Feeling a little schizophrenic . . .

Ocean Jasper + enamel on copper

I know, I know.  Can you not just settle on one thing already?

Here's the skinny, Minnie.

You've seen some of my watercolor lately and I'm not giving that up.

I need a bit of stimulation to get my creativity flowing.

Watercolor is doing that so that's not going away anytime soon.

Then I discover enamel and fall in love all over again.

I am reclaiming the artist I always thought I was.

I am.

Working toward the weekend . . .

Still piling up the new work for my next show at the Visiting Nurse Association benefit Art&Soup show in Omaha this coming Sunday, as you can see.  Loving the new direction and working with enamels, torch-firing, and my stash of enamel jars continues to grow.  


It's addicting but I think it may really be the color splash that I am enjoying so much.  

It would be easy to re-create with others have done and I see much of that as I cruise through etsy and other selling sites but my own hand is starting to shine through now. I'm using all of the same techniques that I use in silverwork.  Lots of pinning, simple embellishing, punching and hammering shapes so it becomes mine and not just a stamped piece.

I am super-anxious to see how the new work direction is received and I can always count on good and honest feedback from this particular show.  Add to that the fact that shows are so saturated with silver and strung pieces that this is simply different from an art and craft show standpoint.

SPRING!

Post a little positive affirmation, okay?  I'll let you know how it goes.

A little articulation, please . . .

Necklace

Orchid enamel

Pinned and articulated

Nearer horizons and open possibilities

Happy Valentine's Day . . .

Happy Valentine's Day!

Simple : sweet : everyday Valentine

I've been slowly collecting different little jars of enamels, absolutely fascinated.  I have been doing my own lapidary work and amassing beautiful stones for such a long time and now this colorful addition has me oohing and ahhing at the sweet, soft combinations.  I'm using both copper and silver and playing with some success that has even me excited to combine enamels with metalwork and stones.  

I am finding that different gases produce different subtle effects - wanted and unwanted!  I particularly like the sugar phase of the sifted enamel powders transforming and the two pair of earrings here show exactly that.  Rough texture and deep, deep color.  Fun to watch the enamels as they transform and a trick to get them to stop just where you want.  Practice practice.

This pink and white pair of earrings shows that colors are not blended like paint.  Rather, combining two or more colors of enamel will give you speckles and another dimension to pieces.

I have a wonderful show on the schedule for 23 Feb in Omaha - Art & Soup - and I've been creating piles of earrings and pendants in the last month.  Gotta admit, I'm pretty excited to see if everyone else is as enamored with enamel as I am.

Fingers crossed.

Montana Agate . . .

Ahem.  Now that I've gotten over my 'pique.ed.ness' from the last post, I'm ready to move on.  You must be so grateful.

Back to the bench!

Instead of doing a wholesale clean up of the whole mess that taunts greets me every day, I decided to simply work myself through it.  Sure, my little space to work gets smaller and smaller but as I turn out lovely work like this, space increases day by day.

I'm in love with Montana Agate, have I told you?

I cut and polished some for a friend last year and this slivver was part of an edge that didn't have much promise as a primo piece but see?  A little lovin' and it turned out great.

Certainly on the milky side, the inclusions and explosions tend to the rusty color and accenting it with copper rings just seemed right.

Sports a pierced and cut out back for no other reason than I love it that way.

Beautiful.

How how how . . .

Persistence paid off for a lovely lady in South Wales who searched thru my flickr pictures until she found just the right bracelet.  I made a number of these linked Orbit Bangles five years ago when sterling silver was cheap(er) and I could make a whole armful of them for shows and galleries but I moved on after that armful and went in another direction.

Lo and behold, this darling woman emails me that she wants one special made for her Silver Anniversary!  Who am I to say no?  No, I never say no and this one is shipped off today.  I'm just glad I still had the materials to work with.

I am still a bit confused that she took time to go through all of my (MY!!!) flicker photos until she found what she wanted.  I mean, with all of the metalsmiths out there and all of the incredibly talented folks posting on flickr, ME!  Maybe it's the New Year but I'm still shaking my head that she found ME.

Enough.  To the post office.

Copper love . . .

Okay, this was pure fun.  I started out not entirely sure where I was headed but with a 3"x6" piece of 20ga copper and lots of heat, I created this monster cuff that I love.  This sweet, edgy cuff is my very first attempt at fold.forming and I'm quite pleased with myself.

With a little more practice, more trials and more errors, and a lot more fire, this will translate nicely into sterling silver.  More.

Bench cleaning . . .

This should look vaguely familiar to at least one of you out there.  Well, the fish fossil embedded in limestone should, anyway.

I've been so remiss in not posting anything here for, oh, I don't know . . . months? that it feels strange to post anything at all.  Like out of sight out of mind, helloooooooo, does anyone out there remember me?  (Well THAT sounds self-absorbed!)  So let's begin again.

Doing some serious bench-clearing by using the pieces I have laying on top of sketchbooks and miscellaneous pieces of paper with rough ideas drawn on them.  One of many projects trapped in my brain, now oozing out like Elmer's Glue.

This bit of limestone with the fishy fossil is something my friend Lisa sent me last winter (I think).  It was to be a test piece for a larger piece that I already finished and sent but when I came across this in a little box, it happened to fall out onto the piece of Picture Jasper that perfectly matched it.  Add to that that I wanted to try some wire backing and simple prong settings, copper in abundance on the bench and voila - a winter brooch.

Completely handformed, I cut the copper for a bezel strip, wire from a house project (I shouldn't tell you it was scrap) and a bit of Picture Jasper that I cut and polished some time ago.  This piece measures about 3" long, has wonderful movement and will look great on said friend's winter coat.  Sent Priority Mail on 24 October - can't wait for her to get the box.  (Please love it.)

Working not talking . . .

Ocean Jasper and Citrine pinned bead

Here I am with new work and not much to say about it all.  In my last post I said I was going to get back to what I love doing most of all and that is cutting, polish and setting my own stones.  Stop trying to chase what I think will sell and make what I love.  And here you have the fruits of my labors for the weekend.

The Ocean Jasper is a stone I've had in my collection for some time and it worked its way to the surface of the pile on Friday.  The Citrine bead I pinned to a cupped bit of sterling silver and like the way it reflects the golden orbs in the jasper.  Pretty.

Rhyolite and Moonstone Beads

The Rhyolite has the most gorgeous pink, aqua and gold striations - just like a Sonoran sunset.  This stone started life as a matching pair that I wanted to make into earrings but I dropped its twin.  That was not a good day.  However, this little guy, accented with moonstone beads still holds its own!

The last piece I finished is a teardrop of Amethyst Sage Dendritic Agate.  Sadly, the photo doesn't do it justice as the stone fades from deep amethyst purple into olive green so softly.  The dendrites frame the horizon and give it such wonderful interest.

Amethyst Sage Dendritic Agate

I'm happy to be back doing what I want and what I love.  

So there, Almighty Dollar!  I refuse to chase you any longer!  From now on, it's all about me!

January sunset . . .

Skinny gold orange sliver of the barely-set sun, darkening evening grey January sky, striped bands of layering clouds and jet contrails.

All at once in this banded agate.

I'm committed to getting back to what I love working on most of all : lapidary and setting the stones I cut and polish.  I have so many delicious cabs on my bench and I have spent the weeks leading up to Christmas working on the 'quick work'.  Not particularly satisfying for me but results oriented work.
With this new year : new work
Simple
Direct
Clean
Fresh
Oh, and my New Year's Resolution every year is to make contact with at least one old friend who has dropped off my radar screen.  This has been my Resolution every year for at least a decade and it has been so rewarding.
Completely doable.  
So if you've dropped off my radar, expect a call.

Loose ends . . .

The Cricket Cage

I'll admit it - a lot of stuff (a LOT) has gotten pushed to the back of my bench for far too long and getting caught up in the rush of the Christmas with the looooong to-do list is just claustrophobic for me.  Now that things are getting back to some semblance of normal, I'm trying to take each project that got set aside and give the attention to those things that really satisfy my creative itch and not simply fill a spot on my show display.

Last Fall, my friend Linda gave me a little silk bag with old rings and pieces that held jade beads and cabs and she gave me free reign to create whatever I saw in them.  Removing them from their settings really freed them up and these are the pieces I'm sending her.

These little beads of jade were post-drilled and needed to be free yet somehow constrained so I created a Cricket Cage for them from wire and a hand-forged half-dome cap.  Now they can move freely inside their little cage pendant.

Lily Pads

The two jade cabochons are just a millimeter or two different in size so they really couldn't be matching earrings, I thought.  Earlier in the season, I had created a Peace Jade necklace for her to give her 11 year old granddaughter and I thought that perhaps down the road a ways, she might like to have matching charms.  So here you have two Lily Pad charms with watery, reflective, textured and curled edges.  What is wonderful about charms is that they don't necessarily belong on a necklace or a bracelet.  They are sweet accents on a watch, a little bag or anywhere that some color and flash is needed.  Love these.

I'm so satisfied.  Why again don't I do this more often?

Stinking Water Plume Agate . . .

Weird name

And a new leaf is turned - I'm finally getting my etsy shop back up and running.  I've ignored it for a long time and now that Summer is drawing down, I am bound and determined to get my new work listed.  

Gorgeous stone

I also will be listing the stones I've cut and polished and generally just thinning the herd.  Why?  Well, I attended the auction for my friend, Roger Pabian, who passed away this Spring.  A world-class published author and authority on agates, Captain Agate's house was full to the brim with agates in all shapes and sizes, in slabs, rough and polished stones.  

Roger taught me lapidary and I believe that's why I'm so picky about my cabs and how they are finished.  One scratch and it's all the way back to the beginning wheels for me.

His auction showed me just how much a person can accumulate - and I mean that in a nice way - and how little a person can actually use on their own no matter their intent.  Now that I've polished and loved on these little stones, it's time for someone to create something of beauty with each one.  I'll never get to them all.

I'll look at them this way : I don't own any of these stones.  I'm only the caretaker and when I've enjoyed them and taken pride in their beauty, it will be time for them to move on to the next caretaker.  Just promise me that if you buy one, you'll send me pictures of your finished product.  And then you'll be the new caretaker.

Weekend inspiration . . .

Montana Agate : can you see the circling hawk as she is being dive-bombed by the sparrow?

I've said this before but it keeps coming up in my day-to-day - I am easily distracted and working on it should truly be Priority One.  As if I've been forced, I've spent the last few days at my lapidary bench, dusting and cleaning cobwebs and finally finishing a big project (at least big for me) since I have had a few slabs on my 'promise list' for almost a year now.  I cleaned up the workspace, turned on the radio and hunkered down for trimmin' and cabbin' and I didn't come up until it was over.  And now I find myself renewed and inspired once again to get back to what I truly love - lapidary and metalwork.

Here are the pieces of Montana Agate that have been staring at me for months on end, taunting me to start/finish them for Christine.  Plugged in to the Genie, I saw them through yesterday morning and off they went Priority Mail to Michigan.  I do hope she loves them but it's more important personally that they really did inspire me to stay at the bench just a little longer and I turned out four more gorgeous cabs that have me itching to get back into the metalshop tomorrow.  Sunday - an entire day at my metalwork.  Itching.

For the last several months I've been distracted by enamels and don't get me wrong here, I've thoroughly enjoyed learning and experimenting with them but I think I've been focusing too much on enamels alone and not how I might incorporate that into my 'true' work.  The work that gives me satisfaction and huge pride.  As I progress through the stone and metalwork, I hope to find a way to blend all of this newness into beautiful pieces of adornment.

Nebraska through and through

Take a look at these two lovely pieces of unnamed jasper that I cut and trimmed yesterday and tell me you don't see lovely scenes in both.  The shield shaped one clearly has a tornado reaching for the prairie and you can see the horizon spread out ahead of you - the Nebraska Sandhills.

Praire cloudburst

The smaller lozenge of a jasper cab is another prairie landscape, this time a summer rainshower as the sunshine on the right gives way to the isolated cloudburst.  (I do wish the picture was better but I'm trying to not be distracted by learning photography, I guess.  *wistful smile*)

Maybe another time I'll figure out why I'm so distracted by other projects and things and stuff ('Oh look . . . a kitty . . . ') but for now, I'm feeling more at ease with my direction once again.  Lord, keep my nose pointed forward.

Copperlicious . . .

I'm seriously hooked on copper right now.  Maybe it's the way it accents the stones I've been working with or maybe it's the warmth of the metal.  Either way, it's been fun to make my own bezel strips with copper flashing and use up some of the copper wire I've had leftover from the building of our house.  (I just couldn't resist following the electrician around and picking up pieces of coated wire.  He thought I was nuts).

This is the second piece going to Lil Fish Lisa for her niece who found the Lake Superior agates on her trip to Lisa's this summer.  I pierced the Loon on the Lake on the back of the piece as the loon is the State Bird of Minnesota - and you thought it was the mosquito.

Lovely mementos.

Bluebell Earrings . . .

For Lorraine.

Sweet little pair of faceted lapis and sterling silver earrings.

Once in a while it's all about me . . .

The set up: Sunday night. 9:00pm. Bored. Too early for bed. Finished my book and refuse to turn on the tv. I excuse myself and head out to the pile of rock slabs in the shop where a cat joins me, watching from the windowsill. I find a little bit of Prehnite about the size of your little fingernail and I start to polish.

Monday morning: Using a scrap of silver from another project, I set this stone in a simple bezel, added a long loop for a bail. Change my mind and saw it off and use a tiny slice of tubing for a bail.

I am always surprised when a piece is in progress at how rough and messy it is, metal covered with glassy flux, bits of melted metal, sharp metal edges, a completely nasty piece. But in no time it's polished and hung from a snake chain, now around my neck. I marvel. I'm satisfied that I've fabricated a piece from beginning to end for my own pleasure.

Once in a while, it's all about me and what I want to make for my own creative satisfaction. No worries about finishing a handful of work for a gallery or listing on my etsy site. This is just mine. Unless someone falls in love with it while I'm wearing it. Then . . . awww . . . I'm a sucker for a compliment.