GALLERY HOW
ARE THE WHISTLES MADE? What
follows is a brief description of how I
make the whistles so far. Some basic parts
are cast or pressed in plaster molds, and
other parts are sculpted by hand. Painting
and glazing is done by hand. STEP
ONE: DESIGN Early
in the process, design is play. When
the specific goal comes first --say
someone commissions a meerkat whistle--
overall shape, expression, and color
schemes may be explored through quick,
colorful drawings or sculpted materials.
The whistle designs that work best for me
balance hand-sculpted fun details and
carefully-planned molded forms. When
improvisation strikes, new whistles are
dreamt up from parts and given whatever
expressions and details "feel right" for
the piece. Can the mouthpiece be part of
what makes it funny? What if you blow into
the foot? Giggling is often
involved. Sometimes
both methods work together. When the happy
whales were first being considered for
production, the bodies were carefully
designed to be cast in molds. The basic
proportions were chosen to allow the mouth
(if it has one), eyes, and tail to be
freely improvised. The
next step is usually determined by my
knowing how many of a particular design
I'd like to make. If I just want one
meerkat whistle, then, well, I just make
it. If I'd like a turtle series, then I
allow for some moldmaking of the basic
shape. STEP
TWO: MOLDMAKING If
I want a series of whistles to have a
consistent musical pitch among all of
them, I need to make sure the hollow
interior is the same size. The easiest way
to control this is to make a mold of the
basic shape and add the details by hand
(step three, below). Moldmaking requires
careful planning to ensure consistent
reproduction of parts. Guided by the
whistle sketch, durable, accurate models
are created of every part that is to be
made in quantity. Around these models,
plaster molds are created that take up all
the negative space around the original.
After the molds are created, the
now-unnecessary models/positives are
removed, and in their places, many
castings or duplicates of the original are
created. STEP
THREE: CHARACTERIZATION After
casting or pressing, the hollow forms are
transformed into expressive characters by
hand sculpting tails, eyes, and mouths.
This part is really fun. STEP
FOUR: ACOUSTICS Any
finger openings that are implied by the
character or needed for other reasons are
cut or drilled in the soft clay wall.
These can be tone holes or slits that can
be covered a little or a lot. Often, the
placement of these openings was planned in
the design stage to emphasize some
whimsical aspect of the whistle. (For
example, there would be many places on a
whale to put a functional whistle
mouthpiece, but designing it as part of
the tail is certainly one of the
silliest.) Then the blowing mechanics or
acoustics are hand cut and tuned
until the whistle makes a good sound with
the available openings. Tuning ceramics
whistles requires a basic understanding of
how a clay piece may change shape during
firing, how the acoustics of wind
instruments translates to ceramic
resonators, and how not to hyperventilate
when making many whistles at a
time. STEP
FIVE: DECORATION Hand
painting colored or clear glazes before
firing between 1950 and 2000 degrees
Fahreinheit makes the whistles fun, shiny,
and completely safe.