A San Francisco artist is bringing flowers into bathrooms in a very new and unexpected way: Clark Sorensen's Nature Calls series of works "is a line of one-of-a-kind, handmade, porcelain [urinals] in the shape of gigantic flowers - art that can actually be plumbed and used in a bathroom," according to a recent Columbia News Service story.

"I kept thinking, 'Here's something that we use every day. I wonder if I could make it into some kind of new form,'" Sorensen said. "Flowers are beautiful, delicate and feminine, but urinals are considered ugly, something we hide away - so for me it became the perfect combination, the perfect contradiction." (To see a photo of the urinals, click here.)

To create each piece, Sorensen must sculpt flowers by hand before the work is fired and glazed. Once finished, each urinal "should last a lifetime," Sorensen said. Prices run from $4,000 to $10,000, and most of Sorensen's customers are homeowners, such as Kathy Dorfman, a New Jersey woman who purchased a $10,000 pink orchid urinal to complement the marble bathroom of her penthouse apartment.

"Now, I have this gorgeous piece of art that I love," Dorfman said, "and my husband and I never have an issue with the toilet seat. It's always down."

"I created them from the standpoint of an artist, but I think it's cool that they can be used," said Sorensen, whose work will be on display at the San Francisco Orchid Society's Pacific Orchid Exposition in March. "It's a unique blend of form and function ... I'm becoming known as the urinal man. But I'm fine with that."