When Rufus local Jan Morris started making owls out of glassware seven years ago, her main objective was to have something to sell alongside her adult kids at the Dufur Threshing Bee. It was a way to spend time with them, as they would all have little tables with different things to sell.
She got the idea online, after seeing a friend with glassware flowers displayed in their yards. When she saw the owls, with serving trays for bodies, cups for eyes, forks for feet and spoons for beaks, she felt inspired.
Little did Morris know, making the owls would be a real passion for her. Before long, it became an important creative outlet, and not just the creation, but the entire process of finding glassware.
“It’s just a treasure hunt to find pieces,” Morris said. “And I have to have a lot in order to get the right combinations. It’s just, it’s therapy for me.”
Above, one of Morris’s glassware owls waits to be purchased.
Alana Lackner photo
She said she loves to go through secondhand stores everywhere she goes, and can sometimes get boxes of old glassware for really cheap. Some of the pieces are so beautiful, and there’s no better feeling than finding two of the same ornate cup or napkin holder to use for the eyes.
“When I find two I’m going, ‘Treasure!’” Morris said. “It’s like Christmas.”
Each of the pieces has a salt-shaker or a little spice jar on the back, so they can be slid onto a broomstick and put on display outside. Sometimes friends will bring her glassware with sentimental value they want to repurpose, she said. To be able to take something meaningful and give it new life in their yard often means a lot.
Owls aren’t the only thing Morris makes out of glassware. She also creates flowers and mushrooms, and has been working on making turtles.
“The shell is a bowl, and it would have shot glasses for legs. I think they’ll hold good, but how do you get the neck and head? So we’re having fun playing with that idea. (My son) may end up cutting me some metal.”
And just a glance over to the right shows that Morris’s son, Jordan Mills, would be more than equipped to do just that. His booth at the Bee is full of sculptures of animals crafted from tools and scrap metal.
Morris’s son Jordan Mills works on a new sculpture as he sits beside previous ones at his Threshing Bee booth.
Alana Lackner photo
The metalwork is something he’s done for the last 15 years, Mills said.
“I took a blacksmithing class down in Arizona, and then I took a sculpture welding class right after,” he said. “The combination just kind of turned into this.”
Like his mom, Mills sees art in the mundane. A hammer turns into a dog’s head, a saw becomes a raven’s tail and spoons twist to make its beak. Side-by-side, even though their work is completely different, you can see the similarities in the creative process.
One of Mills’s scorpion sculptures.
Alana Lackner photo
“I started this to spend time with my family,” Morris said. “So I’m really glad I get to do that.”
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