. “I love the shapes...this rooting in something primal.” And each one of Anna Flowers’ pieces arrives grounded in this history, yet their meaning is also intensely personal.
This begins with the artist herself. As Anna explains of her early work: “The more altars I made, the more meaning they carried...and the more meaning they carried for me, the more I wanted to share it.” After using the altars to create an intentional space in her own home, she began selling her work so that others could do the same.
How one integrates her art into their life takes many forms. This might be as simple as lighting a candle or reading a poem before sunrise. However it looks, “it’s offering people a way to have a small ritual every day that is manageable, and all their own,” Anna says. “Tiny acts of self-care can make such a difference in your life.”
Anna’s own journey as an artist has taken many turns over the last twenty-five years, with plenty of joy and hardship along the way. Yet the question lingers: how does one turn struggle into beauty? Anna says only time can metabolize experience into inspiration. “In that space between, I find a way to respond rather than react.”
Which circles back to slowing down. Part of this process means finding oneself in community. On this latter point, Anna cultivates her own sense of community by offering workshops for people to build their own altars and connect with something deeper. She says about working with clay: “It keeps me grounded. It’s like walking with bare feet on the earth.” It’s a feeling she loves giving others the chance to experience, as well.
At a certain point, with work like this, the distinction between form and function fades. Utility and beauty become one. “I love filling my space with beautiful things,” Anna says. “I don’t think it has to have any purpose at all, except making you feel something.” And in making us feel something, art finds its purpose.
“I care more about the world inside of us than the world outside,” Anna says. “Meaning I think the biggest thing we can do for the world outside is to care for our own world inside.” Whether that means taking a moment to light a candle in a handmade altar, becoming part of a community, or reading an analog magazine in this digital age...you’re almost there.
To see Anna Flowers’ work or attend an altar building workshop, find her at AnnaFlowersCeramics.com.
It's like walking with bare feet on the earth.