<\/p>\n
Nearly every morning, Mancos artist Lynne Clay steps outside her home, marvels at the view and then steps inside her studio, a historic log building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an original homestead building,\u201d Clay said.<\/p>\n
One wall inside the more than 100-year-old building even has the old cattle brands.<\/p>\n
But instead of pondering cattle and farming, Clay makes art. And her most popular creation lately is her earrings, made with recycled paper.<\/p>\n
Her process \u201cis a trade secret,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
And the result is unique \u2013 paper earrings that stand up to water and other abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are as hard as silver,\u201d Clay said, tapping an earring and then placing it on a drill press in order to make a hole for the earring hardware.<\/p>\n
Clay said her customers love them because they are as light as paper.<\/p>\n
The earrings are miniature canvasses, and each is unique. Clay said she can make 20 to 50 pairs a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get out here and can paint for hours,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you are painting, you kind of block everything out, and you are in your own world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clay has been painting since 1971 and has created nearly 485 paintings, not counting the miniature paintings on earrings.<\/p>\n
She sells her earrings in galleries in Durango and online, but you can also purchase them at the Winter Farmers Market at Four Season\u2019s Nursery in Dolores between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy earrings are doing really well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This is Clay\u2019s first time selling at the Winter Farmers Market.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it. We get to go on a vacation every week. It\u2019s a tropical paradise in there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While Clay wouldn\u2019t tell us her trade secrets, she did show us some of her molds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just dry them in here,\u201d she said, pointing to an array of measuring spoons. \u201cIt is a process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clay has been making earrings since 1988 and over the years has improved her process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey last a long time,\u201d she said. \u201cI have friends that say they have had their pair for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clay also paints big paintings. One, of horses grazing during a sunset, hangs in her living room. It\u2019s accented with gold leaf.<\/p>\n
Clay also is well-known for her paintings of cliff dwellings and local ruins.<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, Clay spent four years recording and painting petroglyphs in the Ute Mountain Tribal Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the first woman to explore and record all the petroglyphs down there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a neat journey for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynne Clay\u2019s earrings are for sale online www.pinklocomotove.com or at the Winter Farmers Market at the Four Season\u2019s Greenhouse, 26650 County Road P, Dolores, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
creates miniature masterpieces with hand-painted earrings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115836"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}