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.

Oh my. So long . . .

It starts . . .

What started out to be just a few days off the blogging to gather myself together for 2013 turned out to be so much more.  What a butt-kicker 2013 was!  The project I took on forced me to put aside almost all of my metalwork except for a few "gotta do projects" here and there but for the most part, galleries and certainly my little corner on etsy were all on hold.  

Lots of this

What brain-numbing thing was I up to?  I was the Registrar for the World Aerobatic Contest held in Sherman, Texas, in October.  Doesn't sound huge, does it?  From January of last year until the end of October I accepted registration information from competitors from 17 countries, their team members, mechanics, observers, and others and farmed information out to other volunteers who needed it.  I prepared ID badges for over 500 participants, pilots, crew, volunteers, judges and their assistants, and so many others who were there to work.  I wore out a printer.

Followed by this

Fees and funds were confirmed, housing requirements arranged (thank goodness, not by me!), and a mountain of paperwork bits and pieces had to be checked off my list.  What I accomplished in that amount of time really was mind-numbing and it is a miracle that my darling husband didn't kick me to the curb.  It occupied my every waking hour and caused me to spend too much time awake when I should have been sleeping.

Lineup first four flights

But it's over.  It was a freaky drive from Sherman, Texas back home to Davey, Nebraska that last weekend in October.  Soft, warm, finished work, weight lifted.  Files packed away, a few last minute questions answered and filed, reports written. Satisfied with my work.  

I tell anyone who asks me, "Would you do it again?"  Answer, "No."  But it did make me feel smart again and to be involved in something that is akin to the Olympics of Aerobatics is really something I am hugely proud of.  Yep, I'm smart.  

I'm just off the nose of the speaker, I swear

Time to renew and refresh.  I'm heading in a fun direction with metalwork for a while and at least for the first round of gallery work and one nice show in February.  Having a ball with enamels so expect a little color down the road.

Hey!  Look at that!  New stuff!

Glad to be back :: lynn

(All photo credits - the incredible Laurie Zaleski)