I know I'm not the only teacher blogging about the trail of evidence caused by the tornado that is the Bead&Button Show. I may, however, be the only one that is writing about it a full week after it has ended! Ay!
I do feel somewhat vilified that my delay in reentry has not only entailed a now-clean house, watered plants (boy, were they thirsty!), and my eldest's sixth-grade graduation (complete with memory books made into hand-rolled diplomas), but some really solid studio time (which is always fruitful after a super-charged week of inspiration).
I still have to make my deposits (money? is that important?) and unpack, but I've been true to what's most important to my creative process and that's makin' stuff -- with a half-dazed smile running from ear to ear! Ain't life grand?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
A Peak at the Bench: Subject C-Carly
The idea of my art metals class taking a field trip to my basement studio came up during critique the other day (I'm taking advantage of the illustrious Sr. Rosemarita Heubner's last semester teaching [Mount Mary College, Milwaukee] before retirement). I not-so-jokingly confirmed "let's do it, but give me some time to dig a wider path!"
That said, I thought I'd offer my blog readers a similar field trip (one you don't have to trip through). Here's a peak at a project I've been working at my jewelry bench. It's 'a moment in time' from 'A Day in the Life.'
This little ditty continues a series I've started titled with letters of th
e alphabet (you may have seen V-Voracious and N-Newfangled in my book, Vintage Redux). This new one is a memory piece called C-Carly -- a memento to my husband's Brittany Spaniel who passed away when the boys were crawling and beginning to walk.
This project was spawned by finding a bric-a-brac spaniel head at a local antique store. I played with pairing it to other found objects and discovered that it fit in this UFO (unidentified found object) really well. However, it did need some sort of border to set it off from the grayness of the metal form. I liked the idea of using a zipper with only the teeth showing (ha! that phrase is quite dog-ly itself) and remembered the words of Michael deMeng in a works
hop I took with him last fall -- anytime you repeat a pattern around an object, it sets it off and draws the viewer in.
Voila! Resin set the zipper, the dog, and the what's-it's-thing together. (To be honest, I didn't realize the zipper formed a C shape at first -- it was just too short to go all the way around. But, sometimes things just come together and this particular twist of fate cinched the name and it's place in the alphabet series!)
Next (because I wanted to moodle just how to tackle adding an iron wire bezel around this odd-shaped object), I decided on this old (watch?) chain for the necklace and cleaned it u
p with my wire brush. (I love my wire brush -- thank you Keith LoBue for introducing me to this fabulous tool).
Next time, I'll show you the results of taking iron wire to its limit (or "What Happens to a Bezel When You Putz with it Too Long") and (hopefully) C-Carly in finished form!
That said, I thought I'd offer my blog readers a similar field trip (one you don't have to trip through). Here's a peak at a project I've been working at my jewelry bench. It's 'a moment in time' from 'A Day in the Life.'
This little ditty continues a series I've started titled with letters of th
e alphabet (you may have seen V-Voracious and N-Newfangled in my book, Vintage Redux). This new one is a memory piece called C-Carly -- a memento to my husband's Brittany Spaniel who passed away when the boys were crawling and beginning to walk.This project was spawned by finding a bric-a-brac spaniel head at a local antique store. I played with pairing it to other found objects and discovered that it fit in this UFO (unidentified found object) really well. However, it did need some sort of border to set it off from the grayness of the metal form. I liked the idea of using a zipper with only the teeth showing (ha! that phrase is quite dog-ly itself) and remembered the words of Michael deMeng in a works
hop I took with him last fall -- anytime you repeat a pattern around an object, it sets it off and draws the viewer in.Voila! Resin set the zipper, the dog, and the what's-it's-thing together. (To be honest, I didn't realize the zipper formed a C shape at first -- it was just too short to go all the way around. But, sometimes things just come together and this particular twist of fate cinched the name and it's place in the alphabet series!)
Next (because I wanted to moodle just how to tackle adding an iron wire bezel around this odd-shaped object), I decided on this old (watch?) chain for the necklace and cleaned it u
p with my wire brush. (I love my wire brush -- thank you Keith LoBue for introducing me to this fabulous tool).Next time, I'll show you the results of taking iron wire to its limit (or "What Happens to a Bezel When You Putz with it Too Long") and (hopefully) C-Carly in finished form!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Cobbler's Children, They Have No Shoes!
You've heard about the cobbler's children and their lack of leather footgear? How about this former marketer's inability to properly promote herself? How long have Bead&Button Show classes been available for their frantic filling by way of the online registration site's 'buy' buttons? You guessed (or already know) it. Since January! (I'm only two-ish months late.)But, enough self-deprecation and onto some shameless self-promotion. There are still a few spaces left in my three Largest-Retail-Show-in-the-World classes! Two explore my new favorite medium, iron wire, (Calder Meets Carrie Cuff [upper right] and Maniacal Jewelry Pound [below left]) and the third is a waxed fiber repeat (High Fiber Diet [bottom right]) back by popular demand from '08's offerings.
Check out the B&B Show website for more info and to click that 'buy' button (not-so-subliminal messaging here) for yourself!
And, see you in June replete with shoes (and bells on them).
PS For those of you linking in from the Art Jewelry blog, thanks for taking part in the Found-object
pendant: Do you know what this is quiz. Your thoughtful responses tell me you're a foundling too! What a Pop-pop 'toot!'
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