Open Studio At the Lander Art Center

This fall I will be offering an open studio class at the Lander Art Center Wednesdays beginning September 18th through October 23rd from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.  This will be an open studio with a short demo.  The idea is that we will have 3 different projects to work on or folks can work of their own projects.  I will effectively be the studio monitor but will also function as instructor if needed.  The price is an unreasonably inexpensive $10 plus materials or consumables.

Here are the projects/demos that I am tentatively planning on presenting...

WEEK 1 & 2--EARRING EXTRAVAGANZA


With this class I will show how to create various types of earwires including balled end and open hooks, hoops, posts, hoops with a little latch, those cool spirals and kidney wires.  These projects will feature forging, beading wire, wire work, light soldering and finishing.


WEEK 3 & 4--ROLLING ALONG WITH THE ROLLING MILL AND ROLLING MILL OVAL BRACELET OR NECKLACE

This class will feature use of the rolling mill and various different textures.  I have new leaf skeletons, new brass plates and I am excited to work with new laser cut templates from Rolling Mill Resource, a site on Etsy with some interesting new textures.  I will have a few but if you really want to get involved in it order a few sheets from them before the class starts.

Once we get rolling, pun intended, I want to cut disks and run them through the rolling mill to make ovals that we can use as parts of a bracelet or necklace.  This will entail stacking and beading a wire for a rivet or simply putting them together with a jump ring.


WEEK 5 & 6--SETTING STONES.

In this class we will set stones in bezels, in tubes and with prongs.  We will probably set on simple rings  to facilitate getting something tangible done.

My First Gold Rings

Making My First Gold Rings

I have been making jewelry for a while now and have not gotten into gold.  It's pretty obvious that making something in gold for the last few years has been no minor matter with gold reaching $1800 per ounce in 2011.

I was approached about a year ago by my client to create two special wedding rings in white and yellow gold with a landscape of the location in the Wind River Mountains where they got engaged to be married.  Her ring would also have a small diamond flush set into the ring.

It has been fun working with Anna and Evan (mostly Anna) and seeing her idea come to fruition.  I started out with a silver and brass prototype and eventually made the leap, bought the materials (I ordered more than I should have on accident!) and started the project.  After a few false starts I have to admit that working with gold is a joy.  I have always heard that and now I know it is true.  One of the problems that I encountered was my own fault...I only ordered white gold hard solder and then had to layer and re-solder, upsetting old joins or weakening them.  I bit the bullet and ordered some easy and medium and everything came together, literally, beautifully!

Making Big Metal Flowers

Making Big Metal Flowers

Well, I have been on a flower binge lately, making big showy ones.  The inspiration to make flowers is always with me as plants are some of my favorite things.  I am endlessly fascinated by the shape, color and texture of flowers and leaves and my own attempts to create metal versions are pretty pale in comparison to what Mother Nature comes up with.  Nonetheless... My original inspiration was from a Craftcast class by Barbara Becker Simon.  It is called "Creating a BIG toggle in Metal Clay with Barbara Becker Simon" and is really wonderful--large, well-done with attention to detail and very stylized.  I took some of her concepts, such as thickening the edges of the form and adding carving and came ip with this copper clay poppy.  I really love it and the addition of the coral, green pearl and sparkly Swarovski crystal makes it really dramatic.  I had to go out and find some clothing to go with it and I wore it to the Governor's Arts Awards dinner in February.


This one wasn't a toggle, I wanted to create an inset toggle but it went to wonky so it is just hooked on the back.  So...I made another with the toggle design...

Then I wanted to make something with Hadar's Pearl Gray Steel pieces so I made a Moth Orchid...I also made a wonderful orchid with Fast Fire Bronze that came out with a fantastic patina, as well as several other larger imaginative flowers, but more on those at a later time.  

Back from a Great PMC Class in Jackson Hole

I got back yesterday from a great PMC class in Jackson Hole at the Art Association. Jackson is about 3 hours away from home (Lander, WY) nestled in the beautiful Teton Mountain Range. The fall colors were wonderful, the mountains snow packed and gorgeous and the weather fabulous (none of which I actually took a picture of). I didn't even get a picture of the giant herd of buffalo I drove through!

The class was small and instead of going into my usual 4 or 5 wrote silver clay projects we did a basic textured piece to get the feel of the material and then everyone pursued a project that they were interested in.

Clint made a great cuff bracelet with decoration in the Fibonacci series!, Robin created silver coinage from her antique coins to enhance her handmade chains, Juniper created gift pieces for all her friend's children, as well as a great ring and set of earrings for herself. Sindy made earrings and pendants to enhance her beaded jewelry that she sells at craft fairs throughout the region and Jennifer made wonderful pendants and earrings that she will be gifting to friends and family for the Holidays, if she can wait that long!

Check out my Flikr site for all the photos I took during the class.

Also, don't forget that I will be offering the advanced class on Nov. 4-6.

Viking Knit Tutorial Source

I found an excellent tutorial to make Viking Knit woven necklaces and bracelets. I have been making these for a while now and a lot of people have asked me how to do them. I have attempted to answer them, but it is somewhat time consuming and really requires an hour or two of practice. The author of this tutorial, Trina Ann, has done an excellent job of explaining the process. She uses a small tool that makes the process easier, but it can be done on a plain wooden dowel. I twist my new and old wire ends together, but after seeing her post I might try to skip that part. I also add my wire on the dowel and use an awl or needle tool to open it sufficiently to add the wire addition.

I like the "daisy" that comes with the tool, but I will try making some from polymer clay.

The photo that I have included is on my Flickr site and is a Fine Silver Echinacea leaf with one of my own Montana Agate cabs on the Viking Knit Cable.

Riverfest 2011

Riverfest, our local art in the park event was Saturday. We had a great time and visited with a lot of people and sold a decent amount of jewelry ( sold the necklace on the left, a Labradorite on Hollyhock leaf). My son Sam and his band played a set and they were very good. The event was a little bittersweet for me since I got the event going, along with Nancy Ebbert on the music side and it is getting better and bigger. This was the third year and it will soon become a treasured institution in Lander if the energy can be maintained.

The reports of sales were a bit mixed. I think that the government playing chicken on the brink of default may have had some impact on sales. Also, summer we buy for ourselves, not for others which accounts for the lowered sales compared to the Art in the Afternoon Christmas sale. Also, we must admit that Lander is a small town. 7000 people is not a large basis. We are still working to develop an appreciation for the arts within a larger slice of the population. We do seem to have an inordinate amount of people making art though and that is a wonderful part of our town.

The greenhouse is going great guns (update: installed in early June) with the cukes coming on strong and maybe another week for the tomatoes. Next year we will get the tomatoes in earlier and see what we can do for early crops. Sales have been good in the first two Farmer's Markets with greens, basil and bouquets.

Back At It

Well, I resigned as Director of the Lander Art Center. The job was eating up all my mental space and keeping me up at night. Dannine Donaho, my Assistant Director has taken over and I am sure she has a whole new set of skills to put toward the Center. Good Luck, Dannine.

I am readying myself for the Holiday Sale season with new pieces and several sales. My schedule is:

November 5, 4-6 at the Dubois Headwaters Art Center

November 11-13 at the Nicolaysen Holiday Art Sale in Casper

December 5 at the Art in the Afternoon Holiday Arts & Crafts Sale in Lander at the Noble Hotel

I will teach a class on November 6th at the Lander Art Center called "Metal Clay Gifts" call the Lander Art Center at 332-5772 or go to landerartcenter.com to sign up

Kid Jewelry Class

Here are a few pics of my daughter Annika's projects from the Metals class ( and a little LeafLady of my own). The kids were great. There was only one minor burn from a piece of hot metal. The first project we did was the lentil bead in copper. The kids got to cut a disk with my disk cutter (it will never be the same, I might want to re-think this part), drill a hole, dome both halves on a dapping block, sand the edges flat, solder (this was kid-solder--I was more concerned with the bead holding together and the process of soldering than I was with whether they had a complete solder joint). The kids were thrilled with using the torch, especially the boys. We quenched in water and I gave them the option of pickling or leaving the heat patina. The example here is with the patina left on and some polishing with fabulustre on a very dirty buffing wheel. I find that fabulustre doesn't heat up the work too much so it is a good option for kids who get intimidated by buffing if their work gets too hot while they are doing it.

We then went on to do a hammered bracelet, a letter-stamped bracelet, a hammer textured pendant and a roller-milled picture frame pendant. The hammered pendant gave them experience sawing before we did the inside cut for the picture frame pendant. I tried to do a gesso/colored pencil drawing with the hammered pendant but it was basically a failure--but the kids didn't seem to care. The prismacolors just didn't have enough definition.

I learned a couple of things. 1) Don't let adults into your kids classes. They really need their own level of attention which is always detracting from the kid teaching. 2)Don't let parents accompany kids. They also have their own, adult-level expectations that are difficult to attain with 11 kids going "Lennie, Lennie, Lennie". Also, if the kid is too small to be by his/herself then they are too small/dependent to do a relatively intimidating class like metalsmithing. The kid in point was only 6 so I considered making the class for 9 and ups, but in several other classes the 6 year olds did great and I would hate to deprive enthusiastic young artists just because of one child. In the other class there was a little girl who was 6 who did all the projects with amazing self-sufficiency and went away very proud.

Next week I will be teaching Concrete Animals. That will be a challenge. I did a sample from Sherri Hunter's book and it is way too much for kids so I am modifying everything. Look for examples in the near future

Summer Jewelry Challenge

Well, its been a long time since I last posted, but no biggie.  Anyway, here is my interpretation Mary Hettmansperger's folded earrings.  I was inspired by Deryn Mentock's challenge to do the entire series of projects from Mary's book, "Wrap, Stitch, Fold & Rivet".  The earrings were almost instantaneous.  Just bend the brass, wrap and add beads and my lovely Grandmother's embroidery floss.  I  made the spinner necklace which was pretty easy too.  I textured a piece of brass, and since it was not annealled it bent and went nice and wavy, then I used an overcooked fine silver bezel plate with a Sulphur Butterfly Wing in doming resin, a copper disk left from the kid's metals class I just taught and a PMC bit printed from a rubber stamp.  I think it worked out rather well.  I have been waiting for the correct format to experiment with the butterfly, moth and dragonfly wings.

Tomorrow I will be putting in some of the projects from the metals class I taught at the Lander Art Center.  I had two sessions of 10 kids for a total of eight hours each.  They soldered, forged, sawed, drilled, stamped, roller-milled, and cut disks and domed them.  With a few exceptions it was a success.

This is a mixed necklace to go with Saturday's bracelet.  I love the combination of blue, purple and green with a purple/red spacer.  Hope you enjoy it.

This is mixed turquoise, sodalite, blue quartz and garnet with pmc charms and a pmc toggle.  It is fun to make.  I like a mix of things although there has to be an overall design that makes a mixed piece go together.

Skied again today and worked.  I am very tired.  This real work is hard!

Third piece/third day

I am feeling lazy today so I am submitting this as my piece.  Not very complicated, but it will keep me on track.  It is a Dictamnus seed pod (Gasplant) filled from the inside with PMCIII paste.  One side has a dichroic glass cab and the other has a cubic zirconia, so it is reversible.

Skiing on the golfcourse

This morning my husband and I went skiing on the golfcourse.  Eight degrees F., partly overcast with a beautiful view of the Wind River Mountains.

This piece is called 'Little Leaves and Pearls" and has 'Bette Corning' Clematis, Campanula carpatica, Geranium himalayense and Nepeta mussini leaves with silver beads and pearls.  

I installed an Altered Books show today on my first day at the Art Center.  It was fun and a fascinating exhibit but I'm tired now.

Ruminations in the morning

Well, got this off to a good beginning.  It shouldn't be too hard to make one thing a day, considering I have lots of components built up.  This will help me get some things done.  The bigger problem will be photographing it and getting something up here, considering that I hardly have the consistency to brush my own teeth on a daily basis.

On other subjects, I am reading "The Other Boleyn Girl" and it is delicious.  Today is my first day as Acting Director at the Lander Art Center--wish me luck.  I am sending out a grant and setting up an Altered Books show!

I am attaching a picture of a piece that I sent off as a custom order this Xmas.  I sold one like this and then I got someone asking for it so I had to make another.  They are all one of a kind.  The leaves are PMC fine silver Amur Maple leaves with 23K Keum Boo, pearls, swarovsky crystal and a PMC fine silver handmade clasp.  I charged $110 for it.  I am aware that it is too cheap, but I have a hard time asking alot for my work (more on this later). 

My first posting

Hi, whoever is out there.  This is my new blog to show the world my "stuff".  I make art (or sometimes craft, or a mixture)--metal clay jewelry, pastels, garden...and anything that strikes my fancy.  I am going to try to make a piece of art every day this year.  I will soon be starting my website, but I think this is a good way to keep a running record of my little resolution.  So many websites, especially in jewelry, are out of date or don't change enough.  I guess I have a restless spirit, but I like to see new stuff.

This is a simple but pretty necklace that I made today, a PMCIII (fine silver) aspen leaf with enamel, freshwater pearl and swarovski crystal beads and a sterling silver hook clasp.  Shown in a bit of our lovely Wyoming snow.