Ten years ago, Maria made this one  potholder, she called it the Show Your Art Guru. She never made another or put this one up for sale. It was for me, for us, and it hands in our kitchen just by the toaster, where it has served us every day since before we were married.

It was made to mark one of the most singular moments in our early life together, the day I danced naked in the snow for her, and for her art.

As the person who shops and cooks I use potholders almost every day, and while it has held up well, it is fading a bit, and the sad truth is that I forgot about it. It hangs on the wall, I hardly look at it,  it doesn’t register with me any longer.

It  became just another humble potholder hanging somewhere in our busy and distracted lives. Since it was made, Maria has made thousands more potholders and sold them all over the world. At the time, she doubted she could sell a single one.

Many are a lot fancier and more complex now. Maria has – to her amazement – turned the potholder into an art form, from her goddesses to trees to ancient symbols and vintage fabrics.

This morning, the Show Your Art Guru potholder came out of hiding.

Maria asked me to help her do a special video for her blog about our kitchen potholders – her readers were curious about the ones we use – the Show Your Art Guru brought back some powerful memories for me.

As Maria’s straight man during videos, I pointed the camera as she went through the kitchen video, and I was startled when she held this very important potholder up for me to focus on.

It was a kind of shock to me, it threw me off balance.

I asked her to remind me about the potholder even though I knew quite well what it was, I was just at a loss for words and buying time.  My heart started racing. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, this was a good thing.

The memory of that very memorable morning came flooding back, and into my heart. I am ashamed to have forgotten it.

It is, after all, a love potholder, a love story. How could I ever forget that night, even for a day? We were both recently divorced at the time he was made, broke, depressed and crippled by ugly panic attacks. I had cracked up and she was close. We were two birds in a big storm looking for someplace to hide, but we both live in the now, we spend little time rehashing the past.

it was about ten years ago. Maria had not yet moved into the first Bedlam Farm to live with me, but I wanted her to. On cold or stormy nights, she sometimes stayed over.  I kept a lot of wine and good food on hand just in case. I didn’t push her, it would have been a mistake.

She was different then, we were both battered and desperate, living in fear and panic and confusion.

Maria was almost mute, she lived in great fear. She desperately wanted to be an artist but was literally terrified at the idea of showing her art to anyone. She doubted anyone would ever like it or buy it.

Being an artist was a life-long dream for her but she doubted it could ever come true. She had permitted other people in her world to keep her from it. That is an old story with creatives, especially women.

She had nearly given up on it.

No matter what anyone told her, she just didn’t believe anyone would like or want her art. She was discouraged and pushed into other kinds of work. She seemed to have no faith in herself, no ego. That, as many of you know, has changed.

I took it on myself to encourage her in this idea of being an artist, of going for it.

Get rid of the day job, I said, make a run for it. I tried to encourage her just as she encouraged me. At times this encouragement was all that either of us had to cling to. I know it saved my life. But it wasn’t enough, of course. I couldn’t do that for her.

She had to come to it herself. (She has).

Maria had a challenging job then at a home for the emotionally disabled, she left for work in the dark in her toilet bowl of a car in the middle of a very harsh winter. She kept saying she needed the money, she should just go full-time. She would never sell enough art to pay her bills.

I know from my own life that getting a day job (“don’t give your day job up, is what they always say”) can be fatal advice to give young creatives.  Why should they plunge into the uncertainties of the creative life if they can pay their bills every week on time?

People who take day jobs rarely give them up. The creative life is a hard life and an insecure one, nobody ever says “quit the day job.” I say it all the time. And I did it.

The choice is always stark – security verses the soul.

Maria had agreed to work part-time in order to give her time to be an artist and make her art.  But she agonized over the decision every day, she had all those voices in her head telling her to go for the money and security, encouraging her to doubt herself.

She had started making and selling potholders because she loved the idea of potholders as art and because she was desperate to make money. Potholders were inexpensive art on the kitchen wall.

It was the onset of the Great Recession, and nobody was buying quilts. It would take a lot of courage to pursue a creative life. Maria has a lot of courage.

I’ve lived around women who claim to be feminists, but until I met Maria, I don’t think I had encountered a real one close-up.

Maria was penniless when we met, she refused alimony from her husband or any help from me. She took this job, and she rented an apartment in seedy Granville, N.Y.,  which cost $600 a month, she moved in after the landlord agreed to let her bring Frieda, her wolf/dog man- hating companion.

Maria was not too crazy about men either, the two were a perfect pair, a rural Thelma and Louise.

At this point, I knew we belonged together, I began scheming for ways to get her to come and live with me, but I also knew if I pushed too hard she would bolt. She needed time and space. I asked her to marry me every day for about two years, (we aren’t divorced, she would say) I was stunned when she finally mumbled, “well, okay,” one day.

She wanted – needed – to know she could take care of herself.

Late at night,  she would go into her studio, a barn across the road from my farmhouse that I had given her to work in. It was a small barn, with a wood stove and a beautiful view of the valley.

She loved her potholders from the first, she sensed they were something people could afford and they were also in their own right,  genuine works of art. People started buying them after awhile, but not right away.

I think she charged $10 then for each one.

Some days she was so discouraged I feared for her, and I hated seeing her drive off in storm after storm in the dark on those cold and stormy nights in deep snow and ice. She was my life and my light. I wanted to help her and encourage her without spooking her or taking over her life. I knew she wanted to figure this out on her own, and I knew I had to respect that.

I did and do.

One morning, after Maria suffered a series of debilitating panic attacks  and seemed in despair – she was talking of giving up her art and working full-time –  I woke up with a plan, perhaps more accurately described as an impulse.

As she showered and took the sandwich I prepared for her (I loved to feed her and still do, otherwise she would exist on cheese and bread), my idea took focus. I had to make sure the timing was right.

On an earlier trip, I think it was for a speech to a veterinary conference, I’d gone to Disney World and bought a Wizard’s hat from the movie Fantasia. I brought it home as a gift for her, she kept it in her studio. I thought it might inspire her work.

How could I forget how frightened she was, how helpless I felt? Perhaps because she is so competent and sure of herself now.

When she came downstairs  that bitter cold morning – it was pitch black, sub-zero and blowing snow – I had a surprise for her. I handed her lunch bag.

When she went out to scrape her car off and head out to work, I took off my bathrobe and put the Wizard hat on.

Maria was very sad then, but she never lost her sense of humor, which a huge part of her. That’s what I was banking on. I remembered Joseph Campbell writing about the creative women that he taught, so many undermined by dubious husbands, fathers or brothers. He urged them to follow their bliss, otherwise, he cautioned, they might live substitute lives.

If Maria failed to show her art, I felt that would be her fate.

She was and is easily distractable and it occurred to me she might just run me over out there in the morning. She always has a dozen things on her mind. Still, a really stirring sight might get her attention.

I knew she warmed up the car for a few minutes before she drove the little thing – it was like a lawn mower with slightly bigger wheels – and I  rushed out into the night, right into the headlights of her car.

Yes, naked.

I can only imagine what she was thinking, but the sensor lights came on outside when I went out and I could see her face. I know what I was thinking. Lord, this is cold!

But I pulled the wizard cap down on my head and started dancing, in all my naked splendor.  I yelled that I was the Show Your Art Guru and that I wanted her to show her art.

I saw her eyes widen in disbelief, and then she cracked up, laughing and clapping and shouting “ya, bravo.” I hadn’t ever seen her laugh that hard.

She got out of the car and asked me what I thought I was doing.

“I am the Show Your Art Guru,” I shouted, dancing some more, and turning blue in the cold. I had a stick I used as a wand and cast a spell on her. “You must not give up your art,” I shouted through the wind, the Show Your Art Guru commands  you to show our art!”

Well, I can hardly believe the impact this had on her. She was laughing all day, and when she came home from work just after lunch, she was transformed, anxious to get to the studio, anxious to put her potholders and quilts up for sale.

Watching her laugh, I felt vindicated. You can’t laugh that hard and be too sad.

The Show  Your Art Guru was not the only reason she stuck with her art, I’m not sure she could have given it up once she had her studio to work in. But it sure helped that day, the ludicrous sight of me dancing in the snow, and her own laughter seemed to break the spell.

Since that morning (the guru appeared a few more times) she has never doubted her life as an artist, or said that nobody would ever buy her art. She cranked out classy potholders with a passion, and sold a ton over Christmas.

So maybe the Show Your Art Guru had some mojo after all.

I am abashed to have forgotten this potholder, and I vow to do him justice. He is retired from the kitchen, and going where he belongs.

That would be on my studio wall, where he can be honored and have a peaceful retirement. Someplace where I can look at him every day and thank him for the very great service he did for Maria, for me, and for the rest of the world.

Love may not conquer all, but it conquers a lot.