(The following newspaper article written by Lisa Crawford Watson appeared in The Monterey Herald on April 12, 2002.)

Mary Beth Harris is having a wonderful time, and she owes it all to tragedy. That and a little fowl play.

It was 1990, and Harris was loving life in Los Angeles. A Hollywood production manager, her days were filled with the fun, the famous and the frenetic. Until she sensed the needs of her elderly parents and returned to Carmel. Her mother, who had fallen twice, had developed rheumatoid arthritis and was in a wheelchair. Her father needed help.

"Then, one day, while working for a local record company," she said, "I witnessed a bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder that was surely heard all over the state. A tree fell over on Mission Street, pulling up the sidewalk and some of the park. This began the Flood of March '95 and my reason for being here."

The floodwaters washed Harris' parents out of their Mission Fields home, taking with them life as they'd known it. For the next month, as the rain continued, Harris spent her days over a wheelbarrow, carting in sand and hauling out mud. The thick silt covered hands and mouth, hair and mind.

Wind cut through her like a crisis, but she didn't have time to notice. Her parents returned to their home in June.

"I was toying with the idea of going back to LA," said Harris, "but there was so much more to come. Mom's arthritis became more and more severe as Dad became more exhausted. Soon after, Dad became weak and ill and was then diagnosed with cancer. LA would have to wait."

Instead of Hollywood, Harris moved home.

"As Mom's pain increased," she said, "Dad's tumor grew larger. I was so grateful to God that I had trusted my instincts and that I was here with them, doing the best I could with the two people I love most in world. It wasn't a job, it was an honor. It was the hardest thing I have done in my life, but also the most rewarding."

In a matter of months, Harris' life had gone from carefree to caretaker. Instead of managing actors, she was dealing with doctors; instead of early cast calls, she was setting her alarm for midnight medicine. She was making meals and decisions, driving to appointments and up to Stanford Medical Center, sorting through information and medication.

Exactly one year after the flood, Harris' father died.

"The thought of LA popped up again," she said, "but by then, my mom's arthritis had crept into her beautiful hands. Those hands that had painted so many beautiful pictures that have made many people happy over the years. Mom is still an inactive member of the Carmel Art Association. Her hands were deformed and riddled with constant pain. It was not an appropriate time to leave."

Harris began her own downward spiral. She wasn't eating right, sleeping much or exercising at all. Her social life had ceased, and her spirit had been caged. She prayed for a break in the storm. For Mary Beth Harris, the rain continued to come down.

"One day," she said, "a friend dragged me, kicking and screaming, to 'Glazes,' a paint-your- own workshop. I had not inherited my mother's artistic talent. I didn't think I could draw, paint or design anything. But my friend was so insistent, I went. It changed my life. I even started working there. Finally, I had something to do, a place to go, a creative outlet for a few hours a day."

One afternoon a man came into the shop with a bag full of broken pottery. "My wife is pregnant, her hormones are raging, and I just broke her favorite platter."

After Harris exhausted her resources for locating another "yellow platter with pink pig," she decided to help him create a new one. She traced the pig and matched the colors. When it came out of the kiln, she loved it. Best of all, his wife loved it.

"I was so engaged by the art," said Harris, "I did a whole set of dishes with a lamb and a goose and a horse on it. But no sooner had I taken them out of the kiln, when a customer offered to buy them. I had found my niche."

She began to heal. She regained her energy, her spirit, her balance.

Then, one day, a customer came into Glazes and admired Harris' pottery.

"Your donkey is right out of a French children's book," she said. "Your animals are really similar."

Harris had never felt like the folk art was truly hers. It was merely a variation on a theme she'd admired in the pig platter. It wasn't right. She let it go.

Wandering through a Goodwill shop one afternoon, she noticed a set of old juice glasses. Something about them spoke to her; something inside her said, "Paint a chicken on them."

"I'd never had a chicken," said Harris. "I don't know from chickens. But I bought the glasses and painted them."

Her chickenware sold immediately. She painted another set. Another sale. They were hot, they were hers and she was happy.

"Mary Beth's chicken glasses are the most cheerful little things," said Carmel's Shari Farr. "They clearly came out of her healing through all the difficult time she's endured." One lady from New Jersey said, 'This chicken is so amateur, I'll take 12.' You think '50s and you think fun. People drink wine out of them. I have 8 of them myself."

Very few people think juice, said Harris, who has been selling them by the dozens at Pacific Rim, a Carmel boutique of clothing, accessories and jewelry for women, where she now works. In fact, she's sold 55 glasses in the last two weeks, not to mention her pitchers, butter dishes, and salt and pepper shakers.

"Our focus is clothing, but the store's always had a collectible aspect to it," said Marianne Schleicher, who founded the company 20 years ago, after her travels through Indonesia. "There's always something - sunflowers one year, chickens the next - so I keep my eyes open for the little odd things that make special gifts like the chicken glasses. They fit into my mission statement."

Harris paints her chickens in a glossy, dishwasher-safe paint, and then lets them sit for 24 to 48 hours before baking them in her oven for 45 minutes at 325 degrees.