Woo Hoo

Just got notified I was accepted into the 38th Annual "Toys Designed by Artists" at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock! See "Where You Can See My Work" section at the right for details.

This is the third or fourth time I've been selected for this show, always with ray guns.

The rings at the back are really disposable snap-together plastic party wine glass bottoms. The kind you buy in bulk for big parties.

I was cleaning out a basement wine and storage area when I saw these bases on a shelf. Bingo! There was the part I've been looking for to complete this ray gun. It has been sitting in parts on a table in my studio for some time.

The piece is really was made in four parts. Two separate sections of the main body were thrown on the wheel as was the back section. The grip was hand formed and is hollow.

When it was in the leather hard state (soft-ish), I carved and fitted the grip to the body assuring that it would balance. I always wanted to put this ray gun together with another, added component, but just couldn't find anything that worked until I saw those disposable wine bases.

Now, I'm on the look-out for anything glass or plastic that might have possibilities. Even considering snapping the base off a glass wine glass and using the top like the one in the September 5th post. The plastic top to the disposable glass didn't work out as well as the bases did. The Goop glue tended to cloud the glass. I'm sure a glass top would work much better.


Uh oh, I hear the siren hoarding call.  Every time I watch that program, I go clean out a drawer or something.

How to put a Wine Glass on a Ray Gun

I made this Ray Gun........

It is porcelain with assembled wheel-thrown components, a hand made grip, fired to cone 6 with a clear glaze.

I added a piece of glass into the end. But somehow, it still just didn't have any punch.....

I thought about adding a cold glaze finish, but decided to wait because somehow, that wasn't the solution either.

So one day, I was cleaning out my wine storage cellar in the basement........

And I saw these disposable wine glasses. The cup halves were all stacked together, one inside the other and the bases were all snapped together. The cup part and the stem base pieces are supposed to join together to make a whole wine glass.

I kept thinking I liked the appearance of all the bases stuck together. They looked like something entirely different than wine glass bottoms.

I had another ray gun out in my studio in three pieces, waiting to be assembled.

This ray gun had been fired in three pieces because I wanted to experiment with adding other components.

I took the wine glass bases out to the studio.

I held the ray gun together in my hand and tried the bases in several configurations.

I liked the way the wine glass bases and the sectioned ray gun looked when it was all assembled.

I glued the whole ray gun together with Goop.

So next,I took the wine glass top pieces out to the studio.

I stuck one on the front of the first ray gun.

It looked great.

But how do you glue a wine glass to a ray gun so it looks 'finished'?.

First, I drew the outline of the cup. Then I squeezed glue onto the outline.

I put the lip of the cup over the glue to make a 'marriage' of the plastic cup and the porcelain flange.

I lined the flange with a continuous line of glue and placed the wine cup over the end of the ray gun.

I held it together.

For a long time.

It Worked!

Don't tell anybody it's a plastic wine glass, okay?

More Early Ray Guns

This is a tiny gun that went to a show and sold. I'm glad I have a photo. It's one of my favorites. It's worth repeating, with a variation of course. The finish is many coats of acrylic paint.






"Artifact" is the last of the ray guns that don't stand on their own.

Que TV announcer's documentary voice:

"A CONTINUING CHAPTER IN THE SAAAA----GA OF THE SEARCH FOR A FINISH."

This finish is really an experiment in using an oxide to create the look of age. I'd seen this finish used on a piece of sculpture. The tag is there so the piece looks like an exhibit in some space museum.

I was later to discover a much better way of finishing them but on the way, I made "Cosmic Blaster".

By this time, I figured out how to make the grip so the gun stood on it's own. I searched for some kind of stand that would be invisible (the other guns had to lay on their sides and didn't stand) but had no luck in finding anything that didn't interfere with the look of the piece.

This is a larger gun. The surface of the clay is rough and fired with a copper glaze. At first, I thought it was a failure. It sat around the studio for quite a while until I discovered another finish that was applied copper. With the help of a nearly iridescent blue-green acrylic to enhance the green glaze and applied copper, the piece changed completely. "Cosmic Blaster" was shown at "Toys Designed by Artists" at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock.


A thought: Clay is an art medium for those who WANT to be in control, but can live with NOT being in control.........

Early Ray Guns

When I first started making ray guns, I didn't know a good way to make a finish on the surface and opted for some Daniel Smith metallic acrylic paint. It made them look like the cheap plastic ray guns that had dazzled me as a kid. I wanted to make the kinds I had wished for, but hadn't ever seen.

Once I saw a display of 'real' ray guns and transporter/communication devices actually used in TV and movies like Star Trek, etc. What they looked like on the screen and what they were in real life was two different things. They were flimsy, some rather clunky and definitely not the sleek, streamlined instruments enhanced and embellished by my imagination and the magic of film.

I wanted to make more than a water gun or cookie shooter. This first one is a very small and made of stoneware--a clay that is just too rough for the kind of surface I was looking for. I would later learn porcelain and found it was much better.

Ray Guns

I just noticed an article in Wired about a potter who is makeing raku ray guns. They're really nice. You can find them at http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/04/ufo_ray_guns_in.html.


I've been making ray guns for several years and also do them on the wheel, but they're made from procelain and used a clear glaze fired at cone 6. On the first two, I selected primary colors in order to relate to the colors used in cheap, shiny plastic toys. Sometimes I have used underglazes and sometimes overglazes. The first one is named "Molecular Redistributor".

The second is "If Mars Attacks" and has more overglaze treatment, though it is difficult to see the difference. Both "If Mars Attacks" and "Molecular" were exhibited at "Toys Designed by Artists" at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock AR and "The Whmsical Clay" show in Beverly, MA a couple of years ago.

The white ray gun, "Ectoid Extractor" , has not been shown anywhere yet. I have a mate to this one still in the studio yet to be assembled. I like the white shiny surface and glass combination.

The darker fourth gun is "Lunar Artifact" and it was included in the Whimsical show at the end of last year.