Beads, Balls, Berries and Baubles

“Nope,” says the first guy, “I want plain leaves, no little gewgaws or whatever those are.” “Be sure it has lots of those little doodads,” says the next customer, “I love the little dark balls and berries.” 

“Doodads” are like anything else: people love them or hate them! I started adding little balls to my pumpkin pots many years ago. I think they soften them, sometimes help balance them, or simply add interest. Nature is full of little pods, galls, and nuts, so the tiny additions look to me like they belong there. It took me awhile to figure out how to make acorns out of clay; for a long time I made little balls and left it at that. These little additions are likely to occur anywhere on the pot, although it is generally only the ones on the rim that people have to have or to avoid. They may or may not notice the others.

I long ago fell into the habit of putting a metallic “Saturation Gold” edge on my pot rims, and that goes on the “beads, balls, berries and baubles” too. It is food safe when properly fired and helps finish the pieces. What do you think? Are you pro or con baubles, doodads, and gewgaws?

Beads, beads, beads

When does a little ball of clay become a bead? My answer is when someone uses a straw to make a hole through which to thread it. I make a lot of them. I find making beads salves the too busy mind, lets me be productive when I don’t feel particularly creative, and lets me play in the clay when we are on the road. Beads are small, round (thus durable), repetitive, yet fruitful. They use up clay that may be getting dry. With my long history of rolling cookie balls for our favorite molasses treats, clay balls also avoid a lot of calories. 

What does one do with clay beads? About an inch across, they might qualify as weapons of mass destruction if one were to wear them, although it has been done and smaller ones work well for necklaces and as weights for crocheted shawls. I put them in my windchimes, but the clever manager at Lost River Artisans’ Co-op, Doug Gronholm, uses eight of them to make sets of weights for picnic table cloths. I’ve used Doug’s weights many times and they are great. Like making windchimes, Kahoka beads are well worth rolling! 

Small things

I like to make large pots. I have been known to lop the top off pots to get them to fit in my kilns. On the other hand, I don’t like firing those kilns with gaps on the shelves—and big pots leave large unused spaces between them. 

Consequently, I began making small cookie-cutter shapes and inch-round beads to fill the spaces. Putting those glazed beads in one at a time is not my greatest joy, but living near the Chesapeake Bay for a long time, I had driftwood to play with. Who could resist the combination? 

Along came those Kahoka mobiles and windchimes because stoneware resonates so beautifully. I experimented on my neighbors and found that the wind often untied the knots, so drops of epoxy were introduced. I conferred with someone from the Division of Natural Resources about moving wood around, and we concluded that a few coats of polyurethane spray would do in any wood-borne critter that survived the brackish bay water. Now, hundreds of mobiles later, they still do not do well in gale force winds, but they are not merely an artifact of filling up the shelves. I have fun making 

them.

Greetings from Algonquin Provincial Park

There are touches of red in the maples up here in northern Ontario, and the goldenrod is starting to bloom; it all foretells things to come for which I am not ready. It is rainy but great to rendezvous with long-time Canadian friends. On the other hand, since we live at the back of beyond in the peace and quiet of wonderful woods, even the most rustic campground seems contrived and crowded. 

I miss my clay and pots and their regular multi-phased progression by which the former becomes the latter. I expect I will meet a potter or two before getting back to Lost Hollow; I will need to get my hands around a nice stoneware shape. On the other hand, there is a 50-pound box of clay with us in the trailer, along with a tray and a straw. Do you know how many Kahoka beads that combination can produce? But first I’m looking for moose and if I am very lucky, maybe a wolf. Bears we have at home, for which I am grateful. Along the way I notice leaves I am not familiar with and imagine how they would look on clay. H’mmm.