Robin's Egg Blue French Marigold

A gift for a coworker walks a narrow line — personal enough to mean something, safe enough to survive an open-plan office — and the Robin's Egg Blue French Marigold threads it without appearing to try. The French Marigold has always had an identity problem: it isn't French, it's Mexican by way of Africa by way of a horticultural journey nobody at the garden center has ever been asked to explain, and Robin's Egg Blue does nothing to clear that up. It just stands there, the wrong color for a marigold, unbothered. Ceramic, glazed, permanently upright on a desk or a wall, it needs no watering, no daylight, and no explanation from whoever gave it. Chive Ceramics Studio has been shaping flowers like this one by hand since 2004, and this exact piece has a place in the collection at the Maritime Aquarium in Connecticut. The marigold, still confused about its own nationality, does not seem to mind.