This sunflower bird bath was drawn for my niece. The year she started grade school she wanted one enormous sunflower, and rather than hand her a bouquet that would wilt, I drew it on paper instead: a bowl twenty four inches across, eighteen inches tall overall, with the water in the bowl kept under two inches. That depth was not picked at random. Audubon suggests one to one and a half inches in an outdoor bird bath, because deeper than that and small birds will not go in, shallower and it does not hold. The flower head had to be wide enough for a bird to stand right inside it without its tail hanging over the rim. The pedestal follows the stem of a sunflower with a slight waist, so from the kitchen window it reads as a flower growing in the border rather than a disc on a stick. Only once the drawing was settled did we cut the molds, one for the bowl and one for the pedestal. A mold fixes the shape, and every piece poured from it afterwards comes out the same. From that day the flower stopped belonging only to her.

Cement, sand, water and mineral pigment, mixed to a ratio and poured in one go. This is solid cast concrete, not a thin shell over filler, which is why a bird bath this size weighs so much more than a resin piece. The hard part comes after the pour, which is waiting. You cannot rush the mold. The piece cures in it for several days, because concrete gains strength through hydration, a little more each day, and the industry measures that strength at twenty eight days for a reason. The moment it comes out it is gray and heavy with no color on it at all, but the shape is already right: the layers of the petals, the run of the veins, the curve of the bowl floor, all of it there. Run a hand over it and there is a fine grit, the rough face a bird can grip. That is not sanded on afterwards, it is what the concrete leaves behind, and it is exactly the surface an outdoor bird bath should have.

Some of the pigment goes into the concrete at the mixing stage. The layer on the surface is brushed on by hand, petal by petal: the depth of the yellows, the run of the veins, the touch of green on the pedestal, all of it handwork, which is why no two pieces come out identical. That is the real difference between a hand painted concrete bird bath and a spray finished production piece. Once it is dry it takes a coat of sealer against UV and rain, so the yellow can hold through one summer after another. Then a last pass of checks: the bowl has to sit level, it has to hold water without seeping, and no edge can be chipped, before it gets boxed. The first one went to her family garden and it is still there, with birds on it every summer. Enough people asked about it that we turned it into a product, twenty four inches, solid cast concrete, and it is the one you are looking at on this page.