New Student Work from Phoenix College

Yeesh, I had no idea it had been this long since I posted! The spring semester at Phoenix College has started, I'm still working full time at the Heard and I just finished teaching a 6 week hammer setting class at the MAC. I'm still teaching enameling at MAC and I'm currently teaching casting at the Phoenix Center while John T. is on sabbatical this semester. Needless, to say, time has been tightly scheduled with practically no free time of late. And, starting in a couple of weeks I'm taking a short course in html5 and css3 at MCC through May! I haven't had a chance to make much of my own art for a while but my students at PC are going gangbusters! I am going to have to ask my MAC enamelists if they'll leave me their stuff to be photographed because they are doing some great work as well, but for now here is some of what my PC students are doing. The Jewelry I students had to make a bracelet with texture and rivets. My Jewelry II students had to make a neckpiece with enamel. My independent study student worked on enamel and colored pencil on metal. I'm very proud of all of them.

Jordan Abernathy- Jewelry I- rivets

Christina Soto- Jewelry I- rivets

Vicki Colter- Jewelry I- rivets

Lisa O'Rourke- Jewelry II- enamel

Margaret Murphy- Jewelry II- enamel detail

Margaret Murphy- Jewelry II- enamel
This was a neat piece. Margaret created a pendant
that one could slide different enamel plates into.

Vicki Gudger- Ind. Study- colored pencil/ enamel

Mesa Arts Center Classes start Monday!

The summer session is here for MAC classes! We have a great lineup, which you can check out at our dedicated site for the jewelry program: www.macjewelryclasses.com or at the official Mesa Arts Center website: www.mesaartscenter.com.
I'll be teaching an 8 week enameling class for beginners and continuing students wishing to work on their own projects with instructor access.

I know you've seen this before but I'll just include it here again
to give you an idea of the range of enamels. From left to right:
raku, cloisonne, painting, sifting/sgraffito/inlay

I'm also offering an 8 week Introduction to Photoshop Elements class, which still needs one more person. It starts Thursday 6.30-9pm and I'll cover camera basics, and how to optimize and funk up your photos using the much more affordable Photoshop Elements although if you have Photoshop, I'll cover that as well. There's still time to register! Contact me at my yahoooooo! address: hjewelclark if you have any questions :-)

Here is an example of the original photo I took of the courtyard fountain
at the Heard Museum on right, and the finished image on left. I know, this
should be reversed. I used Photoshop for this but I could have gotten the same
results in Elements.

Student Work

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!

Raku Enamel

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. You can also read about Jean's experimentation with raku enamel on her website. The text at each link is basically the same but Jean has some updates at the end of the 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 :-)

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

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!