Life Outside the Lab: Pushing Porcelain to New Possibilities

As a former jewelry maker and sculptor, Chuck Little, CDT, constantly found himself asking what else he could do with the dental materials he works with every day--how far could he push it?

Little, owner of Little Dental Lab in Durango, Colorado--a crown and bridge lab that he and his wife, Terri, have been running for 21 years--decided to create tiny fairy figurines out of the porcelain powder and alloys he has in his lab. "The original idea for creating these porcelain fairies came from the constant reference to the tooth fairy when I tried to explain the responsibilities of a dental technician," he says. "Our work is very important to patients and I take it very seriously. The fairies are a fun complement to that work."

Little's first fairy was a reproduction of his own logo. While he initially made the fairies small enough to fit on top of a quarter, he decided to make them larger--approximately two- to three-inches tall--so he could concentrate...