The Smoke Pot

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Throughout the summer of 2003, Heather and I were apart. I was unemployed and she was about to begin grad school, so we opted to avoid city rent for a few months. We retreated to our respective families' homes; I summered in a New Jersey basement, she in the conservative hills surrounding the University of Virginia.

Each of us took advantage of the months, spending time with our younger siblings before they went off to first-year. I kept my brother busy pirating music by the gig, helping me retouch magazine work, and setting up a home network for my parents. Heather and her sister made The Smoke Pot.

House rules dictated that they smoke outside, and as two sisters (and smokers) will do when they haven't been together in a while, they burned through cartons on the stoop and in the garage. After complaints of errant butts from their mother grew tiring, they resolved to craft a solution.

It started with repurposed terra cotta, and continued through several runs to big-box craft stores. They picked up acrylics and dyed sand, drawing the project out over weeks for the sake of it.

The pot lived for years in Charlottesville, and has now retired to the South Carolina shore; the magically damp and slow land from which we just returned.