I'll Pay You a Movie Tomorrow for a Blog Post Today!

I promised myself a selection from Movies-On-Demand if I wrote and posted my blog tonight. (It's 10:22pm--I had better work fast!)

And I promised myself that from now on, I only had to write a paragraph with each blog post.

I foster deals between Strong-and-Successful Brenda and Rather-Sit-on-My-Duff Brenda to motivate both me's. I mind-murmur things like "You only have to run to that far mailbox, but you do have to run to it." or "Since I had that chocolate shake this afternoon, I'll have ice water instead of a Coke just now."

[Alright, well technically I'm already three paragraphs in . . . but, that's sort of the point, I just need to get over the initial hump of starting something, then I'm fine.]

But, enough of that.I have been meaning to tell you about the workshop that I took with Dean Ebben at Kathy Malkasian's Valley Ridge Art Studio (located here in what Richard Salley describes as bucolic Wisconsin).

Dean's an amazing artist--and it takes an amazing artist to get me to break free from taking non-jewelry workshops. (Since the new millennium, Micheal deMeng's the only other victor in this regard). Long story short, I was blown away. I expected to be wowed, but instead I was mesmerized. Star-crossed. Hooked.

And guess what? You may just be seeing some cyanotype art jewelry pieces come out of this studio soon. They'll look similar to these exposures I did during the workshop:

 Leaps and Bounds

Pirouette Skirmish

 

Kewpie Gets Spit Curls

Escaped

And here's a little photo summary of what will become a draped cowl neck piece that I absolutely love (scroll down Dean's Workshops page a bit for more of the same):

 After all the sun's work and the rinsing is done,
I prepare the piece to be hung on the line to dry.
(Domestic Brenda--take a good, long look!)

 Reminds me of wash day at my Grandma Mae's.

 My Vally Ridge friend Janet Eskridge.
(We met at a Keith LoBue workshop at VRAS in 2008.
I'm the proud owner of three pieces of her work!)

Janet and the very wind-blown me.

A very BAD hair day (not you, Janet!) makes for a very GOOD art day!

[And I'm all done! I've earned a movie, but it will have to wait since it's now after midnight. It'll be nice to bank that movie reward for another time!]

The Fine Line Between Creativity and Clutter

There's a fine line between creativity and clutter -- and I walk it every day. Sometimes I'm on the creativity side, sometimes I'm on the clutter side -- mostly I straddle them both. 

Since I've recently had the excellent talents of my technical designer brother Jeremy at my disposal (he's since taken a full-time job in addition to his growing business and abandoned me, but that's another story), I took full advantage. I waved my arms around to explain my ideas of creating systems that would support my work, and he interpreted those dreams into realities of wood, hardware, and paint! (I'm so grateful to have his shaman-like ability tempering my creative visions with his engineering-ness -- and encouraging me in the process. I LOVE this guy to pieces!)

You saw the Wall-o-Jars that I posted a few blogs back. Well, here are two more ideas that have already boosted my ratio of creativity to wallowing-in-stuff-I-can't-get-to:

Precious Finds at a Glance: A set of shallow and narrow shelves that hold all my one-of-a-kind found bijoux. Since I work my found objects in jewelry sizes (smaller goodies than my assemblage buddies), I could afford to gather them in one area where I could see the whole collection at a glance. The shelves' placement in my studio also serves to engage my moodling mind with future projects each time I walk by.

 (Here's a close-up: noisemakers, vintage buttons, toy wheels, pipe-cleaner chicks and Eight Balls galore.)

 

On-Deck Works: I enjoy playing with a number of projects simultaneously. I group components for budding  jewelry pieces in these black trays where they audition (this is my friend and studio assistant Becky's term). They remain there until they "get the part"  to work on a portion of them at a time. Some never make the cut and their components go back on the narrow shelves or into beading inventory.

Note how the trays slope down from the wall (like the magazine racks at your local library), so that they, too, are in prime moodling position!

 

Am I more productive with these systems in place? Sure, if you agree that  freeing up my studio floor for little things like walking help! Now I'm ready(er) for loads of jewelry makin'!

What's Your RL/EO Quotient?

Sometimes I astound myself (in a not-so-good way). You'd think after 47 years, I'd know me pretty well. And to be honest, most of the time I'm pretty astute about what makes me me and what I can and cannot do. But this last little task I took on just hammered home the point that I'm a little dense in the what-can-be-accomplished-in-real-time-and-space world (a.k.a. what you can get done in real life).

You see, this girl's an eternal optimist. And, she's a little slow on the uptake when it comes to committing to deadlines. She says "yes" automatically before weighing a project's actual doing-ness. I blame it on my analytical side -- the side that on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the largest) is a .5.

So, next time I nod my head to drawing 70-plus sketches of 30-plus projects (which guide readers through the process of making the jewelry in say a book called something like Steel Wire Jewelry), I'll say I need two months instead of one. And I'll really draw sketches instead of schematic models that look like they're from an engineer's drawing board. And I'll start the project before there are only two weeks left to deadline. Ahem ... did I say that my procrastination quotient of big projects is also a .5?

What's your Real Life (RL) vs. Eternal Optimist (EO) quotient?

Where'd the School Year Go?

Seems like I just submitted my proposals to teach at the 2010 Bead&Button Show (actually, that was last July -- time flies) and now the Show's almost here! I'm kidding, really. (Thank goodness that June is several months away and the boys' school year has three more quarters to go -- plenty of time to raise those first-quarter grades!) The good news is that Marlene and crew at Kalmbach Publishing Company have recently announced the classes and workshops we teachers will be offering.

I am super-psyched to present four iron wire classes and one surprise! I get to teach a three-day Fundamentals in Resin workshop early in the week! Look for the complete catalog late this month and sign up in January!

Here's my roster:

Maniacal Jewelry Pound
A three-hour wacky and wonderfully loud pounding of iron wire: a great chance to try the medium in a shorter time-frame.

Found and Captured

Create custom captures (bails) for all your fabulous cabochons and found objects.

Create Your Style with Swarovski Elements presents Winterfrost Pod

A beautiful combination of iron wire and flashy crystal.

All plain-loops! Simple-dimple!

A Pound(ed) Heart

Try your hand (and hammer) at forging 12 gauge iron wire. Grrrr!

Fundamentals in Resin by Brenda Schweder

A three-day intensive play-date where

 you discover and/or re-explore resin, resin, resin!

What's Tangled and Mangled and Colorful Throughout?

Peek of the Week No. 2, that's what! It's been a month since I shared Peek of the Week No. 1 on September 10th. Today I'd like to introduce Peek of the Week No. 2. In true Brenda form, you may have guessed it involves two of my favorite things -- Irish waxed linen and (of course) iron wire. But what gauge? How is it tangled? Is it a bracelet, an earring, a brooch? I'm such a trickster for keeping you guessing!

Smokin' Mirrors & Inquiring Minds

Not everything is as it seems. Sometimes it's better; sometimes it's worse. Sometimes it's both if we step back a bit.

We dig for answers when things seem picture perfect. We want to know that others are like us -- a little less than perfect. We spend money to know the truth about other people's lives (my husband Jim's Granny Aurelia was a longtime National Inquirer subscriber), we research and Google! any little curiosity, and we take back stage tours to get an inner sanctum glimpse at how things really work on the big stage.

I got my own little peek at the "better and the worse" of my work this week when I visited Deone Jahnke's photography studio. We (she worked, I "assisted") shot six of my better pieces for the gallery section of Iron Wire Jewelry (coming out Fall, 2010).

The shoot went like clockwork, but I got a chuckle when we prepped this necklace (Scrapyard No. 1) by dangling it from a pole with gray duct tape (see evidence, lower left). VERY classy! Check out the little mirror propped on a tiny box with paraffin wax (another photog trick to bounce light around) and the adorable Ms. Jahnke's left hand and camera zoom lens.

Funny how the before (what the camera shows us) and the after (the "bigger picture") vary a teeny, tiny bit! Just thought your inquiring minds would want to know!