I’ve been majorly jones-ing for a strand of Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti bells, which I love for their earthy patina and artful wonkiness.
So when I bought a box of terracotta air dry clay (found at Michaels, where there are also grey and white colors) to have around the house for the kids to mess with, I quickly found myself employing the girls to make shapes to string into Soleri-inspired strands to hang about the house. While the shapes were still wet, I twisted a pencil though the top of each of them to make a hole for string. After they were dry, I used jute string (found in the jewelry aisle at Michaels) to secure the clay parts into dangling, boho whimsy.
Once they were hanging, I dipped the ends of some of the pieces into a vat of gold acylic paint to add a little glam to the terracotta. We tacked the strands up under a shelf that hangs over a window so the light can play off of them, sort of like the wind in Soleri’s bells.
