I truly believe some things are meant to be. I believe that some people come past, through and into our lives for a great reason. I’ve never felt this stronger than in my short 2.5 years as a mother, and even shorter time as an artist.

For me, it’s you who makes it worthwhile. People. Your stories, your experiences; you open up my heart and eyes to the vastness of this emotive world; then simultaneously ground me to the immeasurable realisation that we’re all so very close - and similar. In our consciousness - as humans. We are linked.

Never has this been more apparent than with the commission of Two Plus One (2022). There is something about the ‘first’ anything: and this was my very first commission as a professional artist. I cried when the email came in from Jono; heavy and burdened with the anxiety that my work would “never resonate with any one”…until it turns out it did: Motherhood our link.

*Two Plus One hanging on the studio wall*

On writing to me Jono had expressed how in love he was with his new son Finley, his new role as a father; and simply how amazing his partner Emily had been in the entire process; he was in awe of life for sure.

He told me that Emily too was mentally undertaking great shifts in her career mindset. She was still such a new mother, but was already hoping to transition from designer to artist - rather like me. The intention for the work was to mark her becoming a mother on her 40th year, whilst providing daily inspiration to her.

*Emily with Fin, 2022 - The artwork muse.*

What hit me hardest , was that amidst the usual rainbows and unicorns one hears of new parenthood, Jono didn’t shy away from expressing how difficult and utterly challenging it had been: they had both publicly admitted that they were “entirely unprepared” for parenthood - despite doing everything that they could to prepare, Emily wrote: “I don’t think there is anything anyone could have told us that would touch the reality of having a newborn”. Jono has also been really publicly open for 8 years about his relationship with his own mental health and experience with living with Bipolar Disorder (which incidentally brought him to pottering in the first place), and the jarring contrast between both joy and melancholy surrounding his new parenthood journey.

Much like my own.

Parenting in my experience has been - and remains - always very raw: The mental load has been the greatest challenge for me. As a natural perfectionist and over thinker, of course this spills over into mothering. And whilst it’s true that people say ‘It’s amazing’ - it truly is - it is also hard, unforgiving and exhausting many times over: often for years at a time.

*Me with a baby Monty at the beginning of my parenting journey, July 2020*

With generalised anxiety pre-baby, many (normal) things felt triggering, exaggerated, intoxicating and suffocating - it comes with the territory. And whilst a great deal of my pre-baby triggers have been placed firmly into perspective on becoming a mother, with another small human in tow, the emotions and sensations have been compounded greatly. Nothing is hidden in parenting, emotions I never thought possible have become familiar friends; and my capacity to contain the ‘weight’ of the role has left me touched out, wiped out and cried out. I’ve been elated, overjoyed, inspired and humbled to my core, but mothering in my short experience has still felt complex.

*Alex, Monty and I finding our way as a family, Summer 2021*

That’s not to say I’m not enjoying motherhood - in fact, adore it - because at my core, I think I’m addicted to feeling. Mothering captures and ignites my greatest level of emotion, of feeling, of loving and intense drive, but I’m not ashamed to admit that it still feels convoluted some days - and I haven’t felt ‘myself’ for a long time.

So as Jono and I shared parts of our stories and experiences, what struck me most, was that he didn’t seem put off or embarrassed by talking about it all. He just owned it, he made it comical: this was so refreshing to me. I felt an immediate sense of comfort and encouragement in his narrative, not to mention a real admiration for his openness to mental health discussion and awareness. That certain feeling of ‘parental comradery’ that I’ve come to really lean upon and greatly enjoy in parenting was alive.

*Jono juggling Fin and his ceramic collection, 2022*

Immediately I knew two things:

1) That I had a LOT to learn from this person, and:

2) That their family story would be the absolute perfect fit for my work.

So here it is. Two Plus One (2022), explores the cherished experience of new motherhood within a family unit of 3. My own emotion on the subject poured into the work, along with what I believed would also echo within its eventual forever home - with Emily.

*Except from the bespoke collectors booklet*

*Stitch and layer detail, Two Plus One (2021)*

*Preliminary stitch experimentation for the piece*

“Thankyou so so much!! It’s utterly beautiful and thoughtful - so much so I started to cry. I couldn’t be happier, I will treasure it forever. The poem is so honest and so very true” - Emily

I think its fair to say that we all create sketches in our minds of how we want and hope the world to act and how we expect our lives to be. The longer we hold these ideals in our minds, perhaps the more jumbled and dis-orientated we feel when (typically) what we had hoped for or expected isn't what happens - nor do we feel how we’d always assumed we would.

For me, motherhood causes those ‘sketches’ to change routinely: they get rubbed out, blurred out, maybe we create a few more ideas and leave other sketches unfinished. This is not to say we have not succeeded, I guess this means we are all succeeding: succeeding at surviving it. Surviving [anything in life] is sometimes all we have.

I’m glad that Emily gets my artwork also to remind her that she is wonderful. And I’m glad that Two Plus One(2022) was meant to be.

For more information on how you too can commission your own story, please get in touch at nikki@nikkiheatonstudio.com or find me on Instagram here.

You can find more beautiful and inspiring works by Jono and Emily here in both ceramic and wood.

Two Plus One (2022): A Story of Three

A Letter to My Sensitive Friends

Objects of Meaning