Third time's a charm!

Yesterday was the first day of classes at the PMC Retreat being held at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN. (One of my favorite places.)

My first class was "Metal Repousse" with Holly Gage. (Check out her website.) Holly's work is amazing both technically and artistically so I was really looking forward to this class.

Day one (Sunday) was eventful because of our alarm fiasco.

Day two (Monday) was also eventful. Our class was supposed to start at 9:00 AM. It didn't start until 3:30. Poor Holly was held up by problems with (I think ) a couple of airplanes. She finally was able to get out on the third plane but that didn't include one of her bags with most of the supplies, her make-up and toothbrush. That bag arrived at midnight.

While we were waiting for Holly, Janet Alexander (one of the new Senior Instructors) filled in with a demo on carving a rope border and a demo on how to use a variety of torches. She did a great job.

Holly is quite a trooper and teacher. She was determined to get class going and not dwell on the stress of the morning. We were able to get our pieces started and we all stayed later to make up for lost time.

The process is interesting and challenging. It involves carving a mold in different levels and then carving and refining on the metal clay that comes from the mold.

Mine is not finished (for another eventful reason that I'll post about tomorrow) but the pictures give you an idea of the process. Holly says the piece is in "the ugly stage" when it first comes out of the mold. That's where mine is right now. "Ugly" Hopefully I can get mine to look as nice as the rest of the class. There were some pretty impressive pieces. I'll post more pictures after I refine it (in other words..... in a few days. It's pretty intense work.)