Don Reitz
earthenware, low fired salt with engobes
2.5 x 22 x 22''
mid 1980s 
signed
*In 1982, Don Reitz was in a truck accident and told he would never walk again. And while he was in the hospital, he learned his father had died.
"So I began revisiting my childhood in the hospital, making sketches," he says. "When I got better, I started drawing about my childhood: showing off to Claire Matthews, riding my bicycle upside down, jumping off a train." Reitz's young niece, Sara, sent him get-well cards with pictures. And then, he learned she had cancer. He incorporated some of her images, tracing them into large platters of clay. There were messages of encouragement on the back.
*note, slight clay separation where foot was attached to platter. It does not affect the piece.