Mammoth Sterling teapot brings smiles

By FRANCESCA KEFALAS
Norwich Bulletin

One man’s scrap is Ulric Deojay’s giant teapot.

Family and friends have long known Deojay has a penchant for dotting his Sterling Road home with unusual items, such as a chaise lounge carved of stone, boulders with faces and a pig roaster the size of a two-man submarine.

But now, anyone driving down the road can easily see the creativity of Deojay and his sister Alice Sumner. With the help of friends, the two have created a teapot, more than 20 feet tall, featuring a mural with an eagle and the American flag on it.

“It was an old water tank in a scrap yard,” said Deojay, who is a stone mason and owns Big Rock Company. “I saw it and said ‘I could do something with that.’”

More than a year in the making, Deojay estimates 19 friends helped turn the water tank into a teapot. Pouring from the spout of the teapot is water to aerate Deojay’s pond and keep the fish in it happy and healthy.

But, as far as Deojay is concerned, it is Sumner, an art teacher in Plainfield, who made the teapot special. He asked for an eagle and the flag and got a mural symbolizing his family.

“I didn’t have a plan when I started,” Sumner said. “It evolved as I went.”

The teapot features a river to symbolize Deojay and wife Bonnie’s love of kayaking. There are boulders to symbolize Deojay’s work as a stone mason and a female eagle, with a nest that has two eggs, symbolizing the Deojays’ two children.

Sumner painted for six hours over eight days to finish the mural in time for Fourth of July.

Sumner and Deojay are just two of 17 siblings. Everyone in the family is creative, Sumner said, but it is the first time the two of them have teamed up.

Bonnie Deojay didn’t know about her husband’s plan until she saw the giant water tank in her yard. She was skeptical.

“I didn’t have the vision they had, and now I am awestruck,” Bonnie said.

Bonnie is not the only one. Cars visibly slow to stare at the teapot. One day, the Deojays found a man parked in their driveway taking pictures of the teapot.

Peter Pond was one of the friends who worked on the tank. He cut a door in the side of the tank that allows Deojay to use it as a shed.

“It’s another of Ric’s ideas,” Pond said. “He wants to do it because he’s got time, and you go help him and life is good.”

(this article was take from the Norwish Bulletin)