Ortonville- Larry Burns likes coffee stirrers? but not for their intended use.
Burns drinks a cup of coffee every morning, but the thousands of wooden coffee stirrers he orders from Georgia are never put in a cup of java. Instead, they are used to create tabletop versions of cabins, lighthouses, windmills, airplanes, even a space shuttle and a famous ship.
‘If I can make it out of wood, I try to make it,? says Burns, 69. ‘I know not too many people make things like this. I call it folk art.?
Burns? creativity got started after he was in a car accident in 1967 in which he suffered 60 different breaks and was hospitalized for almost a year. Bored, he made a complete village out of toothpicks. Later, he switched to the wooden coffee stirrers, which he says he can work with better.
Burns, who retired from General Motors in 1987, has made more than 80 creations over the years, spending countless hours to make each one. He will place whatever he is currently working on on a table or put it on a board in his lap while he watches television and uses tweezers, clamps, glue and snippers as tools of his craft to mold the stirrers.
‘I’m not talented, just patient,? says Burns, who is married and has given various pieces of his handiwork to his children. ‘You gotta be crazy.?
Burns has sold several pieces, but is really unsure what they are worth. Some he will not part with, like the Edmund Fitzgerald, which he shows now. Burns made a replica of the ship that sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, by looking at a photo. He tried to make it to scale, using only the stirrers and stones from a Lake Michigan beach. The ship was finished in 2001 after nearly a year and took 180-200 hours of work on the part of Burns.
Another keeper for him is a space shuttle he created with the stirrers. He used bells on the bottom of the shuttle to represent rocket exhaust.
A peek inside a small house that Burns has made reveals a table, bench and chair, as well as a ladder to a loft, all made of the stirrers. Outside are details such as a porch swing and open doors.
‘Right now I’m working on a farmhouse, barn and outhouse,? says Burns, who recently ‘shingled? a silo. ‘To me, it’s relaxing. I enjoy building them.?