Molding Happiness

Creative has never been a word that I would have used when describing myself. I was a secretary for many years, my most creative endeavor was designing spec sheets for a weapons manufacturer back in the early '90s. But after some surgeries left me with a pain in the ass condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) I became homebound and bored. Last year at the beginning of the COVID stuff, I was putting up a blow-up pool for my grandson. Tripped and fell and broke my humerus. One of the therapy tools they give you while you are in a sling, is a rubber ball to squeeze in the hand of the fractured arm, to keep the muscles moving. You know the old saying, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. My grandson had some air-dry and polymer clay that we had gotten for arts and crafts. I grabbed a small ball of clay and started playing with it. It was great, the smooth texture, reminded me of playdough as a kid, after 5 minutes the stiffness from arthritis in my hands had left. Damn this is awesome, I thought.

I was hooked. I started watching clay videos on YouTube and watched how to build fairy houses out of trash. Yes! It’s a thing. You can build a quite nice fairy house out of air-dry clay, aluminum foil, plastic bottles, paint, and other recyclable materials. So, I did. The first one was, I guess the best word to describe it was gloppy. The artists on the videos show you in a several-minute video how to create one of these beautiful creations with all the fine details. They don’t tell you how to do it, however. They have beautiful music in the background, and you can tell the videos have been edited. So, what may have taken them hours they do in minutes, and it is frustrating. If you want to learn from any of these videos, you must watch them over and over at the slowest speed and turn down the volume because that song that everyone uses for craft videos will drive you nuts. You will find some that go over and beyond, and you are just sitting there with the clay in front of you watching this “Ace” guy explain and you are so confused. But if you stick with him, you will learn quite a bit, I amazed myself. There are several good vloggers that will show you the way, you just have to watch and find the one that fits you.

I love feeling the soft mushy clay in my hands, I keep a ball of polymer on my nightstand and when my hands feel stiff, I start working with the clay and work that stiffness out and sometimes come up with a new idea. I am now in the process of building pieces for a fairy garden. I’ve made several houses, a pumpkin fairy house, a Santa hat fairy house, an apple fairy house out of a Martinelli apple juice bottle, now I’m building bridges, paths, ponds, and outdoor furniture to tie it all together. After I have all the pieces done, it’s just a matter of putting everything together in the corner of my front yard, right by my front porch. I am looking forward to sitting in my rocking chair, sipping a cold beer, and admiring my work of art. I’m also learning to make incense burners. I made a sugar skull that backflows out of the mouth. I have so many ideas burning in my brain right now.

To tell you the truth, I’m having the time of my life! I really do enjoy working with clay, I really do think it’s as good for my soul as it is for my arthritis. If I ever get good enough, maybe you will see me on Etsy.