Everyone enjoyed playing in the mud as a child, right? Well, that’s what you get to do with hikaru dorodango (“shining mud ball” in Japanese). Except this time, you don’t just wash the mud off and forget about it. Instead, you create something beautiful and unique. You also form a surprisingly strong attachment to a piece of artwork that you create from something so mundane.
Professor Fumio Kayo of the Kyoto University of Education has created an easy method that even children can follow. He used dorodango to study children’s developmental psychology, and found that children would become attached to their mud and put tremendous effort into shaping and polishing their dorodango. The phenomenon was first made famous in Japan back in 2001. I hope you too will enjoy this wonderful pastime.
Note: The finished dorodango pictured here were done by Bruce Gardner. Finished dorodango photos by Amelia Milazzo.
Wow, that’s a beautiful idea, Marsha! You’ll have to let us know if you do the project!
Hi Amelia,
My apologies, as we added this project to Make: Projects on behalf of Jason, and failed to include the credit, which is now clearly visible in the introduction. I do want to note, though, that when the article first appeared in CRAFT, the photograph was erroneously credited to Bruce Gardner in the print version, and the correct credits were included on the article page as soon as we were alerted years ago: http://craftzine.com/03/play/. If you prefer, we can delete these images from this web version. Please accept our apology, as no malice was intended.
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Hi Jason, not sure how long ago you posted these instructions, I am only just discovering Dorodango. I would like to know how to achieve texture in the surface as in the one you have in your photo. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. thank you
About time, I knew what to do with my clay.
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