History of Oregon Du Drops Part I
Magic at Play
by James Stephen Du Bois
“If He Can Do It, So Can I”
I am dedicating this history of Oregon Du Drops to everyone trying to create something out of nothing but a vision, idea or dream, even if you are coming from a seemingly hopeless position. I am sharing the story of Oregon Du Drops here so that the account of Oregon rain and dead light bulbs being transformed into what many consider to be fine art, might add just enough fuel to someone else’s dream to help them over a hurdle along their way. The fact that Oregon Du Drops have sustained Cat and me, a loving couple with modest tastes, for over 17 years (me for over 20) might just spark inspiration in someone else’s heart. Even if it simply inspires the sentiment, “If he can do it, so can I,” it’s important. We need more dreams from the heart made manifest in the so-called “real” world. I know from experience that it is possible to create your vision––out of what you already have to build upon, no matter how humble––if you believe in your idea.
You are invited to come along on the journey that took me and my Oregon Du Drops from a spark of an idea to a concept that has supported my wife and myself for almost two decades and allowed us to remain true to ourselves while earning a living.
The Genesis of Oregon Du Drops
Way back in the Autumn of 1972, on a hike through the psychedelically brilliant southern Indiana woods, I came upon a mesmerizing sight. What I saw, literally, induced a trance in me. As I rounded a turn on the path I had chosen for its rare use, I was stopped in amazement, as I saw—shimmering there in the rising sun’s golden light—thousands of dew drops strung along hundreds of spider webs stretched over a large flowering bush.
As I made my way closer to the dazzling spectacle, I noticed that each and every drop of dew contained a spark of sunshine and an image of the natural world. The blue sky. The green trees. The flowers. The multi-colored ground. Albeit, upside down. Not only that, each water droplet was also mirroring every other one. Did I mention that the scene was mesmerizing?
My eyes went from searching out the secrets of individual dew drops, to backing up a step or two to view groups of the droplets, to backing up far enough to take in the whole bush again. After a while, I just sat down, watched the light play from drop to drop and monitored the halo emanating from the plant. It shimmered and pulsed with energy until the Sun, never stopping for my pleasure, made its way to a position that no longer lit the bush in such a spectacular way.
Even after the Sun moved on, however, I was still stunned by what I had experienced. I don’t remember how long I stayed in the same spot before heading home. I vowed on the way to my apartment, though, to recreate, somehow, what I had seen and experienced, in order to enjoy it at will.
Suddenly, my memory brought an image to mind, a dead light bulb lying in my kitchen trash. The 60-watt standard lamp bulb had burned out just that morning and was right where I had thrown it on top of the pile of refuse. When I arrived home I snatched that bulb from oblivion and it, ultimately, led to Oregon Du Drops; a journey of almost fifty years.
I grabbed my pliers, one of the only three tools I owned at the time (the others were a flat head screwdriver and a hammer) and went to work trying to wrest the metal piece off the end of the bulb. Squeezing gently on the metal as I rotated the bulb, I was soon able to loosen it enough to see it was additionally attached by a couple of copper wires. Once I wriggled them until they broke, the metal cap came away and I was confronted with how to open the glass bulb without destroying it completely. I didn’t know then what I know now.
I squeezed the smaller end of the bulb that I had cradled in the jaws of my pliers. POP! The release of the vacuum inside the bulb made a loud noise (like the sound of a small milk carton being stomped on by a school kid). The concussion startled me as the bulb shook in my hand. When I looked, I noticed that there were small vertical fissures around the rim of the bulb. I needed to stabilize the glass if there was any hope of keeping the cracks from spreading downward. I wondered what to do.
I recalled that in high school chemistry class we had melted glass for pipettes that was thicker than the glass that was making up the light bulb in my hand. I cranked up a burner on my gas stove, grabbed a pair of barbecue tongs (one of my six pieces of “silverware”) from the silverware drawer to hold the bulb to the fire, and then melted the glass around the rim of the light bulb.
Now back in the 1970’s macramé was widely popular. People were tying strings (and ropes) in such a way that they supported potted plants, and, as it turns out proto-Oregon Du Drops. I filled the finished bulb with water and made such a macramé-cradle for it with the thinnest string I could find, just thicker than thread, so as to leave as much of a reflecting/refracting picture as possible on the face of the bulb and from the walls within.
The first practical application I put my new prize to was hanging it in a window and putting a philodendron clipping in the water. To my amazement the plant began sprouting roots within a week and exploded with growth in the following week, so much so that I couldn’t enjoy looking at the reflection of the world through the water anymore for all of the roots. Roots deteriorate and leaves die over time, and eventually, the bulb was filled with a smelly brown mess.
It’s quite a leap from the tranquil southern Indiana woodlands to the rain forests of the Great Northwest and the raging storms of the Oregon coast. And quite a leap from my recycled light-bulb-plant-starters filled with detritus to my creation of sparkling Oregon Du Drops.
“Follow the Path of Your Du Drops”
A lifetime of experience came between the gunked-up plant hangers I made in my youth and the Oregon Du Drops I create today at 68 years old. Though I dropped the idea for years at a time, Du Drops of some conception were always a thread running through my life. I was 18 years old when I discovered the glowing bush which inspired my 50 year long quest to see what I could see in a drop of water with a naked eye and I was 28 years old when I gave up trying to recreate my experience by putting plant starts in thin, water-filled light bulbs. I didn’t pursue the idea of suspending a drop of rain in mid-air again until I was approaching forty and still didn’t make much progress until I was almost fifty.
It was as if I had been given a glimpse of what I was supposed to do with my life as a young adult, but then the vision vanished and I had to find it again without the serendipity of a walk in the woods. And far from it. I had to find my way obscured by the day-to-day grind of making a living at jobs I detested, while dealing with the time-bomb of an abusive catho-holic childhood exploding in my adulthood, and the alcoholism it generated in my life. Don’t worry. I’m not going to lead you into a long rag about drinking. However, if you are looking for some suggestions on how to face and overcome addiction I suggest the e-book, Alcoholism’s Antidote: Self-Discovery, by me. Now that the commercial is over, let’s get back to our story.
Drinking had been holding everything up for me, numbing my creativity, but becoming alcohol-free was just my first step. I had to make certain other changes too, and these may pertain to you. If I was going to overcome the hurdles involved in creating my idea in the physical world I had to take the vision of my heart seriously and bring it into the physical world using my head to problem-solve, not to judge and dismiss.
First, I had to follow that impulse radiating from my heart. Then I had to commit to the project as much as I had been committed to my next drink. That should have been easy, and after giving up alcohol, a cinch, but I had to learn to trust what I sensed my heart was telling me. Finally, I knew, in my deepest knowing––by feeling––just what my spirit was communicating, “Follow the path of your Du Drops.”
My head had plenty to say about why I couldn’t succeed. Lots of words and lots of repetition. So much so that I had to say to my inner monologue, “Until you start to offer helpful suggestions, shut up.” The part of my brain doing all the talking, stuck in the world of the five senses, has little to do with the non-physical and the artistic. It relates to the concrete and logical. It’ll help figure out how to stretch a commission to pay the bills, or how to construct any number of lifeless forms, but the brain doesn’t have the capacity to infuse life and spirit into an inanimate object. The heart does.
Art is the Voice of the Soul
Art is the voice of the soul and it can express what the mind and language can only poorly indicate. It is a wonderful experience to watch someone with eyes wide and mouth open, yet speechless, as he or she is enchanted by and absorbed in the spirit of an art piece. The individual’s heart has been engaged and all they can say is, “I don’t have any words for this.” The “this” they speak of is the feeling that is filling them. Through the object of their attention they are electrified with a connection to something beyond the mundane; beyond the ordinary, but not totally unfamiliar, and always rewarding. Cat and I get to experience many people connecting to something deep in a wellspring within them brought to the surface by their interaction with Oregon Du Drops. It is always fulfilling for us, because that is what we experience when we see the Du Drops sparkle with life and we love sharing that experience with others.
Oregon Du Drops have demonstrated the capacity to help some people gain a richer perspective of the world around them, but they, in fact, had to be created in the physical world. And, they were slowly created––evolutionarily developed––while I was otherwise making a living after climbing out of the hell of dependency. One after another technical problem needed to be solved. How would I keep them clear? What kind of top would I put on them? How would I suspend them in space? With what should I seal the light bulbs? That alone took years to solve.
The way of creation is congested with, seemingly, endless hurdles to surmount successfully, however, little hints and big suggestions came along the way through the agency of other people. I asked questions everywhere I went about materials, adhesives, drying times, clouding, contamination and every other thing I could conceive from anyone I trusted. In the late 1990’s, over twenty-five years after I was awestruck by my vision, Oregon Du Drops slowly began to take shape. It was then that I was also lucky enough to move to Oregon. I adore Oregon! What more propitious source from which to fill my Du Drops than the Oregon rain?
Just click here for The History of Oregon Du Drops, Part II; Secrets to Psychological Well-being for Art Fair Vendors.