Handmade in the 1800s by Layering Sand

1. These Were Handmade in
the 1800s by Layering Sand.
No Glue was Used

2. Andrew Clemens (1857-1894) was an artist from Dubuque, Iowa but spent
most of his life in nearby McGregor. At the age of five Clemens was stricken
with encephalitis that left him completely deaf and nearly mute.
At age 13 Clemens began experimenting with sand art, collecting multicolored
sands from Iowa’s Pictured Rocks region. He fashioned special tools made
from pieces of hickory and fish hooks that he used to arrange the sand in
intricate designs. Clemens did not use glue in his artwork, relying on the
pressure of the tightly packed surrounding grains to keep his artworks intact.
Once an artwork was complete, Clemens would back the jar tightly and seal it.
Clemens had a remarkable ability to break down images and render it grain by
grain with each piece of sand akin to a pixel of a digital image. He is thought to
have produced hundreds of bottles during his lifetime but few survive today.
To see more of Andrew Clemen’s fantastic artwork, there’s a Facebook
page with a nice collection of images. There is also a list of 23 artworks (with
descriptions and images) that were sold through Cowan’s Auctions that can
be viewed here