These original fine art book ends were the product of a fun experiment done with my mother, a ceramacist.  In order to sculpt a soapstone relief of a woman's head in profile, I had made a three-dimensional model of the face in clay.  The resulting clay head could not be fired because of its thickness; instead, it sat around drying in my mother's studio for several years.  During a long visit a few years later, I saw it was still there and said, "There must be something that could be done with that." She said, "We could try slip-casting it; I've never done that before, but I'd like to try it." So we made a plaster mold and a bucket of casting clay, and over a number of days, we made castings until we ran out of clay.  Each pair was hand-finished and glazed with different high-fire glazes, followed by a low-fire metallic glaze for the bases.  I then took the casts home, weighted them with plaster, sand, and lead, finished them with beads, and added cork pads to finish the bottoms. Feathers are a nice touch and can easily be added later, when they will not be damaged by packing and storage.

The name "Indian Head" is meant to be evocative rather than literal.  I myself always think of them as Mayan heads, because the profile is so like those in Mayan art and relief carvings, which I have always loved.  However, "Indian head" is a more common term for this style of profile, so for internet search purposes, that is how I refer to them here.  Of course, the glazing and beadwork is purely aesthetic and imaginitive with no attempt at any accurate cultural reference.

Each pair of book ends are unique, functional, ceramic sculptures.  The bookends are weighted with lead, sand, and plaster, and are heavy enough (over six pounds each) to support even the largest books.