Description: The plan for this three-piece set was to incorporate the idea of Michigan as a year-round recreation state – the Water Winter Wonderland.

  • The kissing skaters evoke the lyrics of the song “Winter Wonderland” in which two lovers fantasize a snowman as the Parson Brown. In this case, the parson is decked out for a day of fun in the sun with his sunglasses, tennis racket and inner tube.
  • The yellow and blue colors on the boy skater and the green and white dress of the girl represent the Big 10 Football rivalry between the University of Michigan and Michigan State.
  • The snowman is securely attached to the tray as he serves as a handle for moving the set safely. The tray he rests on has two levels, upper and lower, to represent the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan.

Shaker Manufacturer: G & H Design (Michael D. Hall, Pat Glascock) and Jerry Berta
Number Manufactured: 375
Convention Theme: Shaker Wonderland
Convention Location: Novi, MI
Hosts: Michigan Shakers
Original Price: $48

September, 2004 Club Newsletter:

The convention shaker for “Shaker Wonderland” was conceived by Michael D. Hall. He is widely known sculptor with many installations at various sites around the Detroit metropolitan area. He is also an educator and lecturer, a prolific author and a collector of folk and regional art. Part of that collection includes salt and pepper shakers, and Mike was eager to design a shaker for the Michigan convention.

He and Pat Glascock first worked up a preliminary sketch, an oversized model made of plastoline and painted with poster paint. Then they produced a clay study in actual size for the first slip cast prototypes to be fired as test models. The first rough castings were used for color tests, applied to acrylic paint just to experiment with various color combinations.

At this point, Jerry Berta took over the process. Jerry is a ceramic artist who is the owner and artist-in residence of Diner World in Rockford, Michigan where he produces, among other things, Rosie’s Diner sculptures. He also created the shakers for the Ohio Shaker Fair in 2002.

The final clay prototype was sent to Hong Kong for the first castings and glaze tests. After a lot of artistic tweaking by artists and producer, the sets were ready to go into final production.

The idea was to incorporate the idea of Michigan as a year-round recreation state – the Water Winter Wonderland. The kissing skaters evoke the lyrics of the song “Winter Wonderland” in which two lovers fantasize a snowman as the Parson Brown. In this case, the parson is decked out for a day of fun in the sun with his sunglasses, tennis racket and inner tube.

The yellow and blue colors on the boy skater and the green and white dress of the girl represent the Big 10 Football rivalry between the University of Michigan and Michigan State. Go Spartans!!

The snowman is securely attached to the tray and he serves as a handle for moving the set safely. The tray rests on has two levels, upper and lower, to represent the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan.