Life is a circle

For 13 years I taught elementary art before I transferred to the high school level and finished out my last 22 years there.  Usually I had three elementary schools that I saw each week.  One of them was Oakland Elementary which consisted of K-6 classes.  Oakland was a rural school that sat in the middle of one of those weather centers.  There could be a major blizzard at Oakland, but in town the sun was shining (which meant that school would not be let out early.)  Often whoever had bus duty had to stay until after 5:00 because the buses couldn't get through.  Even though it made for longer days, Oakland was a wonderful school to work in.  The people I worked with were great and the students were great.

I saw about 300 children a week (and in those days I could remember every single child's name...... don't ask me about names now though.)  Surprisingly there are elementary students that I still remember.  One of them from Oakland works with my son.  In the mornings Dan use to carry boxes to all the classrooms for me (there wasn't an art room.)  Dan's wife, Angel was a student there also and I remember her crying when we got a letter back from Andrew Wyeth.  (He painted Christina's World.)

For Christmas this year, Dan wanted a necklace made for Angel that included a pearl they'd gotten at Sea World.  (The pearl was such a pretty teal color.)   How convenient that I had taken Gordon's class on a box ring with pearl.  I kept the design simple and made the necklace reversible but I had to work out a different method for setting the pearl, as it wasn't drilled.  (And I wasn't about to drill the pearl since there was only the one.)  Instead of setting the pearl on a post, I created a small dish to work as a well to hold lots of glue.   This would create more surface for maximum contact with the pearl.

This isn't something I would have done with a ring, but a necklace doesn't take the beating a ring does.  My biggest concern was getting the dish the right size for the pearl (which luckily worked out.)  I torch fired the little dish so I could check it's size and remake it if needed.  My next concern was that it would shift inside the box during firing (but it didn't.)  When Gordon fired our rings, he filled the box with vermiculite to keep them from slumping.  I wasn't able to do that since the dish enclosed the opening.  That was another concern but it all worked out.

At least for this piece, the Jewelry Gods were watching out for me.  I think they were on hiatus when I was doing my wrapped piece!

Box Pearl Ring

Drying box with post for pearl

Pouring in vermiculite to support the post

Rings ready for firing

My finished ring

I do love making rings and I happened to have had an empty finger to cover.  So it was very convenient that Sunday's class with Gordon was on making a box ring with a pearl.

Lora Hart once said that when she takes a class she doesn't try to be creative.  She's there to learn the technique and creativity can be her focus when she's back in her own studio.

Keeping that in mind, I kept my ring simple and just followed Gordon's lead.  (Not that I didn't draw up a design that involved carving, stippling and adding coils..........but thought twice about it.  I'm so glad I did keep it simple.)

The techniques I learned can now be expanded into so many other areas and that is why I take classes in the first place.  

Diving for Pearls Pendant

This piece started out as one of my negative space designs.  (That's what I call my pieces that are made from the left over scraps of paper clay after I have used the paper punch.)  Usually they involve several pieces of negative spaces but this piece uses only one.

The empty spaces reminded me of waves and as usual I dove right in (an appropriate word since we are talking about waves.)  One thing led to another and the piece came together.  ( I had no idea where it was going.)  I use to teach my students that planning saved time and money.  I need to follow my own advise.  Think not!  No fun!

Anyway, the focal piece has been finished for well over a year but I had no idea where to take it next.  Not until the other day when a friend of mine came to me with a request to fix a bracelet she  bought somewhere else.  The bracelet was beautiful to look at but just was not made to fit the normal human's wrist.  (There wasn't much I could do.)  But the curly wires in the bracelet turned on the light bulb in my brain as the perfect complement to my focal point.

At first I was going to use wire (wasted about three inches of fourteen gauge wire on that one) but it didn't feel right.   Then the light bulb went off again (I was seeing spots from all the flashing that was going on.)  Since I had used coils of clay for the focal piece, why not use them for the connecting piece.

I'd also had the beads for quite awhile.  I knew I wanted them for this piece but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them.  I also had some very large round beads in the same color but they were way too big.  (But not to worry.  They now have a place as soon as I finish firing some big ceramic beads that I covered with silver paste, etc.)   Big beads need to hang together.

It feels good to finally have it finished and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  It's a good thing I took the (long) time to listen to the piece.  Otherwise there were some other plans that would not have been so successful.  It pays to be patient (and have multiple pieces on the work bench at once.)