Columnist Susan Snyder: Artist has chime of her life

Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005 | 8:11 a.m.

Wind chimes are like operas.

People really love them or really hate them.

Anita Duesler is finding a lucrative customer base among the former. And given that she can sell one of her custom-designed wind chimes for up to $6,000, she doesn't need the latter.

But don't be surprised if one of these chimes speaks to you. For the Las Vegas woman's Spirit Winds works hardly resemble the typical back-porch tinkler.

Visualize a giant, blue Skyy vanilla vodka bottle with strands of clear glass beads dangling from its bottom. The strands are attached to a highball glass, the bottom of which is filled with bigger glass beads, like ice cubes.

A second glass dangles below the first, attached by more strands and tilted as if "pouring" more strands into a third glass filled with more glass "ice cubes." A final set of strands hangs below the whole piece, holding deep blue glass medallions that faintly jingle.

"I call it, 'Vodka on the Rocks,' " Duesler said of the piece she hung from a tree to display. "No two pieces are alike. I don't duplicate my work."

And why should she? Once you've made a wind chime from a ceramic cow with pink beads swinging from strategically placed strings, it's hard to top.

I first wrote about Duelser and her former partner in chime Laurie Jenkins in 2001 after meeting them at an Arizona arts and crafts show. They had just launched their venture that used discarded teacups, vases and other glassware for the chime bodies and beaded strands and color-coordinated glass pieces for the ding-a-ling parts.

Jenkins left the business when she and her husband moved to California. But Duesler hung in, creating bigger chimes using weirder glassware and adding her own handmade beadwork. She and her husband sold their Las Vegas home and now live in a motor home so she can travel to craft shows.

Last week, Duesler was preparing for a solo show at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort, where she and her husband are staying. The resort is on Windmill Drive near Las Vegas Boulevard South.

Duesler culls antique stores, Savers or Big Lots for odd glassware. Teapots, motorcycles, animals, Red Hat Society -- whatever the passion, Duesler has made -- or will make -- a chime to fit. Her pieces range from $10 jinglers to the large $3,000 to $6,000 chimes fashioned from glass globe-type lamps.

She regularly donates works to nonprofit groups for fundraising auctions. A chime fashioned from an art deco vase recently raised $15,000 for a charity in South Miami Beach, Fla., she said.

Right now, she's working with two other artists on a chime for the Guinness Book of World Records. The 16-foot-long ringer will be a tribute to the World Trade Center.

The main section is a giant four-sided vase, with each side depicting a different event in the bombing -- from the undamaged Twin Towers to the new monument at ground zero. The strands below each side will use beads made to look like U.S. flags, firefighters and other symbols. When finished, Duelser will donate it to the new monument in New York City.

"I give to a lot of fundraisers because I love it and they can raise money," she said. "I'd rather people have them and enjoy them."

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