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.
“This is an original homestead building,” Clay said.
One wall inside the more than 100-year-old building even has the old cattle brands.
But instead of pondering cattle and farming, Clay makes art. And her most popular creation lately is her earrings, made with recycled paper.
Her process “is a trade secret,” she said.
And the result is unique – paper earrings that stand up to water and other abuse.
“They are as hard as silver,” Clay said, tapping an earring and then placing it on a drill press in order to make a hole for the earring hardware.
Clay said her customers love them because they are as light as paper.
The earrings are miniature canvasses, and each is unique. Clay said she can make 20 to 50 pairs a day.
“I get out here and can paint for hours,” she said. “When you are painting, you kind of block everything out, and you are in your own world.”
Clay has been painting since 1971 and has created nearly 485 paintings, not counting the miniature paintings on earrings.
She sells her earrings in galleries in Durango and online, but you can also purchase them at the Winter Farmers Market at Four Season’s Nursery in Dolores between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
“My earrings are doing really well,” she said.
This is Clay’s first time selling at the Winter Farmers Market.
“I love it. We get to go on a vacation every week. It’s a tropical paradise in there,” she said.
While Clay wouldn’t tell us her trade secrets, she did show us some of her molds.
“I just dry them in here,” she said, pointing to an array of measuring spoons. “It is a process.”
Clay has been making earrings since 1988 and over the years has improved her process.
“They last a long time,” she said. “I have friends that say they have had their pair for 20 years.”
Clay also paints large works of art.
One painting, of horses grazing during a sunset, hangs in her living room. It’s accented with gold leaf.
Clay also is well-known for her paintings of cliff dwellings and local ruins.
In the 1990s, Clay spent four years recording and painting petroglyphs in the Ute Mountain Tribal Park.
“I was the first woman to explore and record all the petroglyphs down there,” she said. “It’s been a neat journey for me.”
