Roman Glass and Turquoise...YUM

Stopped by Eva Sherman's studio open house yesterday and fell in love with the roman glass and turquoise she picked up from Tucscon.  So of course I bought some :).  It will be fantastic with the bronze.

Next year I MUST, MUST, MUST go to Tucson myself.  Everyone comes back with amazing finds.

Patterns

The class I am taking...Zentangle....is all about drawing patterns.  Since I'm spending the weekend by myself I decided to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art after class...it's just across the street from the CIA....that's Cleveland Institute of Art...not Central Intelligence Agency :)

It's a different experience when you go there looking for patterns.  You look at everything very close up.  Of course, I usually do that because my eyesight is getting bad.  In fact, one of the guards was watching me in the Piccaso exhibit.  I don't think she liked how close I had to get to the pieces just to see them in focus.

Below are some of the patterns I saw today.

I've always looked at this lion's head but never looked at the patterns that make up the mane, ears, and whiskers

I love this....if only they would let me bring in some molding compound :)

What you are looking at is the pattern projected on the wall by the lace sheet hanging in front of it.

Pattern on a Medieval door

 



Even the plants in the atrium have great pattern

I also had lunch at the museum.  They have both a cafeteria style cafe and a restaurant...with a bar!!  So I sat at the bar and had a fantastic shrimp and noodle salad with a spicy peanut sauce...yum.  You've got to love a museum with a bar in it!!

I finished off the afternoon by stopping by the Screw Factory to see Eva Sherman's new studio space.  Oh...I am so jealous.  It's huge and wonderful.  I wish I had that type of space.  Spent some time visiting witih Deb H. and Katie.  On the way out I noticed she had some fantastic strands roman glass she brought back from Tucson.  Of course I picked up a few.  I'm going to have to admire them for a while before I make anything with them.

Eva's bracelet and cuff were on the cover of the most recent issue of Art Jewelry.  She's very talented!!

The D Word



Well we all know what the F word is....I drop F bombs all the time.  There is really no word like the F word to express how I feel sometimes.

And you might think you know what the D work is...but you don't.  It's Doodling.  I no longer doodle...I Zentangle.  I feel like I should spin across the room with a big swirly skirt when I say...ZENTANGLE.

Launie, my instructor, jokingly tells us she's not allowed to say the D work anymore.  Here are a few of the tangles we did this week.  These are a little rough because they are straight from my class sketchbook.  I need to find a block of time to practice the tangles I've learned so far.  Just like with the metal clay, this is a medium that puts you in a zone...hence the Zen.

Second Earring Class Added

June is going to be here before we know it.  The Bead and Button Show is only 107 days away...YIKES.  I need to get into the studio and work, work, work.

The earring class that Cris Leonard and I are teaching sold out within a few days after registration opened.  We are now offering a second class on Saturday, June 8th. 

Lots of great techniques in these earrings...acid etching, sawing, texturing, riveting and design.  Sign up early and often :)  Here's the link

B131780 Mixed-Metal Layered Acid-Etched Earrings

Call for Entries

Lark Books is looking for photos for two new books they will be publishing.  The first is "Clay Combinations" by Cindy Silas.  They are looking for images of beautiful metal clay and polymer clay jewelry designs. The due dates is April 1, 2013.



The second is "Showcase 500 Metal Clay Jewelry".  For this book they are looking for excellent photographs of original, contemporary handmade metal clay jewelry.  The due date is April 26, 2013.


Send your pictures in!!!
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"So God Made A Farmer"

I grew up on a farm.  I watched my Dad work all day in the fields and then go to a 2nd shift job in a local factory.  He did this so he could provide opportunities to his children that he never had.  I never heard him complain...ever....about working all those hours.  Sometimes I would catch up with him before he went to his factory job, sometimes I would be up late to talk to him when he came home.  He was always happy to see me.  He's gone now and I wish I had told him what an amazing man he was.  

There was a Super Bowl ad last night that used a Paul Harvey speech from 1978.  If you are old enough to remember Paul Harvey's radio show then you are familiar with his voice and "The Rest of the Story" segments.

Anyway...this is the script from the ad....So God Made A Farmer.  It obviously struck a chord with me.  I wanted to share this.


And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So, God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So, God made a farmer.

I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon...and mean it. So, God made a farmer.

God said "I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And...who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain'n from "tractor back", put in another seventy two hours. So, God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So, God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets...and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer.

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight...and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed...and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh...and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does". So, God made a farmer.

My Dad

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Zen What??

I'm always looking for new ideas for texture for my metal.  I keep a book with pictures I've collected, patterns, and my own drawings.  I needed some way to pull all these together into cohesive designs.  So I am taking a continuing ed class at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Zentangle.  It's an 8 weeks session on Saturday mornings. 

I refer to Zentangle as structured doodling.  Launie (our teacher) calls it creative meditation.  I was a little tense at the start...as I am with all classes.  I always have this fear of...."what if I suck at doing this" when I take a class.  I don't relax until I get my hands moving. 

I used to draw when I was a kid, but haven't drawn for a long time.  Well, we got to drawing right away and it is a lot of fun....and meditative...very relaxing.  It's amazing that that tiles came out looking great. But then, drawing patterns is a lot easier than drawing a person or a bowl of fruit...at least for me.

So I'm spending the next seven Saturday's at the CIA doing Zentangle.  One of the sessions we will be drawing on t-shirts and canvas bags.  Another week we are going across the street to the Cleveland Museum of Art in search of patterns.  In the end I hope I can take all the patterns I've collected and to create some unique designs.

Here is one of the tiles we made today.  All the same and all different.

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