Duh!

It's been about a month now since Oil City had their Oil Heritage Festival.  About ten of the National
Transit Artists set up in the Grafitti Gallery for the arts and crafts show.  We could set up out in the street, but that involves having a tent, setting up at 6 in the morning (and I am sooooo not a morning person), sitting out in the heat (and maybe rain), and taking it all back down the next day.

Instead we chose to set up in the Gallery where we could leave our pieces for several weeks and not just two days.  It's still a lot of work hauling everything down to the gallery and figuring out where to put everything.  It involves hauling down the tables, the jewelry and all the displays.  True to form, the elevator always seems to give out at this time of year.  So, it's a lot of running up and down the stairs carrying heavy loads.

Swan Daashuur (another jeweler in the Transit Studios) and I had displays that took up the most room.  As we were setting our displays up we kept talking about what we did last year.  Notice...... I said talked about what we did.  And..... tried to remember.  Sometimes we remembered and sometimes we did not.

This year we wised up and took a picture of our set ups.  Duh!  How easy is that?

This isn't how it looked last year but I think it was better.  I even had a couple of people make a comment on how nice the display looked.  

Next year I won't have to strain my brain trying to remember what I did.  Duh!  An easy solution.  

All done!

I finished the last of my unfinished projects from my classes a few weeks ago.

Here is the metal clay "wet" inlay technique.  The backing was made of copper and the bronze clay was inlaid.  I wasn't able to get it as smooth as it should be since I included a stone in this one, but still got it pretty smooth so it would take the Baldwin's Patina.

National Transit Jewelry Series

As I've mentioned before, the National Transit Building in Oil City, Pa is an example of gorgeous architecture.  Anyone who has ever visited has noticed how amazing the building is, both inside and outside.

Inspiration for art most often comes from the artist's life..... what they see, experience, feel, hear and more.  So the designs that I pass everyday on the way to my studio is a natural inspiration for design.

The designs I used are basically literal.  How else will people who briefly pass through be able to associate with the jewelry.  What I have done is try to use them in a variety of ways to make them each different.

The ground floor is tiled and has a narrow tile border that reminds me of a celtic design.  (Not sure that it is.)

This is the design created from the original tile. (Couldn't find my photograph of the tile itself.)

I created a couple of very long necklaces using the floor tile design; one in copper and one in bronze.   The bronze piece took awhile to make as I incorporated some of the chain I bought at the bead show.  I really like the look of combining chain with beading (not to mention how much further the chain will go.  I have enough left to make another necklace.)

Now I want to create more necklaces to be worn with these.  (One thing always leads to another!)

This is the last one...... Honestly!

This is my last post on the Ginkgo tree.  (At least until 2012 when the leaves come out.)

Lately I haven't parked down under the bridge as the lots have been full so I haven't walked by the Ginkgo tree.  Surprisingly the other day there were tons of parking spaces so once again I passed my favorite tree.  Of course it was bare, but there were plenty of viable leaves laying on the ground.  The leaves were beginning to have black mold spots on them but other than that they were in perfect condition.

Earlier on I made very tiny silver leaf earrings from this tree, but this time of year all the leaves were either big or huge.  So, making a full leaf earring was not an option.  Instead,  I tried to tear the leaves in half but that didn't work well either.  I ended up cutting the leaves up the middle while trying to keep the flow of the textures.

Using  different leaves for the earrings gave each pair it's own unique look.  The pair I made for myself is rather large.  The other pair is much smaller.  (Even though that was not my intent.)  While drilling the second pair a piece broke off.  So, of course I had to break off a piece on the other earring which lead to another piece breaking off and so on and so forth.  (Hence the smaller size.)

I also learned some other facts about the Ginkgo tree.  First off it is from China and is similar to Jurassic Fossils.  Another name for the tree is "Maidenhair Tree" which makes sense.   I had been told that the female tree puts out a rather pungent scent.  According to an article I was reading, it smells like vomit.  There was a town that had many of the trees and for years there hadn't been a problem.  But, the male trees can ( it doesn't happen very often though) change into a female tree.  That's what happened in the town and nobody could stand the smell, so they cut them all down.

The woman beside me at the craft show last week also said she was told that the Ginkgo tree drops it's leaves all at once.  (At least the leaves could be raked all at once.)

Okay, I've had my say.  No more Ginkgo leaves for awhile.  I promise!

Knowing what has to be done

Many of my high school students put so much effort into not doing something.  Often, it would have been easier if they just did it, got it out of the way and moved onto something they did want to do.

That's exactly how I feel with a couple of different necklaces that I'm working on.  I want to be finished with them but I know I need to make a matching clasp.  Instead of just getting down to business I keep looking at some of my ready made clasps, thinking there has to be one that will work.  There isn't.  I know what has to be done and now I just need to do it.

Often, I feel that I need to design a piece of clothing to be worn with some of my pieces.  Like that is going to happen.  

Actually it did once, back in college when I designed a body ornament using silver, ebony and a very large agate.   I did make a floor length velvet dress in a color that picked up one of the colors in the agate.  Didn't have anywhere to wear such an outfit though.  (Still don't.)  

Miracle oil

I actually did work out a design ahead of time (at least for the one side.)

One side of the copper and bronze bangles

Other side of the copper and bronze bangles

When attaching two pieces of fired silver together, it has been found that the addition of lavender oil to the paste gives a very strong attachment to the pieces.

As I said in an earlier post, I had to repair my bronze bangle bracelet by replacing a couple of balls and adding a new ball.  (Actually I decided not to use the errant balls but made three new ones instead.)  I wasn't sure if I should add lavender oil to the bronze or not, but thought what the heck!  I added the oil to a small piece of lump clay which I used to make the three new balls.   Then I made the paste from the left over lump of oil infused clay.  

After careful drying in an upright position, I held my breath when it came to firing.  Since there were some freshly made pieces in the container with the bangle and the three balls were fresh clay, I did the first firing over again.  The first firing burns out the binder.  The second firing sinters the metal. 

Today I got to open the kiln and Christmas came early.  Everything was perfect.  The new balls are permanently attached.  (The only bad thing is that the bracelet is a little big for my hand and could slip off.)  That was easily remedied by wearing two bangles.  An earlier copper bangle is slightly on the small size and by putting it on after the bronze one, it keeps the bronze bangle from slipping.  (There is one more bronze bangle waiting to be fired.  Two bangles are pretty noisy.  Just wait until I'm wearing three bangles.  I won't be able to play hide and seek with the grandchildren.)

By the way, I think it's time for a grandchildren post.  Got a couple of goodies from the three year old.  Will share in a post soon, after I check to make sure I haven't shared them already. 

Just like butter

   Barbara Becker Simon was wearing several cuff bracelets when she was in Pittsburgh teaching her wedge class.  I really liked the bracelets and always thought I'd like to try to make some,  although for the longest time I resisted working with the bronze and copper clays.  (Although that has definitely changed thanks to Hadar's powdered clay.)

   Clay that is already mixed has a shelf life and needs to be used not long after purchase.  I've had 200 grams of BronzeClay which was invented by Bill Struve.  Worried that it would dry up on me, I decided that now was the time to make some cuffs bracelets.  So, last Saturday at my Guild's play day, I finally got a couple of cuffs started.

   The design for the cuff was not apparent to me when I started.  Rolling the clay on a texture sheet didn't give me a sharp enough impression, so I just rolled it into a smooth slab.  (I figured I'd worry about the design later.  Hey, that's my usual MO!)

  Back in the studio on Monday, I sat down and tackled the design.  (I did work it out on paper first.)   I pulled out my dockyard carving tools and went at it.  The bronze clay was very easy to carve and the carving process was fun.  (I always did like carving linoleum blocks and this was just so much easier.)

   The photo shows the bracelet in progress and once it's done and fired I'll post the finished piece.  My biggest concern is getting full sintering since the piece takes up the entire firing pan.  I suspect that I'll have to fire it once, turn it around and fire it a second time.