Hand Built Whistles

Handbuilt Whistle Workshop with Eileen Braun of Atlanta, GA

On a lovely summer day in August, I observed a workshop at Lexington (MA) Crafts Society, presented by Eileen Braun of Atlanta. The focus of the workshop was handbuilt whistles. Up until recently, Braun's body of work has been functional and nonfunctional forms such as teapot and vessels. Why whistles as her newest form of expression? "As a crafter, one of the important things of craft, as opposed to fine art, is that it encourages one to touch. For instance, in my installation work, the viewer can rearrange the parts. The tactile is another dimension of craft. With whistles, one can interact with the work physically as well as interact with anyone else in the environment. I want people to touch my work,," said Braun.

While hand building whistles is certainly an ancient way of working with clay, Braun brought a fresh twist to the process. The participants ordered Chinese takeout for lunch while they viewed Braun's slides and asked preliminary questions. After lunch, they washed about the square plastic containers, chopsticks and plastic knives, and brought them to the clay studio. "Whistles," Braun said, "are deceptive. The construction is easier and harder to do than you think".

In the first (and the "easy" part) of her demonstration of whistle building, which involved joining two hemispherical pinch pots together, adding the blowpipe piece, and adjusting for sound, she emphasized that not only was the handbuilding of the whistles relatively straightforward, but so were the tools used. The "toolbox" for this workshop included:

1. Two hands.

2. Small bowl of water.

3. Chopsticks-for hole poking and clearing, cylinder making, texturing.

4. Plastic knife-for scoring, cutting, texturing.

5. Old credit card-used as rib and cutter.

6. Plastic takeout container, rectangular, used to hold the tools, and as a small damp box if needed.

7. Fettling knife.

Her relaxed approach, and simple tools helped loosen up the class, so that when they encountered the inevitable tricky (the "hard") part of getting the whistle to make a sound, especially a pleasant, sonorous ringing one, they had come to that rock in their road while playfully skipping down the clay path.

The participants experimented, wiggled, adjusted, swore, blew, questioned, cheered., After about a half hour of working, delightful fluting sounds began to fill the room.

Braun work is informed by plants and growing things. Her biomorphic whistles resemble buds, sprouting imaginary plants and underwater creatures. After constructing the whistle body from porcelain, she add slips, carves in to the clay, adds bits here and there, underglazes, bisque fires to cone 04 and then clear glazes and fires to cone 6. Her work showcases how a simple form can take on individualistic expression. Please see www.eileenbraunceramics.com for more images and information. Braun is available to teach whistle workshops in your area!

Thank you to Joan Carcia of the Lexington (MA) Arts and Crafts Society for allowing this blogger to observe and report on the workshop.