The Art Files

Future Plans

2012-01-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I've been watching my cat Ollie and our dog Oscar grow up together for a couple of years now. We brought them home within a week of each other and they were both about 8 weeks old. They have quite a dynamic relationship and they love each other very much. But they do go at it and I've had this idea to start filming them (and with my new phone, I can!) and create a YouTube channel called "The Ollie and Oscar Show". Since I haven't yet bothered to set up a YouTube channel and I don't have that many segments and I don't have any video editing software, I'm going to debut one of the pieces I've shot with no editing here! Enjoy!

The Ollie and Oscar Show, Episode 1: Smackdown

Oh, and I'm still teaching....

2012-01-08T20:55:00.002-07:00

Enameling- Beginning to Advanced at the Mesa Arts Center
Wednesdays 6-9pm starting January 18- May 9! 16 weeks.

Some enameling samples, from L-R:
Raku, cloisonne, painting and sgraffito/carving/sifting

Enameling: Introduction to Advanced
Instructor: Jewel Clark

Enameling is the ancient art of fusing ground colored glass to a metal surface.
Please visit http://www.glass-on-metal.com/intro_to_enamel/ for a detailed explanation if you would like to learn more about the process.
Students will learn the basics of enameling: metal prep, sifting, enamel chemistry, and firing.
Specific techniques include: stencils, wet-packing, raku, basse-taille and more, such as cloisonne, foil, separation and crackle, as the pace of the class allows.
This class is designed to give the beginning student a strong foundation in enamel techniques.
Returning students may sit in on lectures and/ or work on their own projects with access to instructor help.
Make sure our registrar has your email address for contact by instructor prior to the class.
No class Nov 23

Download the Materials List (pdf)
Classroom: Lapidary Studio
ages 16 and older /16 weeks

CAW12JE005-01

Jan 18- May 9

6- 9pm

$278R

$333NR

So.... it's been a while.....

2012-01-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. It's been a long and busy winter. I have done almost no art. On top of a very busy work and freelance schedule I've been recovering from an upper respiratory infection and I found out the excruciating pain in my back is being caused by a compressed disc in my back. Not the kind of thing one wants to hear at my age. I've done some graphic work for the MAC Artist's Cooperative Store- a rack card, and I'm about to submit designs for window cling.

This is the front and back of the rack card. I will hopefully have that done tonight and then I've got websites to start working on! I'm pretty excited about those because they are for some really neat people so if I don't get any other artwork done for me, I'll at least have fun working for them :-)

Is this Sweet or What?

2011-09-11T21:19:00.001-07:00

Found this recently while researching web info for a talk I'll be giving. It's amazing what random things I am led to on the web when I swear I'm doing legitimate research!

The Anonymous Hugging Wall

Check it out for yourself here.

Where's a picture of that rabbit with the watch from Alice in Wonderland when you need it?

2011-09-11T21:14:00.001-07:00

I can't even begin to express how stupidly busy I've been since summer started. I foolishly thought I'd have all this time to work on new art and I foolishly thought I'd be able to accomplish it while taking a welding class and teaching 2 classes of my own, one of which is still fairly new so I had to make lots more samples than I already had. AND, the MAC decided to turn their museum shop into an artist's cooperative and I applied in both photo and metals and got both accepted so I had to get work ready: files to the printer, jewelry cleaned, glass for frames, frames, display material, yadda, yadda, yadda. And I have freelance webwork in there. Oh, and did I mention that full time job I still have? And to top it off, I've missed every show deadline that I wanted to make for fall. Oy!!!!!

Anyway, enough kvetching. I have loads of photos of work, play (we did go to Vegas-first timers) for a few days thanks to the gracious invitation of dear friends Becky and Marilou, and interesting things lined up to blog about, so stay tuned.

One thing that I recently did was buy a truly ergonomic keyboard by Kinesis.

Looks weird, right?

Being on the computer all day at work with a cr*ppy old standard keyboard was making my thumbs numb and not helping the tendonitis or arthritis and even my old old old MS natural keyboard wasn't helping so I did what I always do and went researching on the web for something truly ergonomic. There's not much out there that is touted as truly ergonomic but this keyboard got consistently good reviews from programmers and professionals who sit in front of a computer all day. So, despite the hefty price tag and steep learning curve to re-learn where the "Enter", "Space", and "Backspace" and oh-so-many-more keys are I went ahead and ordered one. I am slowly typing on it as I write now and I have to say that my hands don't feel better (the tendonitis seems to be kicking in and my left thumb feels a little numb) but I'm hoping that's just because I'm struggling to type being so thrown off by the unusual design. Most reviews on Amazon said the learning curve was 1-2 weeks. Wish me luck.....

While I'm still strugglingto catch up....

2011-07-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

I came across this nifty art piece involving knitting:
365 Knitting Clock

Click here to view the article. The link is to an article rather than the artist's website because the article has way more info and photos. You can view the artist's website here. The clock knits a 2 meter long scarf in a year. What a great concept.

This is neat for web/ graphics AND metals!

2011-07-09T19:39:00.001-07:00

If you've been reading this blog at all or actually know me, you know I have my multi-armed Hindu goddess arms in many, many fires. Well, in my search for web background inspiration I cam across these two sites:

http://www.colourlovers.com/
and
http://wanokoto.net/japonizes/gallery

The first site, ColourLover, allows you to create your own patterns and colorize them and/or search through thousands of already created patterns. Whatever you create goes into the pattern database so it can be used by anyone else who comes across it or knows its precise name. And you can re-color it to whatever color scheme you like, then right click to save it to your computer. The same goes for the Japonizer but has a limited number of traditional patterns to choose from in the gallery. But here's the kicker. Not only is this great for all the web people out there, but metals people can use it to make patterns for PNP to etch their own custom patterned sheet! How cool is that?????

AWOL

2011-06-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry, it's been a bit hectic this month. On top of the day job, I'm taking a welding class, teaching 2 night classes and working on a website (one in earnest and several in the pipeline) and there's been some celebration of some kind (Father's Day, our wedding anniversary, etc.) almost every weekend and all of the above combined has banished my personal creative time to the far corners of the universe. And I was sick for a bit, too, which slowed me down. When it rains it pours :-)

Classes will be over at the end of July and so will the web project (keep your fingers crossed) and I'm taking some vacation days so I will plan on getting back to the blog et al soon. Hope your June has gone well and if you live where I do that you are staying cool!

Crackle Enamel

2011-06-05T12:33:00.001-07:00

My student Diana Pettiti studied for a number of years with an old-school group of enamelists in California before moving to Phoenix and she brought to the class some techniques I'd only read about and had never tried. Diana was so great about sharing what she knew and letting me photograph the process.

So, what is crackle enamel?
Here is how I understand it (and please feel free to correct me if I get any of this wrong): the crackle effect is produced using a base coat of enamel with a very low co-efficient of expansion (which means it flows/ moves readily sooner than other enamels would at the same temperature) with a finely powdered liquid enamel on top. Thompson Enamel makes a crackle base in clear, white and black. Diana used the Liquid Form Enamels as the top layer (NOT the Liquid Form Brushable Enamels- I don't know what the difference is but they are separate in the Thompson catalog).

Diana is using Clear Crackle Base for her project

You need to prepare your metal as usual for enameling: metal should be grease free and free of scale if using copper and if you want to make sure your enamel stays clean. Do your counter side completely- if you know you are going to have 2 coats on the front, go ahead and do 2 coats of counter now. Clean your front side then sift a nice even coat of the crackle base. Depending on how thickly you sift, you may need a second application. You don't want this layer to be super thin because you WANT it to MOVE.

Sifting the Crackle Base

Fired to maturity- The Crackle Base behaves just like any other
transparent enamel on copper so fire it normally

Next, you need to mix the liquid enamel in a small open mouthed container like a Dixie cup or condiment take-out type cup. You mix with distilled water, no Klyr-Fire, around the consistency of tempera paint. The enamel should coat the mixing utensil well but still move fairly freely. You don't want it too watery.

Buy Liquid Form Enamels in powder form so you can control the water content

Mixing the enamel- stir with a solid object to reduce bubles

Your metal with the crackle base should be prepped and ready to go before you start mixing the liquid enamel so once the liquid enamel is ready, pick up the crackle base piece and hold it from the underside. You are going to pour the liquid form over the piece to coat the surface completely and you will need to be holding it so you can tilt it around to facilitate the coating process.

The piece has been coated and now Diana is letting any excess drip back into the container.
You can reuse the material if it dries out. Just add water and re-constitute.

Once the piece is coated, set it on a trivet to dry, which will take quite a while because the entire top surface is saturated with water. You can place the piece on top of a hot kiln to speed things up. Once you are absolutely sure all the water has evaporated, you can fire.

The kiln needs to be hotter than normal- ~1600F

You are going to fire in a HOT kiln. For this process to work, the crackle base has to really move. What's happening is basically pull-through but because of the nature of the materials it produces a particular effect that looks like cracks. You normally fire for about the same amount of time but really it just depends on when you see the cracking effect or not. This is a somewhat capricious technique and if the base layer isn't thick enough and the top layer not the right consistency, the kiln isn't hot enough, etc. it may not work. It will take some trial and error to really be able to get reliable results. But oh, what results!

Right out of the kiln and look at the glow on the metal

As with most reds, the liquid form enamel comes out of the kiln looking black

Starting to "color up" as I like to say

The Liquid Form Enamels are opaques so what you see is what you get with their colors. They can also be mixed to make new colors and used in painting techniques where they produce a water-color like effect. One thing Diana did learn in my class is that if the crackle effect isn't as dramatic as you like, you can stick it back in the kiln and sometimes get a little more out of it. If it doesn't work at all, then 1 of the 3 aspects (kiln heat/ time, crackle base ratio, liquid enamel ratio) if off and if it's definitely not the kiln, then it's one of the other 2 and you just have to start over.

I do need to add the sample size used in this demo was a 2 inch domed disc. Diana says the crackle also needs gravity and area to help it move so the effects may be reduced on smaller or flat pieces. Just FYI.
:-)

I'm going to re-title my enamling class "Enamels R&D"

2011-05-23T22:31:00.000-07:00

Enameling does involve science, but it's not math. It's more like chaos theory....
I don't have anything more to add, really. If you've ever done it, you know what I mean.
:-)

Student Work

2011-05-20T10:30:00.003-07:00

I have had some wonderful students over the years and I wish I could say I chronicled all their work in my classes but I've only recently (in the last year) started taking photos of what they are/ were working on. So I'm going to share here (and continue to do so) some of the wonderful work they've created. I received some photos from the students themselves, which is always a great treat.

Bracelet by Linda Rhealt

Second bracelet by Linda Rhealt

Linda's work area

Enameled "flowers" in the garden by Al Streyfeller
(Those are live ducks, by the way)

More enameled "flowers" in the garden by Al Streyfeller

This was some of the collection Dona Kahler made.
She's an amazing stained glass artist (among many other achievements!)

Judith Lupnacca- wonderful person and open to the many surprises the glass might provide

Three beautiful pieces and I can't remember whose they are! Please, let me know!

Diana Pettiti

Another amazing piece from Diana. This was raku'd with white as a base.

More to come!

Computer Aided Design

2011-05-14T11:00:00.001-07:00

I haven't talked much about the digital side of my life except to announce when I got a photo in a show but it's not for lack of plenty o digital stuff going on in my life. I am preparing a web design proposal and while looking for color schemes (I get ahead of myself frequently) for this client I stumbled upon this nifty little website/ app:
Color Scheme Designer

Here's what it looks like

I highly recommend you check this out if you are a designer/ need ideas for color combination/ whatever. You can select a bunch of different color scheme options such as complementary, triad, analogous, etc. and you can preview a web layout with "Light Page Example" and "Dark Page Example" buttons in the lower right below the combination box at right. You can adjust the hue and tint, adjust for colorblindness and more. It's pretty awesome. Just FYI :-)

Flux

2011-05-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

What is flux? For the metal smith, flux is an oxygen inhibitor. That's really it. When metal containing copper (which is sterling silver, alloyed gold and brass) is exposed to heat and air at the same time, it oxidizes and creates a scale layer that solder cannot attach to. Solder is also made up of silver, copper and zinc and so it also needs to be protected from oxygen while it is being heated. Flux goes onto the piece while it is clean and cool and forms a glassy barrier when melted which air cannot penetrate until it is finally burned away through extensive heat exposure (i.e. you've been heating the piece at high heat for a long time).

If you've done it right, the solder will melt and join the pieces of metal you want to join while the flux is still protecting the seam.

For years, metal smiths used fluxes containing potassium biflouride, a chemical that is fairly nasty to inhale but works great as an oxygen inhibitor. Many of us know this kind of flux by it's brand name "Handy Flux".

The original paste flux I always used- still a great flux and still in use today

Years ago an alternative came out called "Dandix Flux", which didn't contain the potassium biflouride. Yeah. It sucked. Big time. It didn't hold for very long under heat, meaning the time one had to get something soldered before everything turned black and dirty was greatly reduce.

Booooo!!!!!

I tried it and ended up going back to the more chemically Handy Flux. Until, that is, Bob Coogan at the Appalachian Center for Craft turned me on to Superior #6 brazing flux. This stuff is just as good as the Handy Flux and it doesn't contain the potassium biflouride. I've used it for years and highly recommend it. You can order it by the case from the company directly or by the jar from H&N Electronics in California. That's not to say flux is completely safe, one still has to take sensible steps to minimize exposure, but at least we can cross one chemical off the list!

This is my somewhat dilapidated jar. I've had it for years and it's still half full.

By the way, I was trained on paste flux so that is what I'm comfortable using. I know some jewelers use Battern's, which is a yellow liquid flux and some use a combination of powdered boric acid and denatured alcohol. I don't use those.

Battern's is really more for gold soldering in my experience- and I have no idea what is actually in it. And boric acid- well, if you accidentally ingest boric acid- there's no antidote and you can be poisoned as well from long term absorption through the skin (I've read the paste fluxes contain boric acid as well but it's already mixed in and not a powder to be mixed, which I think is somewhat safer).

There are more products on the market of course and some new ones say they are better and safer than the old paste flux. One new one is called Firescoff.

It's supposed to be very safe. Metal smith Polly Smith uses it in conjunction with paste flux and really likes it, especially with Argentium silver. I have some but haven't tried it. It's expensive so Polly suggests painting it on rather than spraying it as directed. I'll let you know if I like it when I finally getting around to trying it.

There's also something called Cupronil, which I also have a bottle of someone probably gave me and I've never tried it. I'll report on it as well if I ever try it!

Cupronil Flux

It's important to note there are many fluxes out there. If you know of any other fluxes not mentioned here you really like or you have tried Firescoff or Cupronil and have some input- please leave a comment!

The Show was Great!

2011-05-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to report that the Shemer House of Fun opening was jam packed. I am going to have to go back and see the show again when there aren't so many people. I am indebted to artist extraordinaire and juror Lennee Eller for including me in the show. If she had a website, I would include it here, but she doesn't. I may have to suggest building one for her in trade for some of her art.....

Me and the beautiful and talented Lennee Eller at the Shemer "House of Fun" opening

Pin Backs

2011-04-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, back to some technical stuff. Jewelry for me is one of the media I use for expression. Whether it's narrative or design oriented doesn't matter. But the one fundamental principle about jewelry regardless of what it looks like is that it should be wearable. With that in mind, here's a little how-to on pin backs:

I use commercial pin backs. The kind with the little rolling catch. Nickel silver. I know how to make handmade pin backs but unless I'm going to do something really high end I don't see a point. To me, a pin back is like the eye hooks and wire for a picture; it should be well-made, do it's job and be unobtrusive. And even is I were making something high-end I would just buy higher end pin backs unless the pin was an integral design element of the piece. When I purchase pin backs, I always buy the catch and joint that matches and make sure you get a stem with the rivet in it.

Pin Catch

Pin Joint

Pin Stem with rivet

I buy the longest pin stems I can get because I will cut them to size as needed. You NEVER want the point of your pin stem to extend beyond the end of the catch enough for the wearer to feel it. Also, always solder the pin catch open-side DOWN.

So here are pin backs already soldered on (I went through this part of the process in a previous post) and now I've placed the pin stems to the pieces and cut them down.

First I clamp the pin stem up in my ring clamp and file a new point, then sand and polish that point. It is important that the point NOT be long and thin but rather short and sort of blunt. This prevents the point from tearing through thread. A shorter, slightly blunt point will work it's way between a weave but a long sharp point acts like a needle and can split threads.

The pin stem is properly sharpened and does not extend beyond the end of the clutch. Now to clamp it into the joint.

The joint has 2 holes on either side in which the rivet of the pin stem fits. The trick is to get them lined up and even pressure applied so one side of the joint doesn't move in more than the other. I like to use parallel jaw pliers for this and I do it slowly. You'll notice that the pin stem is angled above the catch as it gets seated. That is because I soldered the joint at an angle. You want the pin stem to have to be pulled down and have it pop into the catch a little. This helps the pin stem stay in the catch even if the little roller gets rolled up over the course of the day. It's a safety feature. That's it!

MAC Jewelry Classes website gets a facelift

2011-04-24T08:30:00.001-07:00

I am using the MAC jewelry classes website as my guinea pig to learn WordPress and I now have a working site (albeit with plenty more to do) up and running. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out because if you are interested in taking metals classes there, this site is a way better way to find out about what's going on than the official MAC website! Yikes. Sorry to have to say that. Anyway, check it out here.

I will be adding more media (movies/ pics/ news/ etc.) and adding to the Resources list as well as tweaking the look. Feedback is appreciated!

Fiber Techniques in Metal Summer Class

2011-04-22T20:37:00.020-07:00

In addition to my regular enameling class, I'm also offering an 8 week fiber techniques in metals class at MAC this summer. I taught this class a couple of years ago so I don't offer it very often. We will be taking basic fiber techniques such as twining, lanyard, weaving, coiling, multi-strand braiding, etc. and using wire and flat strip as our material. I took a similar class a couple of times with metalsmith extraordinaire Susan Wood and assisted her with the class at MAKER in 2004 before she passed away. She was one of my metals heroes and an amazing human being all around. Here is a small sampling of some of the techniques we'll be doing. I'm looking forward to this class being longer so we can do more things.

Examples include: coiling, lanyard, twill weave with varying thickness of flat strip, God's Eye
and multi-strand braiding

Registration for classes starts April 22. You can receive 10% off your registration for up to 2 classes if you register in the first week! You can view the Mesa Arts Center classes at their website and you can see my classes at my website on my Classes page (click the jewelclark.com link at right under "Links Schminks"). Email me from there if you have any questions!

For a complete copy of the MAC Summer Classes brochure, click here (pdf)

I'm in a Show!

2011-04-19T08:24:00.019-07:00

The Shemer Art Center is having a show titled "House of Fun", the theme being art that makes you smile. I had 2 pieces of jewelry and a photo selected. The opening is Thursday April 21 from 7-9pm at the Shemer Art Center- would love to see you there if you're in town.
Click here for their website.
The show runs through May 25.

Primal Scream Series

I started this pin series after sitting in on a sawing class with Michael David Sturlin. It inspired me to get back to some basics. When I just need to relax in the studio and focus on one thing, I draw up a simple line drawing face and just practice my sawing. These pieces are 20-18g and about 2- 2.5 inches tall if I remember correctly.

"Who is that Fabulous Masked Man?"

I took this photo in Bisbee through the shop window of a closed antique store.
It is part of my Inanimata Series.

Enameled Pendants Class

2011-04-15T21:00:00.001-07:00

Spring Break at the MAC was a neat affair. All week long people could sign up for a "get your feet wet" class in all kinds of topics. I taught an enameled pendants class to introduce people to enameling. I had 8 enthusiastic students who produced some wonderful pieces in only 3 hours. Some had no metals experience and none had any enameling experience. It was a great class!

Students worked on either 2 inch or 1 1/4 inch copper discs which I had pre-cut. They learned to sift then worked with sprinkling color and enamel threads.

Here's a Pretty Thing

2011-04-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have a great student, Diana, in my class(es) this spring who has studied enameling for years in California with an old school crowd and I am learning as much or more from her as she is from me (one of the reasons I love teaching). I had always used Thompsons 1995 Black for, well, black. But 1996 black does a really cool thing if you over fire it. You heard me- over fire it. I didn't fire it over 1500 F, I just fired it longer than necessary.

At the top of this photo is a copper piece with 1995 black. On the left is 1996 black fired properly. Although you can't see it in this photo (have a mentioned how difficult it is to photograph shiny enamel on a curved surface????) the 1996 is actually slightly purplish and just a hair translucent, unlike 1995, which is completely opaque and flat black. On the right is the same 1996 black over-fired a couple of times (just to make sure). There's absolutely nothing else on that piece of copper but 1996. Gorgeous! I'm looking forward to doing more with this little bit of info :-)

Amococo

2011-04-01T21:00:00.001-07:00

Well, of course it's gone now so for those of you who didn't go, I hope these photos inspire you to NOT skip the next MAC special event. You can learn more about this particular project here.

Outside and not looking that impressive

Then you go inside.....

I actually got lost. It's amazing how disorienting the space becomes. I took soooo many more photos but I think these give the gist. The color is produced from natural light shining through colored vinyl/ plastic (can't remember) that is less than a mm thick. I didn't make any color enhancements to these images.

The first knitting project of the year that wasn't for anyone else!

2011-03-25T21:00:00.001-07:00

A couple of years ago I knit myself a hat and scarf with this great Peruvian wool from Mirasol. I finally knitted a matching pair of fingerless gloves, which I finished just in time for the weather to warm up! Oh well, next season....

The finished gloves

Palm side with cuff rolled down

Top side with cuff left long

The entire set.
I wear a lot of black, grey and brown and like to coordinate my base with a splash of bright color.

I used a fingerless glove pattern from a Fair Isle class I took with Lori Smith at the Fiber Factory, which she created so I will not repeat it here. You can probably order it by contacting the Fiber Factory. The hat pattern is a brilliantly simple one from an old Vogue knitting magazine and the scarf is a diagonal rib from Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" which is a no-roll pattern.

Great Friends

2011-03-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

We were graced with the presence of two amazing people a few weeks ago. Becky Williams and Marilou Knight, friends from way back left paradise to come see me. We had a great time and I am more than determined than ever to start saving my pennies to go see them! You can see their art and find a link to Becky's music through their website Dragon House Studios.

Becky and Marilou

First we went to the Desert Botanic Gardens

Then we went to the Phoenix Art Museum (we also went to the Heard but I don't have pics of that)

where Marilou and I had fun shooting in the Firefly room.

Then I took them to that little hidden gem of weirdness, the Mystery Castle (RIP Ms. Mary Lou Gulley)

And final photos are the night before they left. We had an amazing dinner at Tarbell's to send them on their way.

I need a decent flash with a diffuser

Becky took this lovely pic of me and the hairy man :-)

I miss you guys but can't wait for Vegas and Cirque Du Soleil later this year!!!!!

March Madness

2011-02-20T21:47:00.001-07:00

This last week of February and most of March is going to be hectic so I may not post much until the dust settles. Just FYI. Hopefully, I'll have a lot to post about :-)

Actually Useful Gadgets #1

2011-02-04T16:29:00.002-07:00

As a metalsmith for over 20 years I've purchased my share of nifty looking gadgets that I thought would be good in the studio only to find that I never really had a need for them or they just didn't work as well as I thought they would. So I'm going to talk about those items I use in the studio that really are handy but not necessarily the normal compliment of tools we have. These little review posts will be titled "Actually Useful Gadgets". So here we go:

A few years ago, Lonnie (from Lonnie's Jewelry Supply) gave me a pair of Atlas rubberized gloves to try. He was considering carrying them in the shop but hadn't tried them.

Atlas 370 gloves- Rio Grande photo

I will say right now, these are great gloves. I like them because they are rubberized on the working side and knit on the back so they breathe. They fit my hand well, and it's really difficult for me to find work gloves to fit my long slender hand. But the best aspect of these gloves is that the rubberized side it thin enough to still be able to feel the metal piece in your hand as well as keep a good grip on it yet it still does a great job of protecting the hand from the heat generated by mechanical grinding/ polishing! With leather gloves I usually felt like I was working in a space suit- the padding was always so thick I couldn't feel the piece well and I certainly couldn't keep a good grip on it if it was small and I was having to grind it in some fashion.

Well, after several years, the heat and chemicals do take a toll and my old gloves had gotten stiff and I wasn't using them anymore.

These guys are really worn out

However, I didn't know where to get any new ones since I hadn't seen Lonnie carrying them and with a day job it was hard to get over to Lonnie's to get supplies. Well, imagine my surprise last weekend when the hubby and I were at Baker's Nursery getting starts and seeds for the garden:

There were my gloves! In fantastic colors and all sizes- same Atlas 370 gloves but packaged for gardening. The only difference I could tell was that the wrist was longer.

I bought a pair at the garden center for about $7 and I subsequently found them in the Rio Grande catalog in small and large only for $5 but unless you are going to order more items, shipping will kill off any savings you'd get by ordering them.

Verdict: Recommended

If you try them, let me know what you think!

The last handmade holiday gift this year...

2011-01-30T14:17:00.001-07:00

Here's the felted water bottle holder I mentioned in my last post. The pattern is very very basic. It did not include instructions for a strap so I made one up and luckily the length turned out well in terms of sizing for an 8 year old. It would have needed to be much longer for an adult. You can find the patten here. I'm going to include pre-felted sizes for you so if you want to try this pattern, you'll have some idea of how big to knit the holder. So here's the before pic:

knitted water bottle holder prior to felting

I double stranded the same two colors of Patons "Classic Wool" that I used on the clogs with the same size 11 US needles. I was knitting to fit a Camelback BPA-free hard plastic water bottle holder (about 8 1/2 inches to the top of the lid by 9 3/4 inches in circumference) so if you've got a larger circumference bottle you may want to size up a bit because the dimensions I'm about to give just fit perfectly for this bottle. So here are the pre-felted dimensions:

Base square= 4 inches
Bag length= 12 inches
Bag width (laid flat and measured straight across) 6 inches
I-cord strap= 8 inches

The strap was knit with 3 segments in size. I started out by picking up stitches on the edge of the bag to do a knit/purl rib of 7 stitches. Then I sized down to 5 then down to 3 so that the ending would be easier to tie through the loop of I-cord I knit for the other side. I decided to do this because I really wasn't sure how much the strap would shrink and if I'd knit the end of the strap to the other side of the bag I'd have been stuck with whatever came out and if it was too short or too long I'd have had to cut it and figure something else out. With the design I used, the length of the strap could be adjusted a bit. Quite frankly, I was convinced that the length I knit was going to be super long even after felting but I was completely wrong. Lesson: If you are going to felt a strap, err on the side of knitting something way way longer than you think you'll need.

Strap length, total= 64 inches
7 stitch rib portion= 36 inches
5 stitch rib portion= 12 inches
3 stitch rib portion= 16 inches

You can see this step pattern in the "before" picture above.

I felted the holder in a lingerie washing bag along with some towels (lesson hadn't been learned about not using towels for felting- see the previous post) in the washing machine. I pre-soaked the holder in a pot of boiled water on the stove for about 1/2 hour or so then dumped it all into the washer. It took about 4 agitation cycles to get it down to where it seemed the right size. I think the bag length is a little long and if I do this pattern again, I'll make the length about and inch shorter. I did not allow the bag to go through the spin cycle as this can put unwanted creases in the material that is really difficult to get out. I pulled the bag out of the washer and hand pressed it in some towels to get the worst of the water out then I put the water bottle in and left it alone to dry. Here's the result:

The finished holder, slightly used.
You can just make out the stepped decrease on the strap. It's not unsightly at all.

This photo was taken about a week after I gave it to my stepson and he'd had a chance to use it and for the dog to chew on it, etc. He likes it and it seems to be working well. Unfortunately, I found what looks like a chew mark on the i-cord strap and it looks like it might rip through. If that happens, I have plenty of repair yarn left over and I'll plan on needle felting the repair. We'll see how it goes.

Holidays Survived! Now the Craziness Really Begins!

2011-01-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the holiday season was relatively low-key, for which I am eternally grateful. Now, work at the Heard continues and the weekend events schedule is heating up, classes have started, friends are coming from far away, clients are calling, and I am desperately trying to eek out a day in the studio once a week. So- it's business as usual :-)

I had so many people sign up for my Wednesday night enameling class that we were able to split it into 2 nights, which makes for a much more pleasant working environment for me and the students. I have been doing very freeform enamel pieces, and I will chronicle from start to finish soon but right now, I feel like showing off some fibers!

As some of you know, I am also an avid knitter (and novice weaver) and I worked on some handmade knitwear for holiday gifts last year. My mom has everything she wants so it's really hard to buy gifts for her and I gave her major jewelry last year so I thought something fine in fibers would work this year. I opted for a knitted scarf. It took me a year to make because I initially started with a sampler pattern and a very fine lace merino but I knit so loose and the sampler pattern was written for much fatter yarn so I kept running into problems of getting the width right and getting the yarn knit tight enough to actually see the lace pattern! Did I mention this was my FIRST lace attempt EVER?????

Well, after a multitude of false starts, I picked a fatter yarn and selected just one pattern from one of Barbara Walter's Knitting Treasury called Diamond Mesh, if you want to look it up.

Diamond Mesh lace shawl
~60 inches long and 10 inches wide
Charcoal gray heather Merino wool

So here's the shawl. Not the greatest photo and not the best lace attempt in the world but not too shabby if I do say so myself. Blocking it was tricky because I didn't have a good location to pin it out. I had to wait until my stepson was at his mom's for a couple of days so I could use his bed and I also bought those long lace blocking needles, which, as a metalsmith I should have been able to source cheaper than what I paid at the yarn store (they are just thin stainless steel rods), but it was worth it to just go get them ready to use. Blocking lace intimidated me at first, but it was surprisingly easy.

My other fibers projects were felted clogs for my hubby and stepson. I used the Fiber Trends Pattern AC33e with Patons Classic Wool. I had tried this pattern before with a charcoal grey Lamb's Pride yarn and the darn stuff would not felt, no matter how much I tried. Very discouraging. But a good friend had done up some lovely clogs with the Patons so I decided to try again and it worked wonderfully. I do like this wool for felting. I will say, if I were to knit some up for myself, I think I'd alter the pattern and raise the back up to make more of a shoe. I have such a hard time keeping shoes on because they are always too wide. I think this would help make the clogs more user friendly for my foot.

Clogs Before felting. The ones with my foot on them (women's size 10 1/2) were for my stepson. I knit them up for a women's size 10 and they fit him by the time they were done! The ones on the left were for the hubby.

Aiden's clogs, felted

Aiden's clogs with my foot again for size comparison. The hubby has started destroying his so I'm not going to show them here in their current state. If one didn't wear them OUTSIDE and step on the heel so that it was deformed and crushed, they would hold up just fine....

I also made my stepson a felted water bottle holder with the leftover yarn from the clogs, which turned out very well. I'll post those pics when he brings the thing back from school, hopefully tomorrow.

I learned a very useful tip while watching Knit and Crochet Now on PBS and that is to NOT felt with towels. They shed lint which gets embedded in the wool and it's nigh impossible to fully remove. Lesson learned AFTER I felted all my holiday projects, of course!
:-)

Happy New Year!

2010-12-27T06:43:00.001-07:00

Here's to a year of making great art!
Hope your project drawer is full of great ideas and inspiration!

Here's to whittling some of this down, too!

Its Time to Sign Up for Classes

2010-12-19T13:33:00.001-07:00

The metals and jewelry classes are up for the Mesa Arts Center. I'll be teaching 3 shorter enameling sessions, and a weekend workshop on hammer stone setting for cabochons. Check out my Classes page on my metals site for info or go directly to the MAC website here.

My approach to teaching is technique based and not project based so I'll teach you what you need to know and it's up to you to decide what to do with that information. Although I'll be covering the basics in the first class at least, if you are past that point, you can work at your own pace and you don't have to sit in on the lectures unless you want to. To me, these kinds of classes should be tailored to the student body so I like to accommodate technical requests, etc. Just let me know!

Also, if you are interested in glass, Ingrid Donaldson will be teaching at MAC this spring and she's got some pretty nifty classes lined up. Check out her art here.

Registration is now and there are lots of great classes scheduled so sign up!

Weeeelll, not a lot going on in the studio at the moment....

2010-12-19T13:20:00.001-07:00

It's the weekend before Christmas and I'm having to sacrifice studio time for wrapping time. I've got gifts to get out to Texas and I'm not quite done. I'm sure many of you can empathize! I am making some felted clogs for the boys and I'm nearly done with clog set 2 and I've got a lace scarf for my mom I still have to block. I'll try to take photos of the process this week.

I find the holidays really stressful. So, in order to bypass the stress and deadline that everyone and their dog seems to be trying to meet, I've been thinking about implementing gift giving for the New Year rather than Christmas. The only people in my circle who are religious are my sister and brother in law and they learned long ago not to expect presents from me to ever arrive on time. For example; my niece's birthday presents for October are going to end up going with the Christmas box (again) this year. (hangs head in shame)

So think about it. Maybe we could start a new trend!
(Although considering how late I tend to be getting gifts out, maybe I should aim for Chinese New Year....)

Raku Enamel

2010-12-12T18:14:00.002-07:00

I had a student request in my enameling class this semester to see what raku enamel was all about. So in the last couple of classes, we found out! I had done raku in ceramics as an undergrad but I wasn't sure how that translated to enamels. Well, I was surprised to find out the two processes are basically the same. I was lucky to find a section in one of my enameling books, The Art of Fine Enameling by Karen Cohen, on the subject. The article in the book was written by Jean Tudor and I followed her instructions loosely while experimenting/ demonstrating. This was definitely a learning experience for me as well! Since then I also found an article written by Jean Tudor on Raku Enameling for Glass on Metal.

If you find you are really interested in this technique, click here for a pdf version of her article.

So here's what I did:
I made two samples- one had a coat of Hard Fusing Clear already on and the other I sifted the green enamel directly on. Jean wrote that the green transparent enamels yielded the strongest results so I just started with them to try and make sure I got some kind of result!

So here are the two examples. On the left is the sample with a clear coat down first and the 4 enamels shown above sifted in a mix. To the right is one coat of the Nile Green over bare copper. You can see how pale the color is. I applied a second heavier coat of these colors to each piece before doing the raku.

The trick to getting the iridescence to come out is to cool the enamel in a reduction atmosphere. So what is a reduction atmosphere? A reduction atmosphere is where the oxygen has been removed. How does one accomplish this? Usually by putting something like newspaper, leaves, sawdust, any organic material that can safely burn, into a container (with a lid), igniting the material then putting the lid on to allow the fire to burn up the oxygen until it burns out and smokes.

Wikipedia explains: "This reduced level of oxygen causes incomplete combustion of the fuel and raises the level of carbon. At high temperatures the carbon will bond with and remove the oxygen in the metal oxides used as colorants in the glazes (enamels in our case but they are both glass). This loss of oxygen results in a change in the color of the glazes because it allows the metals in the glaze to be seen in an unoxidized form."

The green transparents contain the most copper oxides and will do that cool raku thing the best. It is important to get the enamel piece (make sure it is good and hot- do not under fire it in the kiln) into the combustible material as quickly as possible in order that it is hot enough to ignite the material. In order to accomplish this, I have a pair of pliers handy at the kiln and everything set up and ready to go. As soon as I can get the fork out from under the rack when the piece comes out of the kiln, I pick up the pliers, grab the trivet and dump it with the piece face down into the pot with the combustibles. If something goes wrong and you have to futz with getting it off the trivet,etc. it's usually too cold and the material won't ignite. If this happens, put the piece back in the kiln and try again.

So we are at the kiln ready to go

It's on fire!

Ready to see what we got

It's so incredibly hard to get a good shot of the results because the glass is so shiny, but here we are. On the left- 2 coats of Nile Green over bare copper, no raku. On the right, 2 coats of Nile Green that went through the raku process. You can see a little of the copper on the surface. The Nile Green gave a softer coppery shimmer to the surface.

On the left, 2 coats of the 4 green mix, un-raku'd (sp?). On the right, 2 coats of the 4 green mix after the raku process. This thing is just coppered to within an inch of its life.

Why is the surface so bumpy, you ask? Because the glass went face down into the combustible material while it was still molten. You can't escape this and if you put the piece back in the kiln to try and smooth it out, you'll lose the iridescence. Think of it as a bonus textural element.

This last piece was pretty darn impressive in terms of the dramatic change in the glass but to my eye, it's just too much. Jean Tudor writes about the judicious use of this technique and I agree. I think this technique will be most effective when used in moderation. But I'm looking forward to adding it to my repertoire to teach and I know I'll continue to experiment- judiciously :-)

Fair etiquette and the raku post

2010-12-06T12:49:00.004-07:00

It was a busy weekend and I didn't have a chance to get on the computer at all and I also I realized the enamel raku post isn't ready because I really want to do another set of samples and include shots of what the enamel color looks like naturally with an identically sifted sample of what the raku process does to the color. I will make those samples in class this Wednesday so I apologize to my class for not having this ready. I hope that you will still feed me for our last class!

But I did go to the Tempe Mill Avenue Art Fair on Sunday and I thought I would share some fair "etiquette" for those of us (I include myself here) who frequently like to check out an artists' booth because we see something that catches our eye technically or creatively but we aren't intending to actually buy.

So here's here's my approach based on my years of being both a vendor and a visitor of more craft fairs than I can count: As much as these artists enjoy people who enjoy their work, first and foremost they are there to sell. They need to make as much money as humanly possible in a very small amount of time. When I approach an artist's booth, I look to see how crowded it is and how serious people look. If the booth is crowded I stay to the side or wait a while. If someone comes in who looks like they are shopping while I'm in the booth, I move to the side and let the artist do their thing. If the booth is slow, chatting and asking questions and such is great but I try to break it off as soon as potentially paying customers walk up.
If I am planning on being a paying customer- I throw all this out the window of course :-)

Of course one always have to assess the actual situation and do what feels appropriate then. These are just my suggestions but I think they make sense. Hope this was helpful!

Design Philosophy

2010-11-28T13:39:00.002-07:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks. This post isn't very long but it is one I think very important. It's about design. I may have talked about this before, but it bears re-iterating. How does one go about designing? How does one pick the best design for the idea/ stone/ etc? Well, here's how I go about it. This technique goes back to my undergraduate days. My metals professor, Thelma Coles (she's had the most profound influence on how I go about making art than anyone else), required us to keep a sketchbook of our designs, which was graded at the end of every semester. Thelma required that I do at least 10 alternative sketches of every single design/ concept I came up with. I don't know if she required this of every one else but I really think she tailored her requirements to best serve her students. At the time I thought this was an impossible task. I couldn't possibly come up with 10 designs per idea, but being a dutiful student, I started trying. And to my astonishment, I came to really like it. I had to sit and really think and focus and then really explore every concept and record that exploration. I will tell you now design #1 was rarely the design that proved the best. So I challenge all you artists out there if you aren't doing it already, make at least 5-10 variations on any design you do for a month at least and see where it leads. I still use this approach for 99% of every thing I make and it has served me better than I could have possibly imagined. So here's an example of what I'm talking about:

So here's the piece in progress- main soldering done (stone is just sitting in place- not set) and the general sanding/ shaping is done but that's it. You can see how white the metal is- that's the unpolished fine silver surface coming up.

This was the first page

Second page

As you can see, the designs are pretty similar but there are subtle differences and this is really where one can make or break a piece. The devil is in the details, as they say :-) After looking over the designs and construction considerations, I picked the upper right design, which of course was one of the last. I've opted to use some kum-boo on the textured background to play off the yellow in the stone and that's not on the piece yet. I still have to solder my maker's mark plaque and the findings on the back and then the soldering will be done. Once the piece is sufficiently sanded and then depletion gilded, I'll do the kumboo (stay tuned for that how-to post soon) then tumble the piece to burnish the surface and work harden the metal again (another post waiting in the wings).

Occasionally I just wing it and don't start out with a design at all, I just pick a stone and play around with scrap and shapes that look interesting and work intuitively. I've been doing this metals thing for over 20 years now so I've had a lot of practice being 'intuitive', keep in mind. I know my material and I know my style. But it takes me 3 times longer to create a piece that way than it would if I'd just sat down for 20 minutes and worked all that stuff out on paper. Undoing something in metal is waaaayyy harder than scrubbing the last paint layer off your canvas, so whenever you can plan out your construction strategy, let's just say it makes for a lot less stress in the studio and way less scrapped metal.
:-)

Goings on

2010-11-14T12:36:00.005-07:00

Ingrid and I took a workshop at MAC with Michael Healey a couple of weeks ago on how to photograph your 3d artwork. It was really helpful and I not only learned a great deal about optimal setup and equipment, I also found some new features on my camera that I hadn't known about- go figure. Since I actually do product photography as part of my job at the Heard, my main goal in taking this class was to learn about what equipment I need to request for the budget next year as well as optimal setup and how I can achieve better quality images in camera so I don't have to do quite as much Photoshop work to get the pics ready to upload to the online shop. So here's Michael's basic setup:

Michael's set up

He sets up a good solid wood board on horses then has a bar across the back with a photo paper roll (he uses a light gray) which then gets pulled down in a nice arc and taped to the front of the board. He usually uses one light which is just over and in front of the set up. The trick to getting a dark fall off going up the image is to put a shade structure up over the set up so light hits the piece but not the background as it goes vertical. Very clever. He also has the background a good distance away from the piece so depth of field is just on the work which allows the background to just fade into non-detailed darkness, which is also very clever.


An example of how Michael's photography looks with this set up

My set up at work involves a gifted piece of black photo paper (I need to get with my boss and see about ordering some rolls- they aren't that pricey) and two lights with umbrellas. I turn the lights completely up facing the ceiling and that causes the light to bounce back off the ceiling and the umbrellas to diffuse the photo area. It reverses my light to dark though so the floor of the set up is dark and the vertical wall gets lighter. I'm sure I can rig something up to mimic Michael's set up but it may have to wait until after high season because I'm way too busy having to get product online right now to take time out to mess with the set up.

my set up

Looks a bit on the minimal side, doesn't it? Amazingly it gets the job done 9 times out of 10. One thing I also learned in Michael's workshop is that he can spend quite a bit of time problem solving the set up to get the very best quality shot he can. And he does and it looks amazing. On any given day I may need to put anywhere from 10-40 pieces on the web and that's on top of processing orders, taking phone calls and emails that are all over the place topic-wise and preparing the content to go online as well. I have to have a setup that is sort of a one size fits all, which is not optimal, but I'm amazed that I'm doing as well as I am considering all its shortcomings. Here's an example shot:

This was shot in my light tent, which I don't like but it's not bad, eh? I'll have to take a pic of what my light tent looks like but here's what Michael uses for a light tent:

Michael's home made light tent- pvc and a vellum-like heat resistant photo film used in theatre

The only reason I don't like my light tent is because they designed it with velcro as well as zippers and the velcro is constantly shedding little white fluff all over my black paper! Apart from that, it's okay. Here's a typical example of a product shot not in a light tent. You can see how the background gets lighter and the "floor" is dark.

Another issue with my set up is that I don't have time to measure for optimal depth of field so I just have to crank up the depth of field as high as possible to accommodate the different sized pieces and different focal lengths I need to get the shot. I can't back away from my setup by more than 4 or 5 feet, so the background is almost always in focus. That makes for additional grain in the image no matter what the ISO but for me right now it's unavoidable. Here's the other side of my office/ studio:

Michael's class was really great and also allowed me to see that I was doing some things as well as I could so I've stopped beating myself up a bit on the struggle to get good shots. Even with all of his expertise and the right equipment, he still struggles with getting the best shots possible. And for you jeweler's out there, he says that's the hardest stuff he ever has to shoot! I think he's planning on teaching it in the spring (it's a weekend workshop) and I highly recommend it if you need better shots of your work for shows or galleries and you need to take them yourself. If you can afford not to have to take them yourself, I recommend you hire Michael because he's really good :-)

About equipment: the product shots you see here that I took were shot with an old Nikon d40 with a Nikkor ~17-55mm lens. My lights are tungsten lights. The camera ISO is set to 200 and to Aperture mode. I have the white balance set to incandescent +2, which means tungsten on this camera. I adjust the exposure rather than the shutter speed to bracket because that's faster. I do not have an external light meter. Every image is brought into Photoshop CS4. The most common adjustments outside of cropping and sizing for the web are levels and selective color (using layers). I also do a lot of background fuzz cleanup with the patch tool. BTW, sizing for the web means reducing the dpi to 72, which is the highest resolution for the web. You do not want an image that is 300 dpi ever to go up onto the web. It just hogs memory and causes the whole system to bog down. I also bring the image width and height down and compress all jpegs for web viewing. The quality is usually between 60-80%.

My personal camera is a Nikon D300 and my main lens is a Tamron 17-55mm, which I love. All the other photos as well as just about any photo you see here or on my design website was shot with the D300. My next big purchase for photography is going to be a tripod over a flash. I learned another thing in Michael's class, keeping the ISO down makes for better photos but that also frequently makes for longer exposures. I need a tripod for a lot of the work I really like to do. As of my research right now, I'm leaning towards an RRS ball head with quick release plate and I'm pretty sure I'll get that but the legs I really want are from Gtizo and they are quite pricey so I may go with an Induro set for about half the cost. I think they'll work out just fine. That little gift to self will have to wait until after the holidays though :-) Sigh, something to dream about....

I just can't resist

2010-11-13T19:29:00.003-07:00

I stood in line this afternoon to meet Red Green at an Ace Hardware all the way across town in Litchfield Park. The 20 seconds of actually meeting him was totally worth the hour in line :-)

Whole lotta goings on, no pics yet

2010-11-07T10:01:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been an eventful week. The same weekend as the All Souls Show I took a photography workshop from Michael Healey at the Mesa Arts Center on photographing 3d artwork, which was really great. My main goal was to glean information to make my photography at the Heard go faster and better and I think I accomplished that objective. Unfortunately, I discovered that a different setup would help tremendously but there's no money in the budget to get one until next October. I also discovered that I'm doing a lot of things right, too, so that was nice to know.

Last weekend, after having all the other October weekends booked, I promised Mike that I'd clear the schedule for him so I did. Polly really could have used some more help at the Day of the Dead event Sat/Sun at MAC and I felt really bad about saying no but I'd already promised Mike I wouldn't work yet another weekend. However, Lynette took over creating the project for demo/ hands-on and they all (Holly and Jonathan) worked their keisters off to make it happen and by all accounts it was a great success. So Saturday I don't actually remember what went on during the day but we did go to Whole Foods and get fixin's for dinner and Mike grilled a duck, which was incredibly delicious along with eggplant from the garden and we also had polenta and salad. Sunday we had a lovely lazy morning and then went for a hike at South Mountain in the late afternoon. We got home just in time to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters and spent the rest of the evening doing piddly stuff to get ready for the week.

And now back to work... Friday night was First Friday and the Phoenix Center Metals Show so I had to see that then I went out with a good friend to catch up on life for a couple of hours, which was wonderful. This Saturday was the Heard's Weaver's Market where Navajo weavers come from all over the region to sell their rugs directly. I worked the morning as the shop photographer, talking to the weavers, taking photos of them with their work and taking photos of the event in general, then I had to boogie back to Tempe to see the last few minutes of a Saturday art show that my step son was in (his mom is at ASU doing a teaching certificate and she and I guess other art ed students taught these several weeks long Saturday morning kids art classes and this was the final day/ show for what the kids had done), pick him up and then go run errands. Today, Mike and I have to start hashing out the design of the kitchen for the new house (I've put a time limit on that because we tend to end up in a heated argument... anyone else ever done renovation know what I'm talking about? :-) ) then I'm headed to the studio for hopefully about 6 hours to get some much needed/ desired work in! Woohoo!!! I've got several pieces in process and one older piece I want to redesign. I had thought I might go down to Tucson for the All Souls Procession tonight but I just don't have the energy. I've got to plan ahead for that kind of thing....

And this morning I finally wrote back to the Midwest Metalsmiths about possibly doing a weekend workshop for them next year. They asked about painting enamel but I also suggested the hammer stone setting class. Thank you Andrew!!! I hope we can work something out. I so love to teach and it would be fun to go somewhere new. I'll keep you posted! Next week I expect to have some photos of my adventures as well as pics of what I'm working on in the studio. I'll try to remember to repeat this then but if anyone ever has process questions about a piece I show, please feel free to ask it. In addition, if there's anything technical you'd like me to address, please let me know and I can get photos together to talk about it. Have a great week and make some art!

On another note....

2010-10-31T13:26:00.003-07:00

This blog is about my shenanigans as an overall artist, not just in metals so I'm thrilled to share that I got into my first photography show! The show is: All Souls Procession 4th Annual Photography Exhibition Competition. It was curated by Terry Etherton, who is a big name in photography (I did not know this until I looked him up) so that was cool and out of about 128 submissions, only 25 were picked, so that felt pretty good as well. The opening was October 22 but it's running through November 7 in conjunction with the All Souls Procession in Tucson. You can learn more about the show and the Procession here.

Both pieces were digital collages of original photos I took in Flagstaff at the memorial of an old friend of my husband, Maria Ruiz, who died suddenly from an embolism, I believe. She was only 49. I had only met her once but liked her instantly. She was warm and welcoming and funny and just a great spirit. The turnout at her memorial, which was held at her cafe in Flagstaff was a testament to the tremendous love she inspired. The theme of the show was not only the All Soul's Procession but about honoring the dead and I hope I did her justice.

This time lapse video was sent to me by the organizer who compressed the

opening night reception into about 10 seconds

At the opening with my photos

Tribute to Love

Soul of Southside

Arrowmont- chapter 5, conclusion

2010-10-31T10:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Jodi, I have burned discs of pics for my students and they are ready to send off so I don't feel guilty about finally showing their work here. So the topic of the class was Introduction to Painting Enamel. What is painting enamel you might ask? Painting enamel is basically very finely ground enamel which behaves like paint in the application process but does contain glass so it glosses when fired. There is traditional painting enamel, which consists of ceramic pigments which are mixed in fairly specific proportions with a finely ground white or clear enamel (it has the consistency of baby powder or confectioner's sugar) and then can be mixed with either oil or water as a binder. Thompson enamel has developed a painting enamel that behaves like water colors and also a painting enamel in an acrylic binder. I prefer the watercolor and traditional mix varieties myself. The advantage to painting enamels is that #1, you can mix colors to make new ones, which you can't do with regular 80 mesh enamel and #2, you can create tremendous detail. I had used painting enamel as an embellishment for my cloisonne images but I'm now hooked on working immediately with the painting enamel to build the entire scene. I will talk more about the technical aspects of painting enamels in another post.

Everyone in the class had basic enameling experience or more but no one had worked with painting enamels. Here's what we did (keep in mind this is all jewelry scale. I don't think any one of these pieces exceeds a 2 inch maximum in an direction and most are definitely smaller than that):

This was my example piece- watercolor enamel

This was the piece I worked on during class although I finished the eyes at home. I worked from a photograph-
watercolor enamel (the photo is a little washed out)

Jodi- These were done with oil based painting enamels. She discovered it requires a lot more paint to build up color on a dark ground but it can be worth it because the contrast can be quite nice.

Liza- Liza went for an abstract series or earrings using oil based painting enamels. This photo really washes them out.
They were much more vibrant in person.

Marti- a portrait of her daughter from a photo- in process. Oil based painting enamels.

Marti- oil based painting enamels (I think)

Marti- oil based painting enamels

Mark- Mark and Pat were the most accomplished painters among us and it shows! Oil based painting enamels.

Mark- I think this one might have been the water color enamels

Mark- Mark tried lavender oil instead of our mystery "painting oil" that Thompsons supplies with the kit.
He found it is much runnier so it does washes really well.

Pat- oil based painting enamels over clear rather than the traditional white ground.

Pat- oil based painting enamel over clear. Pat applied some painting Titanium White to the top of the koi and it caused this bubbling effect, which I've encountered myself with Titanium but don't know what's causing it. It worked for the piece fortunately.

Arrowmont- chapter 4

2010-10-09T10:44:00.004-07:00

Okay, here are some shots of the studios and my students- all wonderful people and very talented! Many thanks to Jodi, Marti, Mark, Liza, Debbie and Pat for making my week such a joy :-) The studios in the main building are huge! There are two classrooms on either side of this hallway, where the faculty work for the season is exhibited. I did not have my act together to send a piece to the show unfortunately (such is life!). I did take quite a few shots of the work so if I get them sized, I'll include them in a future post.

The schedule went like this: ~7.30-8.30am breakfast- class started at 9. Lunch from 12-1.30 then class until 5pm. Dinner was at 5.30-6 and slides at 7pm or so. Then students could opt to go back to the studio until 1am or do whatever they liked. Many of my students worked most nights and I was usually there until 9-10pm although one night we went to a local restaurant/bar for Trivia night and another night I went to the Aquarium. So the week was intense to say the least. One thing I liked about Arrowmont's schedule, which most other places like this don't do, is class actually starts after dinner on Sunday night. This few hours gives the instructor time for the introduction phase of the class- passing out handouts and giving the students an idea of what to expect for the week. This way, we can just launch right into demos and working on projects first thing Monday morning. I also like the fact that they don't expect people to leave on Friday (we were able to work right up until 5pm) so Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast are included in the pricing structure. It's nice because the place doesn't just die on Friday night and people have a chance to socialize and relax after the intense schedule of the week.

Arrowmont has a wonderful program of work study on top of their elite residency program. The residents do not have to teach unless they want to, they don't work for the studios, they get a stipend and they have semi-private studios in which to work as well as group housing on campus. It's quite a plush gig and I for one applaud Arrowmont's support of emerging artists in this fashion. This is not the norm because most places just don't have the budget to support their residents in this fashion even though I know most places would like to.

The Work Study and Studio Assistance programs allows interested individuals to come and work to maintain Arrowmont (everything from grounds keeping to janitorial- there are full time people in charge of coordinating the work) and in exchange they get room and board and then get to take a class on their off duty week. The time frame can be just a few weeks to many weeks depending on the individual and the needs of the campus. It's a pretty cool gig as well. I have to say everyone I met there in any capacity: work study, studio assistants, residents and full time employees were wonderful and everyone seemed really happy and excited to be there. It was such great energy from everyone!

Two last things about Arrowmont before I sign off for this week. The food was really good. The kitchen does a phenomenal job of cooking for everyone and if you have special/ weird dietary needs like I do, they will bend over backwards to help you. I did bring gluten free bread and bagels with me b/c I knew I wouldn't be able to find much of that stuff in such a remote area. I was able to stash the bread in the fridge in the kitchen and just go in and get it anytime I needed. I don't eat red meat or non-organic chicken so they fixed fish for me. They also always have a vegetarian option at every meal. It is so important when going to a place like this that the food is good. People are having a very intense week and have paid quite a pretty penny to be there and to be able to relax over good meals for a little while each day is really wonderful. And-coffee is available alllllll day!

Lastly, the rooms/ bathrooms were really clean and comfortable and the grounds were beautiful! Thanks so much to all the Arrowmont staff for such a wonderful job!!! Okay, I'm done gushing :-) Enjoy the pics and next time I'll finish with what we actually made. I know I promised something like that this week....sorry. Next time- definitely!

The door on the right was my classroom

The metals studio- and yes, it is as big as it looks!
Individual benches in the middle, soldering stations to the left and more open work areas on the right.
Anvils in the foreground.

This is the hammer room which is a smaller room between the metals studio
and the glass/ enameling studio. The door to the right goes into the enameling studio.

The studios have catwalks for visitors to see what's going on in the classes
without disturbing them. This was my class hard at work.
A few people were still out at lunch when this shot was taken.
My messy table is in the lower right corner.

Jodi and Liza with Marti in the background

My student Mark and Donna who was visiting from the bead class

Catwalk looking down on the bead class across the hall

Just one of the wood studio rooms. The wood studio is an independent building built about 10 years ago-
beautiful gallery entrance and multiple equipment and teaching rooms

This is one of the studios in the wood building- the class was Extreme Pens.
They were doing miniature wood turning for pen blanks. It was pretty cool.

Interim

2010-10-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was kind of busy- got to spend a good chunk of Sunday in the studio and while I was gone, get this, my wonderful hubby cleaned out the fridge and vacuumed the house then grilled us a fabulous dinner of barbecued chicken, corn on the cob, garlic bulbs and salad! What a great way to start the week!

I've got photos from Arrowmont ready, just haven't had time for a thoughtful post to go with them so I'm planning for Thursday- Saturday to get that done. Just FYI. I've got some other topics already lined up- using a rotary tumbler may be the next one but we'll see. There's lots going on art-wise to post! I can't remember if I mentioned it, but not only do I work in metals, I also do photography and digital art so this blog is also going to be about that and other art happenings I get mixed up in. I discovered how hard it was to keep one blog going so rather than have different blogs for different topics, I'm just going to spill my guts here. After all, none of us are one dimensional people or artists, right? Hope you find it all good :-)

Arrowmont- chapter 3

2010-09-26T13:37:00.003-07:00

Well, I'm taking a little aside from what actually went on in class and including some photos this week of the surprisingly good aquarium that is literally across the street from Arrowmont. Don't let the fact that the aquarium is a Ripley's Believe or Not franchise discourage you because it's accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and is really quite impressive. They stay open until 11pm so it's easy to walk on over after slides one evening if you've decided to take a break from working late in the studio and check out the denizens of the deep. I went with Chad Alice Hagen, felt and fiber artist extraordinaire, who was also teaching that week. If I hadn't been teaching myself, I'd have wanted to take both the fiber and bead classes that were being offered on the other side of the hall! Next week, I will show you what we worked on in class and what the studios looked like but for now, enjoy these piscine pics!

Jellyfish

A Sawfish- amazing creature!

Sawfish mouth and gills- looks like eyes but they're not

Jaws music, please

Squid couple

Random fish but such a clear shot even through the thick glass, I couldn't resist including it

There were lots of fish....

Chad Alice Hagen in the Penguin Pod- This was neat. You crawled through a tunnel and popped right up
in the midst of the penguins and they weren't disturbed in the least,although there were idiots ahead of us
banging on the plexiglass to try and get the penguins to do something.
Sometimes I wonder who really belongs in the cage.....

Penguin Feet- I don't know why this picture is so small....

Arrowmont- chapter 2

2010-09-18T10:23:00.005-07:00

Here are some more shots of Arrowmont and of Gatlinburg, which is a very odd town. It is just a little ways down the road from the super tacky tourist strip in Sieverville, where you can find Dollywood and other like ilk, but it is also right at the entrance to the Smoky Mountains National Park so there's basically one main strip that's super tacky and it's completely surrounded by these beautiful mountains. Gatlinburg gets about 10 million visitors a year but there are only 3,500 residents in the town. Arrowmont is situated just off that main road but once you round the drive, you'd hardly know all that stuff was there apart from the occasional noise that filters through the trees. It's an interesting mix. There's the appeal of feeling secluded (I missed getting to see the black bear wander through campus one morning) while on the grounds of the school but you can walk down the drive and be immersed in a full on carnival-like tourist strip complete with cheesy arcades, festival food (all the homemade fudge you can eat), shopping (as long as mostly what you want to buy are purses or imitation Japanese swords), etc. When I was trying to explain it to my husband I compared it to Venice Beach in CA but without the body builders or ocean and with more permanent architecture. It's really quite an experience. But of course, it's only an interesting diversion for the real reason to be there, which is Arrowmont. Blogger has decided it doesn't want to upload any more photos for this post for some reason so I'll have to post more later. Enjoy!

Stuart House- another of the older structures on campus

Looking over the ceramics kilns into town. The Aquarium is that blue thing in the distance.

The main strip in Gatlinburg- wish I'd taken more photos! This one is soooo tame!

Yes- free moonshine tastings. Yes, I had some.

This is the Ogle Cabin, the oldest cabin that was built in the area in 1807.
The furnishings are as close to period as they could get (ignore the modern
conveniences for the volunteer who sits the place- very nice lady and very
informed)

The other side of the cabin

The Salt and Pepper Museum that, alas, I did not have time to go into before I had to leave

Arrowmont

2010-09-12T17:11:00.014-07:00

Well, thanks to Mary Chuduk, I had the privilege to teach at Arrowmont in August. It was absolutely wonderful!!! For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, Arrowmont is an arts and crafts school in Gatlinburg, TN that was originally founded in 1912 as a settlement school for rural farm kids to get an education. The school was dedicated as a year-round arts facility in 1968 although summers at the school had been devoted to arts and crafts workshops for many years prior. Today, it is one of the premiere locations to take week+ long intensive workshops in many media: painting/ drawing, wood, clay, photography, metals and enameling, glass fusing, paper, book and fiber arts. To view their website, click here

For Arrowmont, I developed a class on painting enamels, something that is not widely taught but a technique I've been experimenting with for a while now. I went looking for a photo of the main sample I made but by golly, I must not have take one so that image will have to wait for next time. For now, here are some photos of Arrowmont and one of the countryside. I'll post more later. Enjoy!

On the way to Arrowmont- the beautiful east TN scenery

This is the house I stayed in- Staff House

Inside the lounge between the sleeping quarters and the cafeteria at Staff House

Patio off the Library and our studios

View down the driveway at Arrowmont. The main building is on the left

The Red Barn, one of the oldest buildings on campus

Mesa Arts Center Shindig Tonight!

2010-09-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

The Mesa Arts Center is having their big season kick-off tonight from 6-10. There will be performances, the gallery will be open and there will be art demonstrations all over. I will be working in the enameling studio so come on by to chat or ask questions. A good time will be had by all! :-)

Okay- yes, I'm soooo late getting back to this

2010-07-23T20:35:00.006-07:00

Life has been interesting. I reported last fall that my South Mountain teaching gig had fallen through and I was lucky that Polly, my wonderful boss at the Mesa Arts Center had several classes that needed covering for the fall. I had a free tuition voucher to use from all my community college teaching so I signed up to re-learn Adobe Flash at Mesa Community College thinking I'd have time on my hands to go back to school a little. Well, I was casting about for a part time job and found an ad, somewhat old, on Craig's List for an e-commerce administrator at the Heard Museum here in Phoenix. I figured, since the ad was old, they'd probably already hired someone, but I applied anyway. Did I mention I also do web and graphic design on top of metals? Yep.

Well gosh darn it, I got an email back in a few hours and one thing led to another and I suddenly had a 4 day a week steady gig at the beautiful Heard Museum with benefits, cool id badge and everything! I've been working there since November 2 (finished my MAC classes and the Flash class). I've had Wednesdays off to do freelance/ teach at MAC/ work in the studio but that may change come October because my boss at the Heard wants me to go to 5 days a week. I'm still going to teach at MAC in the evening and I've already told my husband that there are some weekend days that are just going to have to be studio days until we move into our house (did I mention we bought a house right at the bottom of the housing market- fixer-upper but a real steal) and he builds me a studio at home.

Okay, so. This is why I haven't had a chance to get back to the blog. However, my class at Arrowmont made so I am frantically getting ready to teach an introduction to painting enamels, which is a new class for me to teach even though I've been doing it a long time. It's always stressful when it's a new class, even when you know the info. At least I know how I do it. I'm trying to make sure I can cover multiple methods and probably over thinking and over samples-ing the whole thing. I do that :-)

So I'm planning on having photos of the trip and the class to share after mid- August and this has also re-galvanized my resolve to get into the studio more.

And I haven't forgotten I need to post the links to those fabulous enamelists I went to the Grand Canyon with (gasp!) last June! So to end this post, I'm going to include their urls and a pic we took last June (before I wacked my hair off). Hope you enjoy.

Visit www.marychuduk.com and www.debbiesheezel.com.au to see some incredible enameled art!

MAC Fall Season Shindig

2009-09-10T10:28:00.002-07:00

Come on out to the Mesa Arts Center this Friday September 11 for their Fall Season Kick-Off Party. It's free, kid-friendly and we'll be demonstrating cuttle-fish/ plaster casting (jewelry scale). The Mesa Arts Center is located at 1 East Main Street, Mesa AZ and the event time is from 6-10pm.

There is still time to sign up for classes as well. Check out the MAC metals website for details. Hope to see you tomorrow!
:-)

Fall Workshops in the Valley

2009-09-04T10:49:00.001-07:00

It's time again to think of classes for fall. The Phoenix Center for the Arts and the Mesa Arts Center both have some great classes planned for fall. Click the links to go to their respective sites!
I will be offering several workshops this fall as well. Check out my classes page for details. I will be making an extra post shortly featuring an incredible enamelist I met this summer. Stay tuned :-)

Life Changes

2009-08-19T09:25:00.003-07:00

Well, I've been teaching for South Mountain Community College as an adjunct for 3 rewarding years but 2 weeks before they were set to begin, my classes were given to the new full-time faculty so they would have as close to a full load as possible this fall. So I am a bit adrift at the moment. Polly Smith, metalsmith extraordinaire and head of metals at the Mesa Arts Center where I am one of her residents graciously offered me several more workshops that needed an instructor when the original person had to back out. I am so grateful to Polly for so many things. She's a great person, artist and boss and she's now thrown a net under me twice. The first time was when I'd just finished my tenure at the Phoenix Center for the Arts and had no studio. She offered me the second residency spot when her other resident (I will not mention names) abruptly left. It was perfect timing and I've had such a great experience there since!
So- I'll be offering a much extended line-up of workshops/ classes at MAC this fall. Check out www.macjewelryclasses.com or my Classes page on www.jewelclark.com for more info. Classes start September 8 so if you are interested, sign up soon! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
:-)

Lazarus Rising (again)

2009-08-19T09:13:00.002-07:00

The summer was supposed to be a time for me to catch up on a lot of art and things that I normally don't get to do during the school year, including keeping up with my blog, but somehow, I don't know how, I've gotten so little done! How did I do that and still feel run off my feet most days? Oh well. It is the nature of life and of someone who wears many hats.
I'm re-tooling my blog a bit and will hopefully this fall move it to a Wordpress format when I'm not building sites for other people or teaching... and I'm widening the topic a bit. I will also be posting only once or twice a month since I should be realistic about it and I'm sure I can time manage that if I put it in the day planner :-)
I will be posting about classes I'm teaching, artists I like/ have met, show announcements, talking about art and design in general and including my projects and how-to's. I hope you like it and find it fun and useful. Away we go!

Solder Basics 101

2009-04-26T10:08:00.018-07:00

I started writing this Sunday but didn't finish and I've had food poisoning since Monday or this would have been up way sooner.

Okayyyy. Back to the topic of this blog! Last time I wrote anything metals related, I was talking about soldering. I'd like to cover a few more things I've learned over the years, which doesn't mean I don't still screw things up, but knowing a few tricks goes a looong way to minimizing the screw-ups. Plus, I haven't yet created a solder god for my solder-station so I'm flying solo right now!
:-)

So, for starters, and forgive me if I repeat info from a previous post, the metal must be clean (no oxidation or oils) and the areas to solder must make physical contact. No gaps. Silver solder does not fill in gaps! I like to hold the join area up to a light source to look for any light coming through. If light comes through, I need to sand or file one of the two pieces to make a tighter fit. If you know one piece is the way you want it, always try to work the other one only to create the fit. Keep one piece constant so you have less variables to deal with. To clean a piece, you can sand the surface or throw it in the pickle (keep your pickle hot and strong and only leave work in briefly). You could remove hand oils and such with soap but if there's oxidation, soap won't help.

As I mentioned before, I like to sweat solder as much as humanly possible. So what is sweat solder? Some people refer to it as "tinning" (sp?), where you cover the area to be connected of one piece with solder (always cover the smaller piece), flow the solder, then place the solder covered piece on the piece you want to connect it to and re-flow the solder, joining the two pieces. The most important thing to remember is to heat the non-solder covered piece up more than the solder-covered piece to facilitate the transfer of solder from one piece to the other. I usually make this a 2 step process but you can do it in one.

With that said, let's go through an actual example.

So here's my set up. I always use a solder pan so I can rotate the work as needed and I solder on an old fashioned kiln brick. When the brick gets dirty, I just take it out to the concrete and sand it smooth and clean. Great stuff.

Here is one of the pieces I'll use for my example. This is another one of the Primal Scream pins. The surface is sanded and I'm ready to solder. The smaller items to the right are my name stamp plate, the backs of the bezel cups and the pin findings, all with a little solder already flown. The stamp plate has hard, pin findings have medium and the bezel cups have easy.

Here is the piece fluxed and with the stamp plate on top.

I want to heat the sheet and not the stamp plate until the flux goes clear and I can tell the larger piece is at soldering temperature. Then I brush the flame over the stamp plate and watch for a mercury-like seam of solder to appear between the two pieces of metal.

FYI- always make sure your solder brick is as level as humanly possible. Gravity is not your friend when soldering. Also, use just the haziest coating of flux possible. I've seen pieces slide and solder way off where you'd want them when there's too much flux and the brick isn't level.

I pickled the piece and refluxed and added the pin findings. Again, I'm just going to heat the large sheet until it gets up to soldering temperature then I'll let the flame hit the pin findings.
Once the back is done, it's time to solder the bezel cups.

I coat the back solder area with yellow ochre because I'm going to have to flip the piece over and- gravity is not my friend :-)
Speaking of gravity, now that the pin findings are soldered to the back, I no longer have a level surface to solder my bezel cups to. I don't want to hang the pin findings off the side of the brick because- gravity is not my friend! So I need a way to level out the piece so my bezel cups will stay where I put them and solder nicely. Any old non-flammable, not likely to solder to the piece, not likely to off gas toxic fumes when heated object will do and I just happened to have an old piece of binding wire lying around and the height was right so that's what I used.

Once I'm done soldering I transfer my pieces to a clean steel block so they'll cool fast before pickling. I don't quench anything and I especially don't quench silver and you should never throw hot metal into pickle of course. The steel block works great because it acts as a heat sink and sucks the heat out of my pieces lickety split.

To quench or not to quench and 101 uses for binding wire will have to wait for another time. Hope this was helpful!
:-)

Yellow Ochre

2009-04-19T18:54:00.004-07:00

I had a question from a reader (Hi Heather!) concerning finding yellow ochre powder. I didn't find it listed on Lonnie's website (but I'd call Susan and ask directly) but Rio Grande carries it under the obfuscatorily :-) named
Rio No-Flo™ Anti-Flux Powder.

Hope that helps!
:-)

Mercy!

2009-04-19T18:26:00.009-07:00

Well, I had no idea it had been so long since but my last post, but here's why:

I love this action shot!

Meet Mr. Cutie Pie himself: Ollie at 8 weeks. I adopted him March 27 from a really wonderful young man trying to find good homes for his kitty's babies. I promise Ollie is very loved and spoiled rotten already, Brent! He's sleeping in my lap as I write :-)

Plus this beast was added to the mix 5 days later.

My husband got him from the pound at 8 weeks as well. He's a relatively mellow puppy as puppies go and he is a good natured little guy. He seems to learn fairly quickly but he needs more focused and orderly training b/c I'm washing an awful lot of throw rugs, towels and blankets right now... Oy!
He and Ollie want to play fight all the time but we have to monitor them and make sure puppy doesn't get too rough. Ollie seems to love it but I'm a nervous mommy and I separate them after they start to get too worked up.

Also, two dear friends were in town from Kauai and I got to spend several WONDERFUL days with them. They are very talented artists as well as just all around amazing human beings. Check out their website here.

Aloha Becky and Marilou! I miss you!!!!!
I will get back to my regular topic of conversation ASAP. I've been getting into the studio at least one day a week but there's been no time to post with my schedule and the little ones on top of the normal craziness. But I'll get there :-)

Paralysis Over

2009-03-14T06:53:00.050-07:00

Yesterday was a really good day in the studio. That doesn't mean I didn't have some hiccups but overall, it was really good :-)
Although I can't get into the studio until 1-2 on Fridays, the MAC is so quiet then that it seems like it's the best day to really get work done. So I spent about 4 hours in the studio this week, which doesn't seem like much, but it's not the amount of time, it's what you feel you've accomplished that's important, and I felt like I accomplished a lot! For one, I finally got the jumprings soldered to the setting for that enamel I was talking about last week. I also took so many photos of my solder set up that I'm going to break the technical info on that up into a couple/ few posts. I also finished soldering all the findings onto the Primal Scream pins and I finished all the depletion gilding so I've got 3 pieces ready for the tumbler. Once they are tumbled, I'll set the stones, send them for photographs and move on!

I'll talk about that enamel setting first. It is always tricky to solder very tiny objects to a much larger piece. The issue lies in heat transference and the fact that solder flows to the hottest object. The large piece has to be heated to solder temperature in order for the solder to flow equally between the larger piece and the smaller piece, otherwise, the solder will just flow to the smaller piece and there will be no bond between the two. As I mentioned in my last post, I sweat solder as much as is humanly possible in order to avoid solder spills/ cleanup.

I made very small jumprings out of 20g sterling. BTW, always saw your jumprings- never never snip them. I will save the reasoning for a separate post b/c I can already tell this one is going to be a bit long. Then I took my filing jig (one of the most useful tools I own- I don't have a pic but you can see one- click here) and I filed a flat spot on each jumpring. Then I flowed easy solder (rolled thin and cut small) on the flat spot. I don't worry too much about the solder rolling up the sides of such a small jumpring. It's practically unavoidable in my opinion and by the time the rings are heated a few times, much of the fine silver will mask the solder and remember, these jumprings will be mostly obscured by beads.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of the size of the rings compared to the piece as well as what that little flat spot looks like where the solder has been applied. I would never recommend trying to solder a round object to a flat surface because there is simply not enough contact area for the solder to make a good bond. Always try to create as much area contact as possible when soldering two items together.

I do not have "under the torch" shots of how I soldered the jumprings on like I do for the Primal Scream pins because this operation required all my concentration plus both hands. I hold the torch in my left hand and tweezers or my solder pick in my right 99% of the time. Even though the jumprings had a perfect flat spot on them, the flowed solder made that area rounded and they had to be coaxed over and over to maintain an upright position in order to get them to solder where and how I wanted them. I also soldered them one at a time in one operation. I did not pickle in between but laid them out around the rim onto the brick so that I had a decent idea of how they needed to be spaced out (I wasn't trying to put them in super-specific spots or I'd have made marks to let me know where they needed to go- I eyeballed it for this piece) and then put one on at a time, soldered it down, then put the next one on, etc. To get the solder to flow from the tiny jumpring to the big setting, I rarely put the torch directly onto the jumpring. I kept it on the large piece and only when I was sure that the large piece was close to soldering temp did I just brush the flame over the jumpring until I saw that liquid silver seam appear.

In preparation to solder, I quickly pickled everything (30 seconds or so- just to make sure there was no oxidation on them since they'd been sitting in storage for a week), rinsed it well then I applied yellow ochre to all the previous solder seams. I love yellow ochre. Yellow ochre is a solder flow inhibitor. It is a very traditional material and is just an earth mineral pigment so it's really safe. Please please do not use White Out for your solder flow inhibitor. It fumes toxic gas when heated! When I was first introduced to yellow ochre in school (it comes usually in a dry powder), everyone had been taught to mix it with water but the problem with that is the water spits and sizzles and sends the darn stuff all over your piece, contaminating your fluxed areas, if you don't wait for it to dry- and who has time for that? I'd abandoned using it thinking it was useless until I took a workshop with the great Susan Wood (RIP) and she mixed it with oil! What a revelation! It works beautifully, stays where you put it (don't use too much oil) and the oil helps dirty the seams you don't want to reflow! Any light oil is fine- kitchen or sewing machine style. Some yellow ochre pre-mixes use alcohol and while that would evaporate very quickly, I still find that it's too liquidy during application and you absolutely have to let it dry still- I'm too impatient.

So here is what the piece looked like prepped for soldering. Yellow ochre on all previous seams, including the interior of the bezel and a very thin layer of flux on the flat perimeter of the front where the jumprings were to go.

The yellow ochre flames (that's the oil) and turns black. The jumprings are black on top b/c I didn't put any flux there and remember, the copper in sterling oxidizes instantly when exposed to heat and air. The area of the perimeter (and the undersides of the jumprings) is still white silver where the flux was applied. Although getting all of the jumprings on took quite a while and I kept the piece hot the whole time and I had a very very thin layer of flux on the piece, my flux didn't burn off because I was using a much softer flame than I used to. I had a big tip on (about a 2 maybe?) and very little hiss. I've been using a softer flame since taking workshops with Michael David Sturlin who says a softer flame produces less firescale and it does certainly extend my working time under the torch.

I had a couple of jumprings that did not seat completely so I had to go back after the first pickling and re-yellow ochre/ flux and heat, but they sealed on the second go and once the final pickling was done, so was I! I will have pics post tumbling and pre-setting next time. I will also go over my general solder set up, etc. Stay tuned!

PS- I'm playing around with the layout of my site so if you have any likes/ dislikes with what changes appear, please let me know. Thanks!

Studio Friday

2009-03-07T09:07:00.004-07:00

It was so nice to get back into the studio after such a long hiatus. On top of the trip we took a few weeks ago and my wonderful parents coming in to town to visit, teaching has kept me very busy and my stepson has been sick with the flu. Fortunately I didn't catch it but something is in the air here as I've been feeling very much low in the tank for the last week or so- everything is starting to bloom- maybe that's it. Regardless, after classes on Friday, I popped a couple of ibuprofen and headed for the studio! Unless I'm running fever or have a gastrointestinal complaint that requires my attention in a fixed location...I don't see any reason to let my regular fatigue and aches and pains dictate my plans for the day. Life is too short!

I am still balking at finishing the setting for a lovely enamel I've made but I made a little progress on it yesterday. Sometimes you've spent so much time on something already, the thought of screwing it up on the last operation is just paralyzing. Basically, I need to solder these incredibly tiny little jumprings to the ledge of the front of the setting in order to run a band of beads (18th C style) around to embellish the front. I managed to get the solder onto the jumprings yesterday so really all that's left is soldering them on and raising the fine silver prior to tumbling. Since each annealing for the raising process removes a little solder, I think I'll raise the fine silver halfway at least before I attempt to solder the jumprings down. When I can take a good shot of the setup I'm talking about, I'll talk more about the potential problems and the tricks to making this kind of solder job more likely to work.

I spent the rest of my time working on the faces for some new Primal Scream pins. I have everything done except the soldering. I spent way too much time on the curls for one face and it's obvious I need to practice my sawing skills some more! 22 years at this and I'm still practicing. It never ends, which is okay. If I weren't still being challenged in the studio I'd be bored and I'd probably lose interest in doing it anymore. As you can see in the photos below, the curly headed figure has pink eyes. These are lab grown cz's that I'm setting upside down in the serrated bezel cups. I think it will be a fun departure from the norm.

FYI
I sweat solder as much as I possibly can when fabricating. So the pin backs, my name plate and the bezel cups (not shown in the pic) always have solder flown on their backs first, then they are placed on the piece to be connected to and the solder is re-flown. This eliminates clean up of solder spills. I also thin my solder in the rolling mill (I use wire solder) before cutting (you can also hammer it). This allows me to have less solder in any one place to again minimize cleanup puddles. Sometimes I sweat the backs of the pieces (always flow the solder to the smaller piece- not the larger one) first, pickle, then set up for the connection and sometimes I flow the solder and while the piece is still hot, I flip it onto the larger piece to be connected. I find the flux holds fine if I'm using a soft flame and there is plenty of time to get things to re-flow without the
connecting area going black. It just depends on my mood and time constraints. I will try to take pics of my setup next time I'm in the studio. Stay tuned! :-)

Long Time No See!

2009-02-25T20:38:00.008-07:00

Wow. It's been too long. I've been really busy with non- metals related stuff these last 2 weeks. I think February 19 was the last day I went in. The family went to Flagstaff for the long holiday weekend. We went to take the boy sledding. There was tons of snow and he loves snow! He had a blast. I hate the cold but I managed to do fairly well and fortunately the hostel had an amazing gas furnace in the room and eternal hot water. I took many many photos but otherwise got very little done, which I suppose, is the point of a vacation :-)

February 19 (or whatever day it was that week) was a tough day. I wasn't feeling well and was down for some reason. I went into the studio with very little enthusiasm. I was stressed out and it was just a blah day. I knew we were going out of town for the weekend, which makes for all kinds of work- laundry, cleaning, etc. (I have to come home to a clean house and have put fresh linens on the bed before I go- and yes, I realize that's a little neurotic) and on top of that, my mom and step dad were coming to visit the first week of March and I was in a panic trying to get the house cleaned and organized and dragging M with me- he's not naturally prone to tidyness. I'd finished the heart chain clasp (sorry no pics at the moment- I'm still in a panic trying to get the house cleaned) and there wasn't much in the studio that fit my mood to work on. And in reality, I only had about 1 1/2- 2hrs max to work that day. I pulled out my projects (many many in-process) and just sort of stared at my desk for a while.
You know, there is value in just sitting sometimes and particularly that day, it was beneficial to just sit at my bench for a while. I was away from the house and there wasn't anything else I could do- no grading, photography, knitting, nothing. I sat there and I thought about my work, my projects, what I was going to do next, next, next and ended up managing to forget about my woes and focusing on metals, even if it was just in my head. I'm so busy so much of the time I'm constantly rushing from one thing to another, crossing things off my to-do list that never ends and I never get (or rather, make) time to just sit and think about what I want to do. So in this instance, doing nothing in the studio ended up being incredibly productive! Once I sort of came to, I pulled out some metal and started making some new Primal Scream pins. I needed something simple so that the peace I'd achieved wasn't marred by any technical stresses and they are wonderfully straightforward to fabricate.
So my thought for this post is, take some time to just sit at your bench every now and then, let you mind wander through your projects and absolutely do not think about how many you have unfinished or how much time it's going to take you to finish them, just wander and think about production process, what you will do, what might be the next project, etc. I know it helped me recharge. I hope it works for you, too :-)

M forgot about Valentines Day over the weekend while we were in Flagstaff and felt bad he didn't even have a card for me (I didn't care- having someone to share the holiday with was all the bonus I needed). On our last day, he and the boy went out into the park to make a snowman. It was already time to get back to Phoenix so I was feeling a little impatient and my impatience kept growing as I watched them (mainly M, the boy was too interested in throwing snowballs) labor over this snowman. I couldn't get close because I was wearing street shoes and the snow went well above ankle height in some places. Well, the snowman was looking really odd and I was thinking M was trying to do some crazy snow sculpture we really didn't have time for, so of course I was getting annoyed. We needed to have the boy back in time to feed him and get him to bed to go to school the next morning and I didn't want us to be driving into the night. Finally, M comes over and wants me to come see the snowman. Because of the shoe issue, he carried me piggy back over to where they'd built the snowman. I'll let you see what it was rather than tell you. What a guy.

It says, "Happy V Day J. Love, M&A"
Awwww :-)

so little time...

2009-02-12T07:32:00.013-07:00

Only a couple of hours in the studio this week. I've been cleaning up and shooting my fold form line that I used to make years ago but I can't do that much hammering any more so I'm selling the remainder on Etsy. I have a portion of the line that I decorated with kumboo, a Korean overlay technique on silver with 24k gold. I love the technique but I've never been all that happy with the result on these pieces. The silver is so shiny and textured you can hardly see the gold. So I finally took a chance and patina'd the silver with liver of sulphur. The nice thing about liver of sulphur is it doesn't touch gold so the silver went black and the gold just popped out. Then I threw the pieces back in the tumbler. I love to tumble liver of sulphur pieces b/c when they come out they've got this amazing shiny gunmetal black surface and the patina is burnished and sealed in really well. I still have to take a pic of the fold form pieces but I did do this with the little pendant I photographed below so here are the before and after pics.
The pieces came out great in my opinion. They are shiny grey, the hammer texture comes out and the gold looks great. I think it will take a more adventurous jewelry person to wear black metal but the end result is quite striking and very different from the gold- free versions so I'm happy.
FYI- whenever you patina your silver make sure you don't have any tarnish on the surface. The patina really only wants to stick to clean metal. I missed cleaning a handfull of the old pieces but patina'd them anyway and after tumbling it was evident that the surface coloration was not uniform. The areas where there was some tarnish underneath was mottled. So I'm going to have to clean those pieces, re-patina and re-tumble.

First pic- before tumbling- stone is just laying in the setting- it's not going to be tumbled
Second pic- Tumbled and stone is set

Practice Makes Perfect and the Value of Notetaking

2009-01-31T08:38:00.010-07:00

I just managed a few hours in the studio this week and at first it was quite a frustrating time. A while back I made a loop in loop bracelet that I call the double heart since the links look like hearts to me. Well, it's kind of hard on my hands so I made a looser version that is only a single link version. It's still lovely but goes together a little easier. I'd devised a neat catch for the double heart that worked really well with this unusual chain and I thought it would be easy to duplicate it for the single heart bracelet. Wrong. The original was too big and the hook part was too narrow proportionally and it looked awkward. So I started trying to make it smaller and I didn't have the right width rectangular wire so I kept trying to roll out round wire width the right thickness. When I tried the first new catch, the hook was rolled around too tight but I'd already cut it to the right length so when I unrolled it and gave it more height so the chain would sit right, the hook was too short! So then I thought maybe I was soldering it at the wrong angle so I turned the solder spot up on the edge of the jumpring but that didn't help the chain sit well at all. I went back to the original design and did it again, this time with the wider rolled wire, a smaller jumpring and I rolled the hook around larger and finally it worked.

Although it was frustrating, I was reminded of 2 very important lessons. One, be patient. It was highly annoying to keep making these catches and have them be wrong but in the end, the last one was just right so it was worth it. I am now practiced at it and I should be able to make them faster next time. The second lesson is ALWAYS TAKE NOTES (and if possible keep a good prototype in your samples box for physical reference). Now I've got a little piece of paper I can refer to on the proportions (and I put construction notes on the back like how much space to leave when rolling the hook) if I don't come back to making these for awhile. If I do make another one, I'll try to remember to take pics of the process. When they are done, I'll take a pic of what it looks like on the chain :-)

These photos below are of a little pendant I made from scrap. I believe it was in the photo of work to be tumbled but when I put the liver of sulphur on the surface to patina it, I didn't like it after I'd scratchbrushed the surface. So I put more liver of sulphur on and I'm going to tumble it again when I've got a few more pieces ready to go. The tumbler will give the surface a smooth dark shine, which hopefully will do what I want. I will take a pic when it comes out of the tumbler so you can see the difference. I'm also still trying to decide what stone to set in it. I'm leaning towards the moonstone. I think color might throw it off although the jadeite is looking kind of nice, too.

Primal Scream

2009-01-23T19:02:00.005-07:00

I was able to squeeze a few hours into the studio this week between car repairs and the first week of classes at SMCC. I got the eye stones set for my new pin series, now titled "Primal Scream", but not much else. But any little bit of progress is good :-)

FYI
When positioning pin backs, it's just like hanging a picture. Keep the pin above the mid-line of the piece. Also, angle the pin stem holder (not the catch) so that the pin will lie just a little higher than the catch once it's secured. See the second photo for clarification. Hopefully you can see that the end of the pin stem rests just above the catch. That is so there is tension on the stem to help it stay in the catch even if the rotating catch portion actually rotates up during wear. You should have to apply just a little pressure to seat the pin stem into the catch on a properly aligned pin.
:-)

Whew!

2009-01-16T15:28:00.006-07:00

Well, I just found out all my classes are running for the spring, which is nice- don't have to start job hunting in this current economic climate. Now I just have to figure out what days are going to be my studio days for spring....

I've been working on the gallery pages today and when those are done I'll be able to launch my new website! I'm very excited! I will need everyone's help with their browsers to let me know what's looking funny as I can only test on IE7, Firefox3, and my hubby's old version of Safari. Soon! Soon!

We went to Bisbee for a couple of days this week and I can't wait to go back! For photography. But I met some neat people and we went into an old copper mine.

Finishing

2009-01-09T18:59:00.006-07:00

I managed to squeeze a few hours in in the studio today. I was thinking I might be able to finish the enamel piece in time to photograph it for the Enamelist Society show but no such luck. But I did get a number of pieces ready for the tumbler.

FYI:
For those of you who are not familiar with the quirky properties of sterling, it is prone to a nasty thing called firescale. Firescale occurs when the copper in the sterling alloy is exposed to heat and air (during soldering and/or annealing usually) and it oxidizes. Here is how I understand the reasons behind the two traditional fixes for this issue:
The pickle removes the upper surface layer of the oxidized copper (in fact, pickle only eats copper) but unless one sands into the metal to remove the lower layers that still contain some oxidation, that oxidated copper will show up as a purplish discoloration on the silver. It does not EVER look good. If you sand the metal to remove the firescale, you must not heat it again or you will cause the copper in the alloy to oxidize again and you will have to start your cleaning process all over.

The other way to attack firescale is to anneal and pickle the piece until the pickle has removed all the copper from the surface of the piece, leaving a thin layer of fine silver. Over successive annealings, the exposed copper is oxidized. The pickle eats the copper, but not necessarily all in one go. It may take several heatings and picklings for the pickle to eat all the copper away from the surface of the silver to the point that when next heated, the copper is too far from the surface of the metal to oxidize.

If you use this approach, make sure you beef up your solder seams because solder is eaten by pickle faster than the piece will be eaten and it will evaporate under the torch some as well. If you have wimpy seams when you start your piece, you run the risk of the pickle eating through them during your finish work. Also, you must not sand the piece again because you will remove that layer of fine silver (although you will not then expose firescale, just sterling). This process leaves the piece with a microscopically (sp?) porous surface and it leaves the piece very soft. To work harden the piece and seal the surface, I tumble everything I do (pre-stone setting) with stainless steel shot for at least 18- 24 hrs. I don't like to sand because much of my work has texture and/or large flat expanses with elements on top and I don't want to create any dips from sanding the flat surface nor do I want to ruin my textures. And also, I really don't like to sand.

Both ways have their pros and cons. It's just a matter of preference really. One fabulous advantage to the tumbler is that it finishes chains beautifully. It polishes them safely, work hardens them and makes them more supple than any other method I know.

Here are some of the items I was able to get ready to tumble today. It's so nice to be close to finishing some work!!! Notice how white the metal looks. That's the unpolished fine silver.

BTW, I don't bother raising the fine silver on findings unless I've had to heat them for some reason. Notice I've connected the jumprings. You will be searching through your shot for hours to find those little buggers if you don't string them, hook them together or something.

Life in the Ether

2009-01-06T21:13:00.001-07:00

I'm much further along with my new website and Etsy site for my jewelry. I'm really looking forward to uploading it- hopefully by the time school is supposed to start back up. I'll post the URLs once I've got something to show! However, my enrollment is looking very low. I may not have a full load this spring....

Breakthrough!

2009-01-05T19:01:00.004-07:00

Well, today opened up and I decided to get into the studio again just in case my car was in the shop longer than anticipated this week. My hands are starting to stay sore, but not too badly at the moment. It's probably a good thing I'm going to be forced to take a little break. My left thumb is the worst and of course that's the digit that does most of the heavy lifting in jewelry- human clamp, grip, etc. But it was a good day! I finally finished the shaping for the bail on a setting for an enamel I did a while back. I wanted the bail to coordinate conceptually with the imagery so I was going for a sort of tree-branch look. The best part was the soldering went off without a hitch! Now I've got to solder tiny little jumprings onto the ledge of the front because I'm planning on doing an old-fashioned bead edging around the setting. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Also, the first face pin in silver is ready to have the fine silver raised and I finished cutting out the second one. I'm going to set carnelians in the first one and I plan on sending it to Bob Coogan as a belated Christmas present as soon as it's done. Shhhhh. I included the copper prototypes in this pic so you could see what the finished pins should look like. I solder 5mm bezel cups over the eye disc and then I solder a plate with my name stamp, metal grade and copyright symbol along with the pin backs all in one go on the back. I'm starting to do many more solder seams at once with minimal pickling in between. It seems to be working just fine and definitely speeds up my production time. At this point, it looks like I'm going to have a nice little load for the tumbler here in a week or two. Some new finished pieces! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

s-hooks and jump rings

2009-01-04T09:50:00.004-07:00

I haven't downloaded any pics from my camera yet so I don't have an exciting picture of what I did in the studio Friday. Mainly, I worked on little stuff- s-hooks, jumprings, bails, etc. We all need s-hooks, jumprings and bails, etc. and I like to make them in batches rather than one at a time anyway. I'm finding that when I'm working on some pieces (and I am) that have design challenges I have to work through, being able to take a break from the intense focus they require and still be productive helps keep my in the studio and slows my antcy-ness down. At this point in my life, I can only work in the studio about 4-5 hours before my hands and/or my brain give out so I have to make the most of the time I am there. Making findings is tedious and not so creative (it's not completely un-creative, but, you know...) but it helps slow me down, give me a mental rest, and re-tune my focus. I get so impatient wanting the work to be done that it helps to be reminded how slow jewelrymaking can be- and that that's okay. A little repetition is a good thing now and then....
My stones and bezel cups finally came in so I'm planning on heading for the studio on Monday before the car really really has to go into the shop. With any luck, I'll get a couple of pieces actually finished (they are close!) and ready to tumble.
I should have some pics at that point....
:-)

PS- Here is a pic. They are just shaped- not pickled or polished at this point.

Ah the luxury of a teaching schedule

2009-01-01T21:05:00.001-07:00

Even if I am a lowly adjunct :-) Well, I had a lovely day in the studio and I'm planning on going back tomorrow since I can't guarantee next week will be very free. I'm still waiting to hear if my school is moving my drawing class to MW afternoons like they'd planned, which would give me TTHs completely free to head to the studio. In any case, I've got to just set a couple of days in stone as my studio days. Here is a shot of some of the pieces I'm working on. I've got so many things half way done I just have to pull out a few at a time to focus on finishing, otherwise the task is paralyzing.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step....

To the Studio We Go

2008-12-30T09:00:00.001-07:00

I have been teaching so much for so long and doing web design on the side that it has been really difficult to get into the studio to make work. Having a relatively new family, bless their hearts :-), hasn't really helped, either. Today while I'm on winter break, I am headed into my little corner of creative heaven (I have 2 others others as well. One is on the couch where I either chain work, sketch or knit and the other is in front of the computer where I can Photoshop all day long, baby!) and work on a new series and finish some half made pieces that are crying out to be done! I will try to remember to take some pics while I'm there. Have a great day!
:-)

Here We Go!!!

2008-12-29T19:40:00.001-07:00

Well, I've been meaning to create a site where I can post metals information and my work to share on a more immediate time frame than my website, which is currently and FINALLY under re-construction :-) I hope to use this forum to post images of my work and works in progress, discuss metals techniques and inspiration as well as answer any questions I can. Thanks for stopping by and look for more postings soon!