"I.contributed a bell to so that people in 2112 will know that people really did make things in Ann Arbor 100 years ago," Cross says. When the opportunity came to contribute to the time capsule buried at the site of the new Library Lane parking structure in downtown Ann Arbor, Cross added a ringer to the treasure trove.
![harmony assistant bells harmony assistant bells](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0407/2082/6524/products/Harmony-sterling-silver-bell-pendant_LOVE-corner_720x720.jpg)
One bell, though, will be silenced for the next century. "For a long time I had a strong interest in petroglyph images from the southwest - images chipped on rocks, what native Americans did before the Europeans got here." Cross also does custom work, taking inspiration from customer requests and his own fancies. Wedding and remembrance bells are the most popular. Its bells are for residential use and run from 1.5 to 8 inches in size, with most costing from $50-$100. The company doesn't make church bells or large carillon-type assemblies. He plans to add wholesale accounts back when the overhead gets more sustainable. Cross used to sell to garden centers and major retailers like Marshall Field's, Dillard's, and Coldwater Creek. The bulk of the business remains bells, sold mainly online or at art fairs. You get a lot of different notes with a chime, whereas with a bell you get one, but there's a richness that you get with a bell that you don't get with a chime." Harmony Hollow also fabricates wind chimes, garden stakes, and other decorative ornaments in-house, from sheet brass and tubing. Now a foundry in Arizona makes the raw castings from Cross' patterns, and then he handles the rest from his three-person Ann Arbor studio. He and his brother and father used to do the foundry work themselves, but ceased after the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration imposed strict regulations. So, the bell man was very important to the dynasties in China."Ĭross has designed bells for every occasion, from housewarming gifts to retirement celebrations. Bells were considered as part of calling in the spirits and connecting with the gods. "In the olden days in China the bell maker was number three in the hierarchy: Emperor, priest, then bell founder. "The Chinese invented bronze bells about 2500 B.C.
Harmony assistant bells how to#
"There's been lots of bell companies that have come and gone, because they knew how to pour metal, but they didn't know how to make the bell."īronze bells done right will outlast 350 years. Just because something looks like a bell, there's a lot more to it than that," Cross explains. So why are bell makers such a rarefied bunch? "The skill level to make a bell really ring rather than clink is a long learning curve. "All over the place you've got potters and painters, but there's three bell makers in the whole country of the United States." Not many artisans can certify their work this way. The bronze wind bells can hang outdoors year-round, and they carry a 350-year guarantee (which might make for some interesting returns at some point). While Cross' booth hasn't been bought out yet, there's always the next fair. this became a real job with real money," he says, adding, "There were stories of people buying a whole booth." it was so easy to make money then that all of a sudden, the whole art fair became not just a little something to do on the weekends. "As Reagan got into his career as a president, things just got spectacular in the art-fair business," Cross recalls.ĭue to lax financial oversight during Reagan's tenure and the savings and loan scandal, "these people who had wads and wads of hundreds in their pockets went to art fairs and were just spending it like it was water.
![harmony assistant bells harmony assistant bells](https://www.amvplaygrounds.co.uk/media/catalog/product/a/m/amv_pp-mi-049-harmony-bells-single-musical-instruments-3-sq.jpg)
Turns out the 1980s were a bell serendipity. "So my career kind of came to an abrupt halt with President Reagan, and so I had this bell business and I focused on that."
![harmony assistant bells harmony assistant bells](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8a/bb/15/8abb154e7633763a90c4782d34410627.jpg)
But "when President Reagan came in, he zeroed out all the conservation funds in Third World countries," Cross says. After a three-year Peace Corps stint at a national park in Colombia, he consulted on systems planning for wild lands in underdeveloped countries. Cross holds an undergraduate degree in forestry and park planning and a graduate degree from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources. After his brother's passing, Cross moved the company to Ann Arbor.īells were not his first calling. Cross' brother Jeff, aided by their father, a metallurgist who ran foundries during World War II and trained his sons in the art of bronze casting, founded the company in Arizona in 1969. One of only three bell makers in the U.S., and the only one who exhibits at art fairs nationwide, Cross runs Harmony Hollow Bell Works from a west-side studio in Ann Arbor. For the last 32 years at fair time, Harmony Hollow Bell Works owner Bradley Cross has rung his street-corner bell medley. William and Maynard Streets during the Ann Arbor Art Fair. It must've been bells you heard at the windy junction of E.