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I have found that most people want a hobby, preferably an inexpensive one, and many would like a profitable one as well. And though I have many hobbies of my own, no other is so inexpensive, so practical, so right for different ages, and so likely to bring profit and pleasure as clay craft.

Among my pupils in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my home, I have a woman of eighty and a child of four, besides all the others in between.

Mrs. Jennie Akins had never tried to do any kind of art or hobby craft before in her life. She had been rather busy being a mother, grandmother, great grandmother and great-great-grandmother! Keeping house, caring for her thirteen children, raising a garden, milking cows and doing all the other things a homemaker does had filled her early years, and active participation in helping rear forty-four grandchildren, (thirty-four great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild had been hobby enough for her up to her eightieth birthday. Then she decided she needed something more and took some clay craft lessons from me. She made fast progress from the start and is now an enthusiastic and skilled craftsman.

Little Carol Lynn Patrick; my grandchild, is only four but she already has had many hours of pleasure from work with the clay from which she has made many pretty gifts.

MY CLAY craft products require no firing in a kiln. With an air-drying clay, this process is eliminated. As soon as the clay is dry and hard, usually in twenty-four hours, the piece is ready to be painted.

And what a variety of art objects you can make with non-fired clay! The list of household and gift articles that you can create is too long to be enumerated. Besides its versatility and its inexpensiveness, the clay, when painted, has the delicate appearance of bisque and closely resembles the richness of ceramic pieces.

One reason the hobby is so inexpensive is that you can use as bases for attractive novelties such things as metal boxes, tin cans, bottles and the like. With the clay you soon can learn to add hats and corsages to the figures and to adorn ash trays, pin trays, cigarette and jewelry boxes, vases, screens, mirror and picture frames, perfume bottles, candles, clocks, and other pieces, adding to them your choice of flower, fruit, leaf, fish or animal forms.

I also make what I call "landscapes in clay" which are a most satisfying art form. The piece of my work I value highest is a clay landscape of the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, on which I have put a price of $200. I have sold other landscapes for from $10 to $45, and smaller objects bring from $2 to $10 depending on the size and amount of work on them. I have sold my work to friends and friends of friends, through contacts with persons interested in learning the craft, through window displays and in shops.

My students also have been able to start selling their work very quickly. And you, who read this, can create things of beauty and usefulness, too. I know because I have taught classes in Tulsa for years and my pupils not only have enjoyed their study but have found the hobby a profitable one from a very early stage in their work.

WHEREVER I have traveled and studied, for I keep right on studying all the time, I have made it a point to investigate every kind of clay I can find. Any clay that dries to less than the hardness of china over night is not to be considered. What you want is one that works like a child's modeling clay but will dry thoroughly in twenty-four hours.

I once dropped a clay earring on a bank lobby's marble floor and it did not break. That's the kind of clay you want.

I have traveled a great deal—that's where the profit from my hobby goes, mainly. I love to travel, and the classes I teach, the art I create and sell, not only pay their own way but make it possible for me to make fascinating trips several times a year.

At present my largest income from my hobby is from teaching it to others and from the sale of my two instruction books, "Clay Craft" and "Miscellaneous Arts and Crafts," and my clay kits. All are outgrowths of my first hobby-for-fun. A good hobby grows on you and with you, and clay craft can grow into as large and important a part in your life as you desire.

In the course of my teaching I found I was in need of written instructions for my students to take home for self-help as they worked. I wrote and published the two books mentioned above. The first is on clay craft alone, the other includes a section on clay craft and landscapes in clay. I also put up my own air-drying clay in plastic bags and sell two sizes of kits, one for $2.95, with clay and "Clay Craft," and the other with the same material plus one jar of undercoat, one jar of background clay, and five jars of paint, for $3.95.

To students in my home and at the Y.M.C.A. I give six lessons for $5. The lessons last about two and a half hours. When you have become proficient in the craft and "have a public," you will find many who beg you to teach them how to make the articles, Then you will find that the books of instruction which have helped you so much in making clay craft pieces will be as helpful in teaching others to do the same.

I have taught classes at the Y.M.C.A. for four years and before that taught two years at the Y.W.C.A. These classes led to displays of my work in the buildings' lobbies, which in, turn interested others in taking the classes. The Y, being a civic project, business people and banks are willing to help by giving me an opportunity to display the work of my students in their windows and lobbies.

NEVER PASS up a chance to put a display of your work in a window, preferably a show window where business is going on, but if that cannot be obtained, then in a vacant store. If I see that a building is being vacated, I ask the manager for permission to make a display there until a new tenant moves in, and since the display will attract attention to his building, I almost always get the space.

In these displays I usually mention both the Y.M.C.A. classes and my studio classes, so that people will know how to get in touch with me. Sometimes I sell the work shown in the display.

It is surprising how many men are interested in the displays. An official in a bank where I had one said that more men stopped to see my work than had looked at even the most spectacular mechanical displays. I also have men in my classes.

The art shops where I buy my materials, and hobby shops are also glad to have frequent displays of my work. This mutual cooperation brings other nice promotions. A hobby shop in Tulsa where I had a display asked me to come there to demonstrate. They gave me time on their radio program and have asked me to be on future programs.

I exhibit my work at the Oklahoma State Fair and at the Tulsa Livestock Show. I enter it in art exhibits whenever possible, and it has been shown at Philbrook Art Center.

In Chicago I demonstrated my work at Marshall Field's, a wonderful opportunity for me! I was required to take their course in demonstration first, which took time, but it was worth-while, as their volume of trade is enormous. Also I demonstrated in the Langley shop in Kansas City's famous Plaza shopping district, and in city recreation centers. I give demonstrations at sorority meetings and for home demonstration clubs. I never go on a trip without calling on the best art and craft shops, and I never fail to find them receptive.

I also use paid advertising. My advertisement in Profitable Hobbies netted orders from widely different sections of the country. I had so many requests for more information that I found it necessary to have a form letter lithographed explaining as much as possible about clay craft. The lithographer suggested using on the reverse of the letter a story and picture which had appeared in the Tulsa World and had been very helpful to me in interesting students in my classes.

These are all ways in which you can make yourself known once you have become proficient in your hobby.

I HAVE turned my comfortable basement into a studio where I teach, and where my students have ample room to leave their work from lesson to lesson if they desire. It is a good thing to have a room especially for your hobby if you can, but the kitchen or dining room table, or a card table set up in living room or bedroom will be adequate space for the work while you are learning.

Another nice phase of this hobby is that you always have something charming to give a friend for any occasion calling for a gift. And with gift prices soaring along with everything else, I count this no small part of the profit.

Of course, I have spent some money making my hobby profitable, and I think you will not be satisfied until you have learned all you can. I have studied ceramics on the West Coast with competent teachers. I always am eager to learn what other clay-hobbyists are doing, and I never expect to stop trying to learn to improve my own methods of working and teaching. If someone else knows a better, way I want to master it. Any enthusiastic hobbyist feels that way.

NOW, FOR a brief outline of some of the principles of clay craft: You will need very few tools. You should have at hand two, kinds of clay, a background clay, to be used to cover completely various objects, to which you later will add flowers and other adornment, and an air-drying modeling clay for making the flowers and figures.

You also will need a palette knife, household cement, scissors, pencil, small paintbrush, white undercoat, white enamel and oil colors, and the picture or model that you are copying.

The background clay, which you smooth on like icing on a cake, will stick to glass, wood, china, tin, mirrors and plastic.

You can make all sorts of objects with clay, but for a beginner I suggest the use of clay to make various forms to adorn objects already made, such as novelty boxes, bottles, ash trays and the like.

Since flowers are used more extensively for such adornment than any other form, let me begin with instructions on how to make flowers with clay. Once you have mastered this form, you can proceed to making others—fish, birds, animals and fruits. It will be helpful if you have at all times before you pictures of the flowers you wish to reproduce in clay. The pictures may be taken from seed books, catalogs or other sources. Use your imagination freely. Visualize as you go.

TO MAKE a rose, roll a lump of clay between palms, flatten with thumb and finger, visualizing shape of rose petal. Fold pleat in bottom of petal to make it cup. For outside petals, turn edge back. Now begin to arrange flower on object. Start with large outside petal, using household cement on petal's tip, and work from the outside into center. For center, roll flattened clay into tight cup-shaped petal, and put in place with brush handle and a drop of cement.

To make leaves, flatten clay into leaf shape, using tip of brush handle to make veins.

For four-petal flowers, roll lump of clay between palms. Cut stubby end of roll crisscross to depth of petal desired; shape four petals, leaving short stem to fasten to background. If clay begins to crumble while you are working, don't discard it, but put it back in the jar and get a new lump.

Making flower petals and leaves is really fun, but remember that practice makes perfect. If your first attempt does not actually resemble the picture or model, remold the clay until you achieve success. This will develop your sense of accuracy.

Finished leaves and petals or flowers may be glued with the cement to vases, pictures, gift boxes and other articles. Take care that the assembly of leaves and petals created from your clay resembles the actual flowers as closely as possible. After the flower design is cemented to the article, and before the clay is dry, complete the project by smoothing edges of clay with a soft brush dipped in water. This way you can smooth out cracks and rough places. Let your work dry thoroughly for at least twenty-four hours. It should be as hard as china before it is touched for painting.

Next the entire object should be given a thorough prime coat of flat white paint, and again left to dry completely. After the prime coat is dry, apply a coat of white enamel and allow to dry. Paint all leaves the proper shade of green, and paint the flowers in any color oil paint you wish or copy exactly the colors of the picture or flower which you are using as a model. Before the last coat of paint is dry, subdue shades from dark to pastel and create highlights by rubbing lightly over flowers and leaves with a soft cloth.

For a high gloss, wait until paint is absolutely dry, then coat with transparent varnish. For a still higher gloss, there is a powder you can get which does the trick.

I hope that as you work you will consult often the picture or model from which you are working, not only in the clay work but in the painting as well. Always try to be as accurate as possible. While it is important in shading flowers to rub off oil paint where light shades are desired, it is also important that no plain white enamel or prime coat shows. The prime coat should be covered lightly with oil paint even in the lightest areas.

YOU WILL find, when you have learned to shape flowers and other decorations, that making flower pictures or landscapes in clay is also very simple. It is a new art form, which I have developed myself, in three dimensions and full color. Here is how you make a landscape in clay:

Choose a picture with appeal for you, with trees, flowers, fences. Trace picture on tracing paper; then, with carbon paper transfer to piece of pressed wood, cut exactly to size. Shellac and let dry.

With fast air-drying clay roll out structural shapes, fences, trees, rocks, etc., working from the picture, and cement in proper places on the wood. With embossing background clay and palette knife, build up bushes, foliage of trees, following every line carefully. Give thought to making all objects take their place in perspective, with objects larger in the foreground. Make any needed changes now. Let clay dry thoroughly, at least twenty-four hours.

Now mold flowers and glue into place. Dry overnight. Apply coat of flat white paint over entire picture. Dry thoroughly. Apply coat of white enamel. Dry.

Next with artist's oil paints and red sable brush, paint in sky and water with horizontal strokes, mountains with sloping strokes, then all greenery, trees, foliage and grass. Let dry. Then paint flowers in various colors, subduing shades from dark to pastel by rubbing lightly with a soft cloth before the paint dries.