Clearmount’s Memorable Pieces – The Cork Edition
In these unprecedented times, we thought we would bring you some levity and fun. We plan on showcasing the projects that we love, the ones that we still think about years later, and the personal items that we’ve encapsulated into timeless art pieces.
Two years ago, Gillian, my sister and our SIGG retail coordinator got engaged. We celebrated as we always do, a bottle of the good champagne and toasts all around. It was a lovely family moment where my youngest sister came home from Ottawa and we reminisced about how my mom would have already planned the wedding but was still with us in spirit. The cork from that bottle was sitting on the counter and instinct honed from years of working on amazing personal pieces for our clients, told me to pocket it for later. I had no idea what that later would be but I put it in a jar in my office.
These moments kept happening throughout the year of wedding planning. When we toasted her and her fiancé at their wedding shower, I quickly moved to steal the cork before it got thrown away. A quiet comment to the bartender got me a cork from her bachelorette wine tour. I even walked around her rehearsal dinner with one in my skirt pocket. Worried about putting it down somewhere and losing it in the pre wedding chaos. The final cork I collected was from a toast on the deck of our family’s cottage with her in her beautiful gown. We toasted to her future, my mom, and our family. The sunny day after weeks of rain got some extra bubbly too!.
Clearmount’s Memorable Cork Piece
I kept all these corks , not knowing what I wanted to do exactly but figuring I had the skilled makers of Clearmount that I could talk to. The trick was to make it happen when Gillian was out of the office. As she handles inventory for us, she’s regularly walking through the factory checking on orders and stock. It wouldn’t do to have her asking about what that piece with the corks was for. When she left on her honeymoon, I knew my window was now. Cam, our embedder and I figured out a column piece with the corks angled throughout the piece. This way, she could stand it up or have it laying on its side depending on where she placed it in her home.
When it was finished, it was beautiful but I wanted to make it even more of a Gillian gift. I took the speeches that my dad, sister and I had written for her wedding and engraved them on three sides. It moved from an art piece to a testament of our love for Gillian.
We at Clearmount are regularly entrusted with the one of a kind pieces and memories of people. It was nerve wracking to have these objects that I had been collecting for a year going into the acrylic but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.
My younger sister is getting married in the fall and I have something different planned for her. But as she’s subscribed to our newsletter, that story is going to have to wait.
