ClayZeness Ocarinas
The Seattle ocarina makers Sandi and Richard Schmidt, and a chronology of their forty years at Pike Place Market.
ClayZeness Whistleworks was Sandi and Richard Schmidt, who made ocarinas in Seattle and sold them from what their site called a four-foot “Daytable” at Pike Place Market.
Sandi — then Sandi Bushnell — began making them around 1979, and sold them at craft fairs before the Market. Her first were dragons, single- and two-headed. In May 1983 Mother Earth News described her sending its columnist a list of flute and ocarina makers, a news sheet on ocarina design, and “a cute little handmade, four-hole ocarina shaped like a dragon”, on letterhead already reading ClayZeness Whistleworks. Richard’s own first ocarina, around the same time, was one of her dragons.
They were at the Market from 1984, through the “From Mud to Music” exhibitions they staged there in 1986 and 1987, and for more than thirty years after. Richard died in November 2013 and Sandi carried on alone. In June 2019, as she was leaving the Market, thieves took her sales cart and her whole inventory. She was firing her kiln again that December. By the time the pandemic reached Seattle she was no longer at Pike Place.
Chronology
Dates the museum has been able to establish, and where each comes from. Dates given as “in conversation” are Sandi Schmidt’s own recollection, given by telephone in September 2026; the rest are documents.
| 1975 | Sandi buys her first ocarina at a craft fair, maker unknown | their site |
| c. 1979 | She begins making ocarinas — her first are dragons, single- and two-headed — and sells them at craft fairs | in conversation |
| May 1983 | Mother Earth News describes “Sandi Bushnell, from the state of Washington” sending its columnist a list of flute and ocarina makers, a news sheet on ocarina design, and “a cute little handmade, four-hole ocarina shaped like a dragon”, on letterhead reading ClayZeness Whistleworks | Mother Earth News, May 1983 |
| Aug 31, 1983 | Alan Albright writes to her from San Francisco on window size against interior volume | their site |
| c. 1983 | Richard’s first ocarina is one of Sandi’s dragons | their site |
| 1984 | They begin selling at Pike Place Market | in conversation |
| Apr 1986 | “Ceramic Sounds — a national survey of clay musical instruments” | their site |
| 1987 | “From Mud To Music” at the Clay Occasion Gallery, Pike Place Market: 27 makers, with pieces from Latvia and Norway. Richard writes “The Sounds of Ceramics” for its program | their site; the essay |
| Apr 1998 | Sandi and Richard write to Barry Jennings and learn whose four-hole system they have been using | the correspondence |
| Feb 13, 1999 | They found the Ocarinaclub, an email discussion list | their site |
| Nov 29, 2013 | Richard Schmidt dies, aged 61. A celebration of his life is held in the Pike Place Market Atrium on December 14 | obituary, The Herald |
| Mar 2016 | Back-to-back surgeries and a long recovery stop Sandi working | The Ocarina Network |
| Jun 14, 2018 | “Ocabanda at the ClayZeness Whistleworks booth in Seattle” | David Erick Ramos |
| Sep–Oct 2018 | Photographs posted from the booth at Pike Place | ClayZeness Whistleworks, September 1 and October 13 |
| Jun 2019 | Leaving the Market, Sandi has her sales cart and her entire inventory stolen | Sandy Hruska, June 19, 2019 |
| Dec 12, 2019 | The last capture of clayz.com as the Schmidts’ own site, still offering “Ocarinas $10 to $60” | Internet Archive |
| Dec 17, 2019 | Still making: she fires her kiln again — “Second fire in the north. My brother-in-law is tweaking my sad old digital kiln along… an so she fires!” | ClayZeness Whistleworks |
| by Jan 30, 2020 | The hosting lapses. The address returns “Domain Account Inactive” from Blarg.net, the Seattle provider that had hosted the site | Internet Archive |
| Jan 31, 2020 | Yahoo deletes every message and file held by Yahoo Groups, the same week the website went. The Ocarinaclub’s twenty-one years of discussion go with them — but not entirely: Archive Team had copied the list on January 28, 2016, and the Internet Archive holds that copy as a restricted item. The last four years are gone; the first seventeen are not | Yahoo! Groups; Archive Team |
| by 2022 | The domain itself has gone, and the address serves a parking page that changes with every capture | Internet Archive |
Also preserved here
- The Sounds of Ceramics — Richard’s essay for the 1987 exhibition From Mud to Music, on why instruments of clay sound as they do.
- The Taylor/Jennings Connection — how the Schmidts learned in 1998 whose four-hole system they had been using.
What the museum holds of clayz.com, what it has not taken, and on what terms: ClayZeness Whistleworks.