The quartz jars that once belonged to Hanford’s N Reactor are oddly shaped: they’re different sizes, but all tall and cylindrical, with a small “chimney” sticking up on one end.

They once were used to protect end caps fused onto the nuclear fuel rods.

What’s inside them today is even odder, from bullet casings to peanuts, one turned into a snow globe and another into a bell. 

Ray Law, 77, of Pasco has turned the unique glassware into art.

After the reactors shut down, an auction was held about 20 years ago to sell off some of the equipment, but no one wanted to buy the bell jars. To offload them, they were added to another lot as a bonus. 

That’s how they wound up in Law’s possession.

He bid on a piece of scientific equipment he was interested in and ended up with more than 100 jars.

Repurposing

When Law received the bell jars, they were still in their original boxes with a return address. So, he called the company that made them “to see what the heck these were about,” he said. “And they explained to me that they were quartz, and (that) in order to withstand the high temperature, they had to be quartz.”

The bell jars are safe and were checked for contamination by Hanford before he received them, Law said. He regularly uses one as a drinking glass.

Law, a retired chemist, moved to the Tri-Cities in the 1990s when his wife got a job with Areva, now known as Framatome, making fuel rods. He worked at the Hanford site for about 30 years, first with Hanford Environmental Health Foundation (HEHF), and near the end of his career for Lockheed Martin.

Law is a self-described inventor who likes to recycle things, so when it came to the bell jars, he decided to repurpose them into art. 

Many of the bell jars incorporate lights of some kind or feature a glow-in-the-dark element. He said the theory is “from a blinding light of the atomic bomb to the night light.”

The effort has been years in the making. 

One bell jar, which is filled with fake snow, has taken years of work. “I needed to get the liquid viscosity just right,” he said. “Water didn’t work because the snowflakes would just drop right away, not like a snow globe.”

Putting the pieces together has been a lot of fun for Law, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said. 

The snow globe jar is still in the works, held upside down while he finalizes the seal on the bottom. It also features a cast of his friend’s finger inside of it.

Transforming the bell jars into art has been a community effort. Ray Law’s high school friend, Argyll Ware, decorated many of the bell jars and created concrete bases for them. Above is one of the bell jars he painted.

| Photo by Rachel Visick

Community effort

Turning the jars into art has been a community effort. Argyll Ware, the owner of the finger featured in the snow globe, has been Law’s friend since they were in high school and did the artwork for many of the bell jars. Law’s nieces are currently working on painting a few of the bell jars, and a few others were made by people he knows. 

“I hand them out,” he said. “Anybody that wants to make one, ‘OK, here you go!’”

As a result, there are at least 50 different jar designs, he said.  

Ware, an artist currently based in Laramie, Wyoming, is responsible for many of the designs for the bell jars, making colorful concrete bases for them and painting scenery or people on the glass. 

Cold War relics

He said that since the bell jars are Cold War relics, “we decided to alter its course and give it more of a peace (theme).” 

Many of the jars draw on Hanford’s nuclear legacy and the natural scenery of the area. 

One Law is fond of has a glass Japanese fishing float set on a candlestick holder inside of the bell jar. 

“That’s kind of an ironic juxtaposition between the nuclear bombs that we’ve used on Japan, and then here’s a fishing float to match with,” he said.

That particular jar would fetch $250 or $300, Law said. 

The others would cost closer to $150. 

One jar, full of agates he spent years collecting from the Columbia River and lit by a string of lights woven among the rocks, retails for about $500, Law said. 

“Ray came up with some different ideas and designs, and just had fun doing them,” Ware said. 

In past years, Law manned a booth at Richland’s Art in the Park festival, though he won’t make it to the event this year – he’ll be officiating his grandson’s wedding. The bell jars are always on display on his website, hanfordbelljars.com, and those interested in buying one can always contact him. 

Law said many in the community are familiar with the bell jars and they’ll come up to him at the art show to share memories about working at the N Reactor. 

Law also auctioned off one of the jars at a recent Mid-Columbia Arts Fundraiser in support of the Mid-Columbia Symphony, Mastersingers, Ballet and Musical Theatre.

Go to hanfordbelljars.com, or contact Law at [email protected] or 509-528-4208.