Fiber Techniques in Metal Summer Class

In addition to my regular enameling class, I'm also offering an 8 week fiber techniques in metals class at MAC this summer.  I taught this class a couple of years ago so I don't offer it very often.  We will be taking basic fiber techniques such as twining, lanyard, weaving, coiling, multi-strand braiding, etc. and using wire and flat strip as our material.  I took a similar class a couple of times with metalsmith extraordinaire Susan Wood and assisted her with the class at MAKER in 2004 before she passed away.  She was one of my metals heroes and an amazing human being all around.  Here is a small sampling of some of the techniques we'll be doing.  I'm looking forward to this class being longer so we can do more things.

Examples include: coiling, lanyard, twill weave with varying thickness of flat strip, God's Eye
and multi-strand braiding

Registration for classes starts April 22.  You can receive 10% off your registration for up to 2 classes if you register in the first week!  You can view the Mesa Arts Center classes at their website and you can see my classes at my website on my Classes page (click the jewelclark.com link at right under "Links Schminks"). Email me from there if you have any questions!

For a complete copy of the MAC Summer Classes brochure, click here (pdf)

I'm in a Show!

The Shemer Art Center is having a show titled "House of Fun", the theme being art that makes you smile.  I had 2 pieces of jewelry and a photo selected.  The opening is Thursday April 21 from 7-9pm at the Shemer Art Center- would love to see you there if you're in town.
Click here for their website.
The show runs through May 25. 

Primal Scream Series

Primal Scream Series

I started this pin series after sitting in on a sawing class with Michael David Sturlin.  It inspired me to get back to some basics.  When I just need to relax in the studio and focus on one thing, I draw up a simple line drawing face and just practice my sawing. These pieces are 20-18g and about 2- 2.5 inches tall if I remember correctly. 

"Who is that Fabulous Masked Man?"

I took this photo in Bisbee through the shop window of a closed antique store. 
It is part of my Inanimata Series.

Enameled Pendants Class

Spring Break at the MAC was a neat affair.  All week long people could sign up for a "get your feet wet" class in all kinds of topics. I taught an enameled pendants class to introduce people to enameling.  I had 8 enthusiastic students who produced some wonderful pieces in only 3 hours.  Some had no metals experience and none had any enameling experience.  It was a great class!

Students worked on either 2 inch or 1 1/4 inch copper discs which I had pre-cut.  They learned to sift then worked with sprinkling color and enamel threads.

Here's a Pretty Thing

I have a great student, Diana, in my class(es) this spring who has studied enameling for years in California with an old school crowd and I am learning as much or more from her as she is from me (one of the reasons I love teaching).  I had always used Thompsons 1995 Black for, well, black.  But 1996 black does a really cool thing if you over fire it. You heard me- over fire it. I didn't fire it over 1500 F, I just fired it longer than necessary.

At the top of this photo is a copper piece with 1995 black. On the left is 1996 black fired properly.  Although you can't see it in this photo (have a mentioned how difficult it is to photograph shiny enamel on a curved surface????) the 1996 is actually slightly purplish and just a hair translucent, unlike 1995, which is completely opaque and flat black.  On the right is the same 1996 black over-fired a couple of times (just to make sure).  There's absolutely nothing else on that piece of copper but 1996.   Gorgeous!  I'm looking forward to doing more with this little bit of info :-)

Amococo

Well, of course it's gone now so for those of you who didn't go, I hope these photos inspire you to NOT skip the next MAC special event.  You can learn more about this particular project here.

Outside and not looking that impressive

Then you go inside.....

 I actually got lost. It's amazing how disorienting the space becomes.  I took soooo many more photos but I think these give the gist.  The color is produced from natural light shining through colored vinyl/ plastic (can't remember) that is less than a mm thick.  I didn't make any color enhancements to these images.

The first knitting project of the year that wasn't for anyone else!

A couple of years ago I knit myself a hat and scarf with this great Peruvian wool from Mirasol. I finally knitted a matching pair of fingerless gloves, which I finished just in time for the weather to warm up!  Oh well, next season....

The finished gloves

Palm side with cuff rolled down

Top side with cuff left long

The entire set.
I wear a lot of black, grey and brown and like to coordinate my base with a splash of bright color.

I used a fingerless glove pattern from a Fair Isle class I took with Lori Smith at the Fiber Factory, which she created so I will not repeat it here. You can probably order it by contacting the Fiber Factory.  The hat pattern is a brilliantly simple one from an old Vogue knitting magazine and the scarf is a diagonal rib from Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" which is a no-roll pattern.

Great Friends

We were graced with the presence of two amazing people a few weeks ago.  Becky Williams and Marilou Knight, friends from way back left paradise to come see me.  We had a great time and I am more than determined than ever to start saving my pennies to go see them!  You can see their art and find a link to Becky's music through their website Dragon House Studios.

Becky and Marilou

First we went to the Desert Botanic Gardens

 Then we went to the Phoenix Art Museum (we also went to the Heard but I don't have pics of that)

 where Marilou and I had fun shooting in the Firefly room.

 Then I took them to that little hidden gem of weirdness, the Mystery Castle (RIP Ms. Mary Lou Gulley)

 And final photos are the night before they left. We had an amazing dinner at Tarbell's to send them on their way.

I need a decent flash with a diffuser

Becky took this lovely pic of me and the hairy man :-)

I miss you guys but can't wait for Vegas and Cirque Du Soleil later this year!!!!!

March Madness

This last week of February and most of March is going to be hectic so I may not post much until the dust settles.  Just FYI.  Hopefully, I'll have a lot to post about :-)

Actually Useful Gadgets #1

As a metalsmith for over 20 years I've purchased my share of nifty looking gadgets that I thought would be good in the studio only to find that I never really had a need for them or they just didn't work as well as I thought they would.  So I'm going to talk about those items I use in the studio that really are handy but not necessarily the normal compliment of tools we have. These little review posts will be titled "Actually Useful Gadgets".  So here we go:

A few years ago, Lonnie (from Lonnie's Jewelry Supply) gave me a pair of Atlas rubberized gloves to try. He was considering carrying them in the shop but hadn't tried them.

Atlas 370 gloves- Rio Grande photo

I will say right now, these are great gloves.  I like them because they are rubberized on the working side and knit on the back so they breathe. They fit my hand well, and it's really difficult for me to find work gloves to fit my long slender hand.  But the best aspect of these gloves is that the rubberized side it thin enough to still be able to feel the metal piece in your hand as well as keep a good grip on it yet it still does a great job of protecting the hand from the heat generated by mechanical grinding/ polishing!  With leather gloves I usually felt like I was working in a space suit- the padding was always so thick I couldn't feel the piece well and I certainly couldn't keep a good grip on it if it was small and I was having to grind it in some fashion.

Well, after several years, the heat and chemicals do take a toll and my old gloves had gotten stiff and I wasn't using them anymore.

These guys are really worn out

However, I didn't know where to get any new ones since I hadn't seen Lonnie carrying them and with a day job it was hard to get over to Lonnie's to get supplies.  Well, imagine my surprise last weekend when the hubby and I were at Baker's Nursery getting starts and seeds for the garden:

There were my gloves! In fantastic colors and all sizes- same Atlas 370 gloves but packaged for gardening. The only difference I could tell was that the wrist was longer.

I bought a pair at the garden center for about $7 and I subsequently found them in the Rio Grande catalog in small and large only for $5 but unless you are going to order more items, shipping will kill off any savings you'd get by ordering them.

Verdict: Recommended 

If you try them, let me know what you think!

The last handmade holiday gift this year...

Here's the felted water bottle holder I mentioned in my last post.  The pattern is very very basic. It did not include instructions for a strap so I made one up and luckily the length turned out well in terms of sizing for an 8 year old. It would have needed to be much longer for an adult.  You can find the patten here.  I'm going to include pre-felted sizes for you so if you want to try this pattern, you'll have some idea of how big to knit the holder. So here's the before pic:

knitted water bottle holder prior to felting

I double stranded the same two colors of Patons "Classic Wool" that I used on the clogs with the same size 11 US needles. I was knitting to fit a Camelback BPA-free hard plastic water bottle holder (about 8 1/2 inches to the top of the lid by 9 3/4 inches in circumference) so if you've got a larger circumference bottle you may want to size up a bit because the dimensions I'm about to give just fit perfectly for this bottle.  So here are the pre-felted dimensions:

Base square= 4 inches
Bag length= 12 inches
Bag width (laid flat and measured straight across) 6 inches
I-cord strap= 8 inches

The strap was knit with 3 segments in size. I started out by picking up stitches on the edge of the bag to do a knit/purl rib of 7 stitches. Then I sized down to 5 then down to 3 so that the ending would be easier to tie through the loop of I-cord I knit for the other side. I decided to do this because I really wasn't sure how much the strap would shrink and if I'd knit the end of the strap to the other side of the bag I'd have been stuck with whatever came out and if it was too short or too long I'd have had to cut it and figure something else out. With the design I used, the length of the strap could be adjusted a bit.  Quite frankly, I was convinced that the length I knit was going to be super long even after felting but I was completely wrong.  Lesson: If you are going to felt a strap, err on the side of knitting something way way longer than you think you'll need.

Strap length, total= 64 inches
7 stitch rib portion= 36 inches
5 stitch rib portion= 12 inches
3 stitch rib portion= 16 inches

You can see this step pattern in the "before" picture above.

I felted the holder in a lingerie washing bag along with some towels (lesson hadn't been learned about not using towels for felting- see the previous post) in the washing machine. I pre-soaked the holder in a pot of boiled water on the stove for about 1/2 hour or so then dumped it all into the washer. It took about 4 agitation cycles to get it down to where it seemed the right size.  I think the bag length is a little long and if I do this pattern again, I'll make the length about and inch shorter. I did not allow the bag to go through the spin cycle as this can put unwanted creases in the material that is really difficult to get out. I pulled the bag out of the washer and hand pressed it in some towels to get the worst of the water out then I put the water bottle in and left it alone to dry. Here's the result:

The finished holder, slightly used.
You can just make out the stepped decrease on the strap. It's not unsightly at all.

This photo was taken about a week after I gave it to my stepson and he'd had a chance to use it and for the dog to chew on it, etc.  He likes it and it seems to be working well. Unfortunately, I found what looks like a chew mark on the i-cord strap and it looks like it might rip through. If that happens, I have plenty of repair yarn left over and I'll plan on needle felting the repair.  We'll see how it goes.

Holidays Survived! Now the Craziness Really Begins!

Well, the holiday season was relatively low-key, for which I am eternally grateful. Now, work at the Heard continues and the weekend events schedule is heating up, classes have started, friends are coming from far away, clients are calling, and I am desperately trying to eek out a day in the studio once a week.  So- it's business as usual :-)

I had so many people sign up for my Wednesday night enameling class that we were able to split it into 2 nights, which makes for a much more pleasant working environment for me and the students.  I have been doing very freeform enamel pieces, and I will chronicle from start to finish soon but right now, I feel like showing off some fibers!

As some of you know, I am also an avid knitter (and novice weaver) and I worked on some handmade knitwear for holiday gifts last year.  My mom has everything she wants so it's really hard to buy gifts for her and I gave her major jewelry last year so I thought something fine in fibers would work this year. I opted for a knitted scarf.  It took me a year to make because I initially started with a sampler pattern and a very fine lace merino but I knit so loose and the sampler pattern was written for much fatter yarn so I kept running into problems of getting the width right and getting the yarn knit tight enough to actually see the lace pattern!  Did I mention this was my FIRST lace attempt EVER?????

Well, after a multitude of false starts, I picked a fatter yarn and selected just one pattern from one of Barbara Walter's Knitting Treasury called Diamond Mesh, if you want to look it up.

Diamond Mesh lace shawl
~60 inches long and 10 inches wide
Charcoal gray heather Merino wool

So here's the shawl.  Not the greatest photo and not the best lace attempt in the world but not too shabby if I do say so myself.  Blocking it was tricky because I didn't have a good location to pin it out. I had to wait until my stepson was at his mom's for a couple of days so I could use his bed and I also bought those long lace blocking needles, which, as a metalsmith I should have been able to source cheaper than what I paid at the yarn store (they are just thin stainless steel rods), but it was worth it to just go get them ready to use. Blocking lace intimidated me at first, but it was surprisingly easy. 

My other fibers projects were felted clogs for my hubby and stepson.  I used the Fiber Trends Pattern AC33e with Patons Classic Wool. I had tried this pattern before with a charcoal grey Lamb's Pride yarn and the darn stuff would not felt, no matter how much I tried. Very discouraging. But a good friend had done up some lovely clogs with the Patons so I decided to try again and it worked wonderfully. I do like this wool for felting. I will say, if I were to knit some up for myself, I think I'd alter the pattern and raise the back up to make more of a shoe. I have such a hard time keeping shoes on because they are always too wide. I think this would help make the clogs more user friendly for my foot.

Clogs Before felting. The ones with my foot on them (women's size 10 1/2) were for my stepson. I knit them up for a women's size 10 and they fit him by the time they were done! The ones on the left were for the hubby.

Aiden's clogs, felted

Aiden's clogs with my foot again for size comparison. The hubby has started destroying his so I'm not going to show them here in their current state.  If one didn't wear them OUTSIDE and step on the heel so that it was deformed and crushed, they would hold up just fine....

I also made my stepson a felted water bottle holder with the leftover yarn from the clogs, which turned out very well.  I'll post those pics when he brings the thing back from school, hopefully tomorrow.

I learned a very useful tip while watching Knit and Crochet Now on PBS and that is to NOT felt with towels. They shed lint which gets embedded in the wool and it's nigh impossible to fully remove.  Lesson learned AFTER I felted all my holiday projects, of course!
:-)

Happy New Year!

Here's to a year of making great art! 
Hope your project drawer is full of great ideas and inspiration!

Here's to whittling some of this down, too!

Its Time to Sign Up for Classes

The metals and jewelry classes are up for the Mesa Arts Center. I'll be teaching 3 shorter enameling sessions, and a weekend workshop on hammer stone setting for cabochons. Check out my Classes page on my metals site for info or go directly to the MAC website here.

My approach to teaching is technique based and not project based so I'll teach you what you need to know and it's up to you to decide what to do with that information. Although I'll be covering the basics in the first class at least, if you are past that point, you can work at your own pace and you don't have to sit in on the lectures unless you want to.  To me, these kinds of classes should be tailored to the student body so I like to accommodate technical requests, etc.  Just let me know!

Also, if you are interested in glass, Ingrid Donaldson will be teaching at MAC this spring and she's got some pretty nifty classes lined up.  Check out her art here.

Registration is now and there are lots of great classes scheduled so sign up!

Weeeelll, not a lot going on in the studio at the moment....

It's the weekend before Christmas and I'm having to sacrifice studio time for wrapping time. I've got gifts to get out to Texas and I'm not quite done. I'm sure many of you can empathize!  I am making some felted clogs for the boys and I'm nearly done with clog set 2 and I've got a lace scarf for my mom I still have to block. I'll try to take photos of the process this week.

I find the holidays really stressful. So, in order to bypass the stress and deadline that everyone and their dog seems to be trying to meet, I've been thinking about implementing gift giving for the New Year rather than Christmas. The only people in my circle who are religious are my sister and brother in law and they learned long ago not to expect presents from me to ever arrive on time.  For example; my niece's birthday presents for October are going to end up going with the Christmas box (again) this year. (hangs head in shame)

So think about it.  Maybe we could start a new trend!
(Although considering how late I tend to be getting gifts out, maybe I should aim for Chinese New Year....)

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 :-)

Fair etiquette and the raku post

It was a busy weekend and I didn't have a chance to get on the computer at all and I also I realized the enamel raku post isn't ready because I really want to do another set of samples and include shots of what the enamel color looks like naturally with an identically sifted sample of what the raku process does to the color. I will make those samples in class this Wednesday so I apologize to my class for not having this ready. I hope that you will still feed me for our last class!

But I did go to the Tempe Mill Avenue Art Fair on Sunday and I thought I would share some fair "etiquette"  for those of us (I include myself here) who frequently like to check out an artists' booth because we see something that catches our eye technically or creatively but we aren't intending to actually buy.

So here's here's my approach based on my years of being both a vendor and a visitor of more craft fairs than I can count: As much as these artists enjoy people who enjoy their work, first and foremost they are there to sell. They need to make as much money as humanly possible in a very small amount of time. When I approach an artist's booth, I look to see how crowded it is and how serious people look.  If the booth is crowded I stay to the side or wait a while. If someone comes in who looks like they are shopping while I'm in the booth, I move to the side and let the artist do their thing.  If the booth is slow, chatting and asking questions and such is great but I try to break it off as soon as potentially paying customers walk up.
If I am planning on being a paying customer- I throw all this out the window of course :-)

Of course one always have to assess the actual situation and do what feels appropriate then.  These are just my suggestions but I think they make sense.  Hope this was helpful!