Shake, Rattle and Listen
Mimi Stadler
This rattle came from friends, who bought it in Israel. It is a closed hollow form with a few clay pellets inside.
One of my students yesterday liked the idea of adding sound to her work, and made a rattle like this, only bigger, and of course it has its own, different sensibility. It's a lovely thing, even before it has been fired. She added a stand so it can be displayed upright.
Some of the vessels made by Toshiko Takaezu, a notable clay artist who lived for many years in New Jersey, were closed forms ("moons", as she called them), and some of them have tiny clay pebbles inside them. I read an interview where she said that she liked to put this occasional surprise in, to be discovered if one should lift or move the vessel. It would be unexpected music. I suppose that for those "moons" on pedestals in museums, visual presence is their first function; they will rarely be touched or moved; but when they are, there will be that tinkle of sound as the little clay beads shift inside.