Eileen Van Lieshout：Clay, Storms, and the Power to Endure

How one Florida artist found peace of mind and creative continuity in the quiet hum of solar power.

The Island and the Wheel

On Anna Maria Island, where the Gulf glimmers in morning light and the air hums with salt and softness, ceramic artist Eileen Van Lieshout begins her day in silence. Her hands, steady and practiced, move through the familiar ritual of centering clay on a wheel. “You literally have to be centered yourself,” she says. “It’s calming, almost meditative.”

Her studio, tucked in the Village of the Arts in Bradenton, is equal parts gallery and sanctuary. The walls bear the hues of the Gulf: turquoise, coral, sand. Every vessel she throws feels like a quiet conversation with nature, a response to the place that has shaped her.

But living in paradise comes with a caveat: storms. The kind that rearrange lives overnight. And for Eileen, that intersection of beauty and fragility became the backdrop for a story not only about art but about power, safety, and the quiet strength of preparation.

A Gift That Started Everything

Eileen’s journey with clay began in high school, continued through college, and stretched across continents to China, where she once rented a small studio to keep her hands in the craft. Yet the true beginning of her life as a full-time artist came with an unlikely wedding gift: a pottery wheel and a kiln, given by her father.

“My husband thought it was a bizarre gift,” she laughs. “But for me, it was everything.”

That gift became the cornerstone of her career, a signal from her father that art wasn’t just a hobby but a calling. “He said, ‘It’s the one thing you’ve done consistently for ten years. Why not really do it?’” she recalls.

Her father’s faith in her would echo years later in another kind of gift, a search for security and light in darkness.

The Storm and the Silence

Florida storms do not announce themselves gently. When Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene swept through the Gulf, the island where Eileen and her family lived was nearly underwater. “We looked out the window and saw the Gulf surging down the street like rapids,” she says quietly. “Cars were stuck in sand. People had to swim from their houses.”

For three days, her neighborhood was isolated. Roads impassable. Power gone. And for many residents, especially the elderly, it was terrifying.

Eileen’s father, who had been ill and dependent on a medical suction machine, had once feared outages like this. It was his anxiety that first led Eileen to discover Jackery, a line of portable solar power stations. “He never got to use it,” she says, “but I started looking into it for him. And after he passed, I realized it was something I needed too.”

When Milton hit, Eileen relied on her Jackery Explorer 1000 to keep her refrigerator, and her breast milk, cold. “It wasn’t a lot of power,” she admits. “But it was something. We survived three days that way.”

Building a Fortress

After flooding twice in their previous home, Eileen and her husband moved three blocks inland to what neighbors now call “the fortress.” It is a tall, concrete house that feels more bunker than bungalow. “We live vertically now,” she laughs. “It’s solid. We sandbag the doors before every storm.”

Still, no structure is immune to Florida’s fury. So the family built a new kind of resilience: power independence. “After that storm, I told my husband, ‘We need more.’”

She upgraded from a single Jackery to four Jackery Explorer 5000 Plus Power Stations, connected through smart transfer switches to power two electrical panels in her home. “We can run everything except the air conditioner,” she says. “But I got a portable one for one cool room, just in case.”

When hurricanes threaten, Eileen lines her rooftop terrace, where she usually hosts barbecues and sunsets, with solar panels. “That space is meant for friends and wine,” she smiles. “Now it’s our little power plant.”

Peace of Mind in the Eye of Chaos

During outages, the island becomes eerily quiet until the generators start. Their mechanical growl fills the humid air, breaking the silence that follows the storm. But inside Eileen’s home, there is a rare calm.

“The Jackerys are silent,” she says. “I can close the windows, keep the fridge running, make coffee, and my daughter can sleep without all that noise.”

Her daughter, now four, has grown up in a world where hurricanes are normal, where power lines fall and families adapt. “She’s resilient,” Eileen says. “She doesn’t see it as scary, just something to deal with. As long as we’re calm, she’s calm.”

In the face of destruction, Eileen’s story is not one of survival alone; it is one of grace under pressure. Her art continues, her community rebuilds, and the lights stay on.

A Community Rewired

In the wake of the storms, the community rallied. A local breakfast chain set up a pancake stand at the community center. Aid groups arrived with laundry trailers and showers. “We’d do laundry in the parking lot of the library,” Eileen says. “It sounds small, but it means everything.”

When the farmers’ market reopened, it welcomed artisans for the first time. Eileen joined with her handmade pottery and ornaments, powered by a Jackery Explorer 240 that lights her display tree and charges her phone. “Other vendors come over to charge their phones too,” she smiles. “We’ve kind of formed a little Jackery community.”

In a place so often tested by wind and water, power becomes more than electricity; it becomes connection.

Art That Reflects Resilience

Much of Eileen’s pottery draws from the Gulf’s palette, azure blues, soft sands, coral blushes. But after the storms, her colors have deepened. “When you see what can be lost,” she says, “you appreciate what you have even more.”

Each bowl and mug feels like an offering, something both fragile and enduring. The same could be said for her life.

She calls Jackery “peace of mind,” but it is also a symbol of continuity, self-sufficiency, and a life that can weather change and still find light. “It’s safety,” she says. “It’s knowing that even when everything else goes dark, we’ll be okay.”

The Power of Stillness

On quiet evenings, Eileen returns to her wheel. Her daughter sits nearby, tiny hands patting the clay. The house hums faintly, the refrigerator, the soft whirr of a fan, all powered by sunlight stored in orange boxes stacked like sentinels against the wall.

Outside, the Gulf is calm again.

And inside, so is she.