Working through her grief, Virginia Beach artist creates miniature ceramic wedding dresses
In fall 2019, Erika Hitchcock sat at a table, her hands immersed in clay, needing to lose herself in something. Something other than pain.
She’d spent the year grieving and still couldn’t articulate it, but her artist’s fingers had rediscovered her favorite medium.
She started with the paragon of possibilities for getting lost: a wedding dress.
It took hours to sculpt the gown a little over a foot high, smoothing the A-line silhouette and carving the intricate appliques along the shoulders, V-neck and bodice.
Hitchcock lost herself in the beauty of the work and found a business.
Last summer, she launched Stone Wear Ceramics, in which she produces miniature wedding dresses.
Technically, the retired high school art teacher can make any dress. Among her home boutique of mermaids and crystal-encrusted recreations is the voluminous confection Lady Gaga wore to perform at the recent presidential inauguration. (It is complete with the oversized gold dove brooch.)
In Hitchcock’s “Stronger Than Stone” collection, a group of dresses that honor women she admires, is a flowing black robe of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last September. Its neckline is a beaded signature Bader collar. One white shoe, symbolizing her absence, peaks from underneath the billowy folds.
Hitchcock gets orders from brides, husbands hunting for an anniversary gift and women who’ve had their gowns boxed up for years but want to see them on a daily basis.
It is happiness for her clients and healing for Hitchcock.
“I’ve always loved wedding gowns. They are just beautiful,” Hitchcock said, “But they are so symbolic of life, promise and future. I think for me, it’s a symbol that you’re never going to be alone in the world.
She paused.
“It’s hard when you’re alone.”
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Not that Hitchcock knew what that was like as a kid. She was the second among four growing up in a rambunctious New Jersey family. She started studying interior design in college. Then she became pregnant, and she and her future husband relocated to his hometown of Virginia Beach to build their family.
She’d never been one to daydream of her own wedding gown. She got married in a knee-length dress she found at Macy’s. After her second child, Hitchcock returned to college and became a teacher. Taking care of her family and teaching never left much time for her own art.
When it did, dresses often cropped up in her work, and there were plenty when she’d think back to her childhood and her two sisters. She started experimenting with wedding dresses in clay about 10 years ago.
In 2018, Hitchcock was as busy as she’d ever been as she was running the International Baccalaureate art program at Green Run High in Virginia Beach and creating internships for her students.
Then the baby of the family, her brother, Paul, the one who wrote poetry, played the guitar beautifully and shared her sense of humor, died. He was 41.
He’d developed schizoaffective disorder in his 20s and had been living in Colorado, where he’d graduated from college. Hitchcock said he wasn’t getting the proper medical care that he needed and was taking a variety of medications, including an antihistamine to balance the symptoms of the mental disorder.
He took too much. He passed, alone, on Dec. 18 and was found Christmas night.
“He was my best friend,” Hitchcock said.
Two weeks later, the family Yorkie, Rocky, died.
Then in August 2019, Hitchcock and her husband were on a trip to Portugal. Hitchcock experienced a bout of dehydration and low blood pressure, passed out and crashed into a glass wall with a metal rail. Her chin and lip were split open and she suffered a severe concussion.
It took three months to recuperate. She decided to retire at the end of the year.
“I was just depleted,” she said.
Her mom bought her a slab roller to work with her clay and told her to do something. Hitchcock obeyed. She refined how to work the earthy dough to resemble dainty lace, satiny ruffles and silk as it runs over a bride’s leg as she walks down the aisle.
She can glaze to match skin shades that peak through illusion sleeves and that fine shimmer of an antique sheen. Hitchcock fires them in a kiln in her garage. Each dress takes at least 25 hours to complete.
“Every time I work, I feel close to my brother,” She said.
Inspiration is everywhere, she said: the “Say Yes to the Dress” wedding show, brides, the news.
Last summer, Hitchcock was plying an alabaster Viktor & Rolf strapless with a skirt of flowers and a cascade of tulle. News reports broke about Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African American man in Georgia who was jogging one day through a neighborhood. Two white men, assuming he was a burglar, jumped into a truck, chased him down and fatally shot him.
The jogger reminded Hitchcock of so many of her students, she said. She named the dress, “Arbery.”
Hitchcock was horrified when she saw the story of Lauren and Matt Urey of Richmond who were seriously injured while honeymooning in New Zealand. In December 2019, the two were with a tour group on White Island, home of an active volcano. It erupted that afternoon, spewing ash, rocks and toxic gas and killing 22 people. Matt Urey sustained burns over 80% of his body, and Lauren Urey was burned along her face, neck, stomach, hands and legs.
The couple was hospitalized separately at different facilities. During a video interview, Lauren recalled how nervous she was for her husband to see her scarred. She feared that he would think she was ugly.
It made Hitchcock cry. She, too, had scars following her incident in Portugal. News stories often showed Lauren in her wedding dress. Hitchcock created a sculpture, contacted Lauren through Facebook and eventually drove to deliver it to her as a gift. Lauren later posted a thanks on Facebook:
“She contacted me because our story touched her and she wanted to give back,” Lauren wrote. “She’s such an amazing person and the detail of the sculpture is unbelievable! Her kindness moved me to tears and I just want to share her beautiful work with you all.”
That’s what Hitchcock needs. To know that she’s helping.
When she does sell her gowns — they start at $450 — a portion of the proceeds go to local groups that support adults living with mental illness, she said. Her mother, Pat, who now lives in Virginia Beach, makes velvet and satin garment bags for each gown.
Hitchcock works in her home studio with a photo of a smiling Paul propped near a window. In front of her, she’ll pull up an image of a gown on a tablet and the bride she wants to make smile. She can’t play music while she works. It reminds her too much of her brother. But, he always talked about how lovely her ceramic work was.
“I feel that I’m healing,” she said. “I feel that I’m where I’m supposed to be right now.”
Denise M. Watson, 757-446-2504, denise.watson@pilotonline.com
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To see more
To see a gallery of Hitchcock’s dresses and to view her “Stronger than Stone” collection, go to www.stonewearceramics.com.
