I have always loved decorating my living spaces. When I moved into my first apartment just over 10 years ago I was so excited to have a blank slate. Some people are minimalists. I am not. My style could probably best be described as eclectic. I love color and texture. And stuff. Collecting things from my travels, or from places I’ve never been, results in a cozy, colorful mishmash. I’ll be sharing some of the ways that my sister and I have mixed things together in our current apartment in this series.
First up – the garden.
In a back corner, standing in the pot of a fuchsia is this ceramic poppy from an art installation called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London in 2014. To commemorate the beginning of World War One two ceramic artists, Paul Cummins and Tom Piper, created 888,246 handmade ceramic poppies – one for each Commonwealth soldier killed during the war. Each one was planted/staked in the ground of the moat, thousands each day by volunteers, until they filled 60 acres.
I was in London that year with my parents and sister and had read about the installation. My mom and I ducked out of a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe early and took a taxi over to the Tower of London to see it. The installation was about halfway complete at that point, but it was already breath taking. To see the scale of life lost transformed into something beautiful, something that thousands of people participated in bringing to life – the memory of it still bring tears to my eyes.
The poppies were available for sale on the Tower of London website with the proceeds going to six UK service charities. My mom and I were lucky enough to purchase one for each of us and mine now lives in my garden. Every time I see it I remember standing above the moat looking at the sea of red and feeling both incredibly small and a part of something monumental.