Creative Life 2016 - week 7

BOOM! Finished piece. finally. (other than the competition piece and class samples). Indian Kammererite, Australian mint chrysoprase, sterling silver. hand made matching, removable chain. Satin finished. 2/2016.

That's the positive- what's below is the whiny, emotional, artsy-fartsy stuff that goes through my head all the time. If you want to skip it, that's fine. Scroll back up and look at the pretty. :)

2016 has been a rough year, creatively speaking. I am realizing that I need to take some things off my plate in order to be more effective at the things i need to keep. I got distracted by the 'business of art making', the networking, the groups, the functions, and forgot that at the end of the day, i need energy for the actual art making. It always gets hard during the winter months, when the energy is scarce to begin with. I'm sure by late spring, i'll be back to my old self, getting involved with this guild, or working with that group for a show. and i'll be delighted by my connectedness, my sense of belonging to a bigger community, and my ability to make progress in the 'art world'. Right now, i just want to curl up under the blanket with the kitties and sleep.

There have been a lot of external circumstances that have made me feel less than my normal self over the last few months. I have looked back over my writing, my sketching, my finished work (what little there is) to see how my state of mind has been going. the lack of content speaks volumes. even my blog posts have been of lower quality and certainly less frequency. I really hope Blogger gets their app fixed soon so i can blog from my phone. I spend most of my workday on the PC, and honestly, getting on it when i get home is one of the last things i want to do. (also why i have a pile of invoices to enter into QuickBooks.... hmm... )

I think i just need to hibernate from like December to April. come out for food and showers and then retreat back to the blankets. if i live tweet it and cast it, does it become performance art? { sarcasm }

Weekly challenge - week 10

It felt so good to sit in the studio and make tonight! I've been sick for over a week and there hasn't been much energy for doing anything,  much less creating but tonight, fueled by a venti mocha and the looming deadline of my first show of 2015 at the Metal Museum next weekend, I was a making fiend! 

I actually completed 12 rings,  7 pairs of earrings, and 3 pendants tonight. I got a good bit carded and tagged, still need prices, but it's progress. And I have several more pieces in the pipeline so next time I get to sit for a few hours and work, I should be able to boast a comparable haul. :)

Here's an overview pic

Weekly jewelry- week 5

Last Saturday I taught a metal clay filigree class- here is my (mostly) cleaned up class sample. It will be filed a bit more and then plique-a-jour enameled.

jewelry a week 2015- week 1

I am not going to try to be as ambitious as I was last year. I'm going to try something a little more realistic given my overall schedule, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it better.

Here's the first piece of the year. I made the change to complement the pendant I made last year so that here's one finished piece of jewelry in 2015 :)

New Work- incorporating GOLD!

 See the process below!

It started as a sketch.. i purchased this amazing Canadian ammolite from one of my favorite Etsy sellers (devali) after he sent me a pic and asked if i was interested (it's nice to have that kind of rapport with folks that i buy from on a somewhat regular basis!) 

well.. truth be told, it was even more amazing in person than the picture he sent, and i was sort of in love with it from the picture, so i knew it had to be made into something special... 

here's the sketch- i tried not to think about it too much- just trust the artistic gut and go with it. (i sketched out several more designs after this one, but i kept coming back to this one because 1- the simplicity lets the ammolite be the star and 2- it just felt right.)

Here's the stone laid out on the back-plate with the bezel on the main stone and the tube settings laid out. I was playing with the arrangement of the cups to see which way was more balanced. 

  

Here's the layout with the bail (sporting it's 14kt gold 6mm tapered tube bezel!) and the 2 pieces of 14kt gold 18 gauge wire, prior to balling the ends. 

 Here it is all soldered together. the gold balls and wires are all well attached and it just needed a long soak in the pickle to get the crud out of those tube bezels. I thought i was going to mirror finish the piece, but i really dig the satin finish on the bail as i was cleaning it up, so i decided to reevaluate once it's cleaned up to see which way to go.

Out of the pickle

 With the accent stones set and a satin finish on the piece...  then into the tumbler to work harden (as if i hadn't done that enough already with the hand finishing!!!!) and clean up any small scratches from setting

out of the tumbler and the main stone was set! Ta-da!

Jewelry a Week Challenge- New Work

I've finally completed the piece i started back in February using a lovely artisan cut Lepidolite in quartz rounded triangle cab and Amethyst pear CZs. It was intended to be a brooch/pendant but after i melted one pin setting and flooded another, i decided the piece was telling me that wasn't the direction to go. 

I envisioned a modernized take on a Balinese granulation technique- so i made big, bold fine silver 'granules' to adorn the piece. By the time it became a pendant, instead of a brooch, i knew the chain was going to need to echo the streamlining of the pendant's design. So i paired sterling mod components i fabricated with strong, sleek rosary links featuring spiral cut amethyst beads. 

The toggle closure is fabricated to match and the cross bar has balled ends to keep the circle/dot theme going. the entire piece has my signature sea foam patina. (here's a pic of what it looked like before polishing- the black and purple are really striking!)

This piece was a challenge to me. I had to let go of my idea of how it was supposed to be and let the piece (and apparently my skill and patience levels) direct the development. Once i decided to just go with the flow, the piece became something that i enjoyed working on again and finished as a lovely piece i'm proud of. :)

I've been working.. promise!

I haven't been very good about posting regularly, but i have still been working. My piece a day has (realistically) become a piece a month, but i'm still making smaller things all the time.

Here's what i've been up to lately.

i had some Gibeon meteorite beads custom cut for the necklace that will showcase this lovely pendant. 

This is one of Ryan's gorgeous cabs set in sterling and fine silver

Finished up the fold formed pieces from my June class samples, Finally finished the piece with the branch and made another gum-drop ring with another one of Ryan's cabs. :)

Fold Forming class this Saturday!

If you're looking for something AWESOME to do this weekend- come bang on some metal with me this Saturday at the Memphis Botanic Garden ! Fold forming is easy to learn and is infinitely customizable (and pretty much impossible to mess up!)

If you've never done it before, all you need is a hammer and a bench block and a desire to do some greatly satisfying, stress-relieving forging. At the end of class you will have a bracelet, pair of earrings and pendant to show for it. (All in sterling silver!)

All materials are included in the class fee of $150 for members of the Gardens ($170 for non-members). Bracelets like the ones you'll make in class start at $250 on etsy!

Call  Laurie at 901-636-4128 to register. Email me if you have questions about the tools required for class (or borrowing tools if you're just not sure if metal work is for you )

Jewelry a day challenge- March 26th

Well... It looks like I lost over a month of making- but I'm working on getting back on track.
I *have* been making things, like today's piece that has taken me almost 2 weeks to finish.  Inventory,  getting sick twice, concerts, midsouth con and trying to balance having a social life with being a hermit artist has had me ping ponging. It's a difficult balance- being a part of the world, having a family and friends, working a full time job and being an artist. The day to day is sometimes enough to drain the creativity right out- it's a slippery slope but I am climbing back up :)

So tonight I present for you a piece that was originally a pin/pendant combo and is now just a pendant. It features a rounded triangle lepidilite in quartz cab flanked by 3 faceted pear purple CZS and balled silver.

And since it matches the color scheme, me in my dark elf (drow) costume from Con. :)

Jewelry a day- February 2nd

I have been trying to break the dragon habit of hoarding all the pretties. Today's piece uses an exquisite cab of oolite with lovely orbs and consistent pattering. It is polished on the back as well, so I've cut a window out behind the stone so all its greatness can be admired.

I set it in a scalloped bezel, to echo the pattern. Then paired it with a bronze cab I made from a vintage button mold. Its smooth bezel is complemented by a halo of bead wire. Topped with a brushed bail,  it's an eye catching pendant. 

I learned I need to brush up on my sawing skills as the 22g sterling base gave me a few fits. My maker's mark is on the back, sterling quality mark on the bail.

Jewelry a day challenge January 29th

I began working on this piece yesterday when I found it in one of my cab trays. It was a piece I made for one of my PMC certifications, which would date it to 2000-2003.

It was a very experimental piece with metal clay hinges and metal clay bezels for the two non kiln safe stones to be set after firing. The square one shrank perfectly, the large one for the charoite was too small. So back then,  before I learned to solder, I patched the bezel with metal clay and refired that part. The hinges were too thin, the hinge 'pin' was a bundle of lopsided torch balled 24g headpins, that never sat right, and the bezel looked like it was Frankensteined.... I had worn it a couple of times and it would get caught, as the headpins were too long and the hinge finally broke slightly. It was tucked away as an example of failed design.

Fast forward many years and much improvement in skill. The base is solid. The shape is good. The design has a nice Asian flair, reinforced by the kanji texture on the back of the piece. It was worth saving. So, I reworked its weaknesses.

I removed the hinge. Unset the rainbow moonstone and charoite. Cleaned up where the hinges were and removed the patchwork bezel. The I set to evening out the fine silver base where the bezel had been attached,  patched and filled in. I made a new bezel from fine silver bezel stock. I cut a piece of silver tubing and cleaned up its edges

Then I soldered it all together with silver solder- the top piece with the moonstone and purple czs, the tube and the bottom focal part. And then I had to put the bail back on after I set the moonstone because I got a little too rough with it.  So, moonstone came back out, reattached the bail and then cleaned it up. As the piece was originally executed in metal clay, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. Fingernail markes, uneven thickness of the edges.... I toiled until almost midnight last night, vowing not to let the piece win. But I had to let it, and me, rest.

Tonight's work was finishing the edges, filing and sanding out a divot in the bail, polishing everything, setting the stones, applying patina and then final finish and polish.

I think for an experimental piece from my early career,  it cleaned up nice. :)
If I can find a pic of the original,  I'll post it so you can see the comparison.