Finally!!!

No, I don't have my computer back. But, I 'm on my daughter's computer and I know how to download (upload?) pictures to it.

So.... here's a couple of pictures.

The first picture is of the copper (sort of) fiasco. It wasn't a total loss as the underlying copper was fine. But what a mess the rest turned out to be.

The other picture is an example of a piece I made as a demo during a water etching class. I'm very pleased with the final design of the whole piece. But, that wasn't always the case.

During the Arrowmont earring extravaganza, Linda Kline showed us a technique that included a tab designed right into the piece. The piece was fired flat (like the by-pass ring) and the tab was bent into a round bail after firing. I didn't get a chance to try it, but my friend Nancy (who was sitting right next to me all three days) did. She made a water etched pendant and was nervous about bending it; but it worked slicker than you know what. It turned out beautifully.

So, I never did a test piece (that would have been too logical) before my class. Instead we dove right in (thank goodness I only had one student), made our pieces with the tabs and fired them.

Then came time to bend them. (You know where this is going. Do you see a bail on my piece?)

Yes, they snapped off. Both of our pieces broke.

My student drilled a hole in her piece and hung it with a jump ring. I pasted the broken bail onto the back and re-fired it. For months it laid around my studio, while I tried to decide what else I wanted to do with it. I was listening, but it wasn't talking. Finally, one of the other jewelers in the Transit building, said she liked it just the way it was. So I took another long look at it. Looked in my basket of beads and this is what I came up with. I do really like it now. It has a South Western look.

Another unfinished piece done. Finally!