More from Bead and Button

I went back to work today.  My boss stuck his head in the office this morning and wanted to know if I was grumpy because I had to come back to work....LOL.  I'm used to a very structured day so it was good to get back and it only took 8 hours for me to get pissed off. 

But then all I have to do is look at this pic and I'm better.....  LOL.....Cris and I were visiting Susan Lenart Kazmer's classroom and while she was giving her class a demo....we were trying on her jewelry.  This actually is a neck cuff but makes quite the crown for Cris.  She looks like she belongs at a Renaissance Festival.

We shopped Thursday night and all day Friday.  Boy did we shop.  We got in early and went straight to Gary Wilson's booth.  We've decided that he is a very dangerous man!!!  If you've ever seen his booth you know why. Here are some of the things I picked up...some cabs and some pendants.

The other dangerous booth is Ruth and Ebrima from Bead Paradise.  They always have fabulous stuff.  Ruth has great things on-line so if you can't make it to a show or her shop you can buy on-line.

We also stop to see Abe at Afghan Tribal Arts/Sturee Tribal Village.  He's such a flirt!!...and he has great beads.

And some cool beads from Joanne Zekowski....

and this was all on Thursday.  Friday we roamed the floor for tools....and a few more stops to Gary's booth to see if we had missed anything cool.  We stopped at Karen's booth for a rest.

LOL....there were 4 of us sitting on the floor of the booth just resting out tired bones. 

I can't believe it is over.  I was ready to come home but I already miss all my friends. 
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Bead and Button...let the recovery begin

WOW.... I can't believe the week is over already.  As usual it was a blast.  There is a core group of us that get together each year.  We behave and laugh like little kids.  The classes were good and shopping is always phenomenal.  I wish I could have blogged more during the conference but the iPad doesn't upload pictures very easily nor is it very compatible with blogger.  Besides...most of my free time was spent in the lounge talking to friends.

The first class I had was with Joe Silvera on soldering bezels.  I managed to make a pendant in 6.5 hours...which is much faster than the last one I made which took 6 weeks of classes.  He and his wife, Anat, are great.  I would definitely suggest a class with them if you get the opportunity.  He has a number of DVD's available and wrote a book on soldering.

The rest of the classes were with Richard Salley.  I took those for practice on fabrication....sawing, riveting, layering pieces.  We worked with various sheet metals and faux bone.

A very funky hinged bracelet with a metal Frappacino lid as a base.  The hardest part about this was deciding what to put in the lid and how to put it together.  The rest of it was sawing and forming.

Cris's bracelet on the left and mine on the right. Cris coined the term post-apocalyptic punk.  They look like eyeballs. 

A locket....again a metal lid as the base.  We acid etched the design (both inside and out) and hammered, riveted, wire-wrapped the rest of it. Etching withe PNP paper was fast and easy.  Over the next few weeks I will be taking some of my favorite tear-away designs and etching them onto copper.

 A picture goes on the inside.

Here I am... hard at work doming the lid.  I need to wear two sets of glasses to see anything.



A faux bone and metal pendant.  All the dimples were made with a hole punch that Richard modified to produce dimples rather than cut.  Being the tool whore that I am.....I bought one in each size that he had.  He sold his entire inventory to the first class we were in.

Cris's pendant on the right and mine on the left.



Richard doing a demo.....

Brenda and Deb watching the demo...

Cris and I gave each other tattoos during class.  This is hers.  LOL....  It's dangerous when we have spare time on our hands.

More later...

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Richard Salley class

Last class of the show. Richard Salley's ancient shield pendant. Mine is on the left and Cris's is on the right. Fun class and it has pushed me to go 3-D on my jewelry production. Lots of possibilities!

The people I come to see each year

These are the people I come to see each year....

Karen...the Queen of corset rings!!

Anne

My sista of the heart....Cris

Class hasn't even started and our bench is already a mess

Gigi, Cris, and Paul.  I think Paul is getting the best part of this hug!!

I am running out of TIME!!

Saturday I leave for Bead and Button and I am just running out of time.  I still have to work tomorrow and I've got too many deadlines that I have to meet before I leave.  So I will be going in early, early, early tomorrow in hopes that I can get a majority of things done before all the time sucks get to work.  Yes, TIME SUCKS....you know....those people that just suck the time out the your day.  I hope to avoid them tomorrow.

I still have to pack.  Although I have all the tools and supplies in various piles....I still need to pack them in some order.  I also have 5 loads of wash to do tonight so I have some clean clothes to pack.  I still need to pick up some butane for my soldering class, munchies for the road, and various other travel things. 

To add to the mess, I wore a new pair of 3" heels to work today and had to walk all over campus.  Now I have blisters.....on the balls of my feet!!  So I'm hobbling around and feeling like an idiot.  Blisters on the bottom of my feet right before a week of walking around the Bead Show.  Luckily I don't have meetings tomorrow and most of Saturday will be spent in the car.  I am hoping they heal up quick.

I'll be blogging from the show on my iPad so I don't know how well that is going to work.  The iPad won't load pics into Blogspot so I have to mail them to my account and then blog.  We'll see how that works. 

Next time you hear from me I should be in Milwaukee.  See Ya.

Last year at B&B...Cris and I making plaster for the glass casting class.

Jen's Wedding

My niece got married yesterday and I have pics.  The wedding took place in a converted warehouse in The Flats.  I loved the girders and rivets...of course.

My sister Nancy, Mom and me before the wedding.

Lou and I...he looks so happy...maybe it's the death grip I have on his neck.

Jenny and my brother Dave

Jenny and Chris.  Poor Chris was so nervous. They make a nice couple and I wish them a lifetime of happiness.

Jenny was so beautiful.  Her dress was more of a cream color than the pictures show and it was beaded.  It was gorgeous.

A storm rolled through while we were there.  Here is a picture of the Justice Center across the river.  The clouds were black and rolling.

Dave giving a toast to Jen and Chris.  Check out the background. This was right on the river.  There's a tugboat in the background

A better picture of Lou...aka Sean Connery...at least that's what he tells me.

 My two brothers, Ed and Dave, and Mom.  For those of you that know my crazy side....now you know where I get it. 

Dave and Kathy dancing the night away.  Her dress was gorgeous too.

We all had fun.  It's great to spend time with the family.  We don't get to do it enough so I appreciate the time we get.

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What to do...what to do...

There is so much to do....work on the house, work in the yard, work it the studio.  It's frustrating not to be able to do it all.  But there are only some many hours in a day (24 I think) and I have to pick and choose. 

We hired someone to mow the lawn but that still leaves all the flower beds.  I've gradually been switching them over to things like hostas and other annuals that I don't have to plant every year.  But I still have to weed....and I haven't been into the beds in the back yard for three years.  It's weed heaven.  But I plan to make it a long term....all summer project. 

The house...that's a bigger project.  We've been here for 20+ years and most of the work had to be done on the outside.  It's beyond time to redo the inside.  But there are so many things that it's overwhelming.  I need to take the "how to eat an elephant" approach....One bite at a time.  Since repainting it best wth a top down approach....I guess painting the ceiling is first.  Time to tell Lou to paint the ceiling...HAHAHA.

Then there is art.  That's must every weekend.  I feel like I've missed something if I don't make it into the studio.  And you can see by the picture below that I have a great big pile of pieces that are calling my name...waiting to be made into jewelry.  

Today we have a wedding.  My niece is getting married.  It's an evening wedding dowtown.  I'm going to wear a dress for the first time in about 3 years...HA.  I prefer to think of myself as a Tom Boy but I did find a cute black and white polka dot dress....about as far away from Tom Boy as you can get.  I have a pair of killer shoes and a red purse.  I need to figure out my jewlery.  Bronze isn't going to go with this outfit.

Later.  There a silver necklace I need to finish and wear tonight.
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Time for a Change

I'm giving up metal clay.......(pregnant pause)...... so that I can do some assembly.  Assembly is too much of a manufactuing term.  I love the word assemblage but that usually refers to 3D compositions with found objects. I suppose if you really stretched the definition it could be used...but until I find a better word...assembly will have to do.

And we all know that I couldn't give up metal clay.  Bronze is in my blood....and it's not just because I do a lot of sanding..LOL.  Don't tell the safety police. 

I've spent the past few months working my way through a couple of kilo's of BronzClay.  Here's a portion of what I have stockpiled.

HeHe....It's fun just to rummage through the pieces.  But now it's time to turn them into necklaces and earrings....and maybe some bracelets.  I have some many cool African beads to go with these pieces.  I can't wait to get started. 
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I drank the kool-aid...and it was good

For my birthday, Lou got me an iPad. I'm not an apple. My big-girl computer is a PC. But I was sucked in by the lure of a traveling with a small pad rather than my larger laptop. When I travel, I really only want to blog and answer e-mails so this is perfect...and just in time for Bead and Button. Is it an extravagant toy...YES...but I'm worth it.

Besides...he made me buy dinner...LOL.
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Queen of Color

Yes...I am the (self-proclaimed) Queen of Color.  When Rachel was a little girl she proclaimed herself the Queen of Farts.  After living with her father for the past 24 years....I know where she got it from.  Now I am proclaiming to be the Queen of Color...and I have no idea where it comes from. 

Check out the colors that I got in the last 2 kiln firings.  The first firing gave me blues and reds.  I got some amazing texture on the large piece

The second firing just a day later gave me oranges and yellows.

For whatever reason I have making some really large pieces.  See the pic below.  The small piece in the picture is the size of a quarter....which shows you just how large this piece is.  It's awesome..LOL.

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New texture sheets...

I've been working on some new designs for texture.  Last night I finally created the texture sheets.  I have the polymer clay tear-away technique down to a science.  I get amazing results.  Too bad they are discontinuing the type of polymer clay that it takes to create these sheets.  They contain phthaltes which is considered hazardous and since polymer clay is used by kids the company has discontinued this line. Personally I don't understand why they can't continue to create this line for artists and market it as such. 

I must have 50-60 texture sheets.  I'm need to go through them and decide which are my favorites.  I will eventually etch them in copper.  I've also been thinking about getting some of them made into stamps.  Anyone interested in stamps??

Like a kid with a new toy I was anxious to use the new sheets.  I blew through 200 grams of bronze tonight.  Some of the pieces are huge.  The jewelry I've been making has evolved into larger pieces on longer chains with lots of embellishments in the chain.  The chain is where I include all the cool African pieces I've picked up at Bead Paradise. 

I still have to finish off all the pieces that I started tonight.  I should have pics later this week.


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Treasures

A couple of pics of the treasures I've picked up from Bead Paradise on Oberlin.  I love that store.  They sell on-line so if you want to pick up a few things check them out.

I'm off to a PMC Guild meeting today so there will be no time in the studio this weekend.  Maybe next weekend. I have a pile of bronze to assemble. 
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Cold hearted orb that rules the night.....

That's a line from a Moody Blues song...Friday night was not kind to me....metal clay wise.  Everyting that I touched was a disaster.  Saturday wasn't much different.  Did you ever have a day...or two like that? 

I have been playing with bracelets and keep breaking them prior to getting them into the kiln.  And it's not because they are too thin.  I rolled out a bracelet at 11 cards thick but as it dried it started cracking.  This is what I think is happening...as it dries, the clay shrinks about 5% and because of the weight of an 11 card thick bracelet, the clay itself is having had a hard time physically moving so it cracks to relieve the stress and allow the clay to move.  Plus it seems to dry out very quickly on the edges and remains wet in the middle.

So out of two bracelets on Friday night, I balled one back up and am trying to recondition the clay to make it useable.  The other I total shattered trying to sand it.  I couldn't overcome the cracks.  On Saturday I tried another one. Again...cracks...but I was able to remove them and on the final sanding of the interior of the bracelet I broke it in three pieces. 

So I thought...lemons...lemonade.  I fired all three pieces thinking I would rivet them together but again the clay Gods would not be appeased.  The size of the pieces were so different that they shrunk at different rates.  Putting these pieces together will take some thinking. 

I did manage to make three pieces that didn't totally flop.  Two of those were from a mold.  Hard to screw those up.

Hmmm...I think I'll do some drawing this week.
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Death Star Canteen

Cake or Death?...For my friends...you know who you are

Book Review: 500 Silver Jewelry Designs

To start with....this is a gorgeous book...just like all the 500's.  My only disappointment is that there are no pieces made with metal clay....at least none that could be readily identified as such...which is a shame because there are many metal clay artists that I think belong in a book like this.  But this is a collection of "top studio artists" and it has a decidely modern art flavor to it. 

The pieces run the spectrum from very wearable to those that I couldn't figure out what they were let alone how you would wear it....the  '"l'art pour l'art'' pieces....like a silver spinal cord, a ring that takes two hands to wear, a silver wire mohawk.  

Like modern art, there are pieces that I really like and others that make me sit and scratch my head.  But I find it's the head-scratchers that I keep coming back to...the ones that challenge my views on what makes something a piece of art and what makes it a piece of jewelry.  I like having this book in my library for that reason alone.
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