They're Back! And They're Great!

My samples came back from the casting company this weekend. I was a little afraid to open the box because I was so worried that they didn't come out the way I wanted them to...but all is good. They look fabulous! Even the back textures came out really well. I'm so, so pleased.  :)

I'm shipping the additional pieces off today and hoping to have them back by early next week. My next festival is the first weekend of October and it would be great to have the new pieces on show there. I had showed a couple of the samples to customers at my most recent festival and they're excited to see the finished products. 

I'd also stopped designing the rest of the collection because I needed to know what, if anything, had to be tweaked when the samples came back. Fortunately so far, it looks like no real tweaks are necessary, so I can move ahead with the additional designs. The rest of this week I'm on vacation, but I'll be working on those extra designs next week.

In the meantime, here are the designs I've made:

I'm pressed for time today so I didn't edit these at all, but you can see the difference in this piece from my earlier I Am the Bomb post. This is now cleaned up and polished.


This design is both a pendant and (hopefully) a bracelet link. I'll cut off the extra jump ring to make it a pendant, and I'm estimating that it will take three of these (plus the in-between links) to make a bracelet.

And I showed you the oval earring earlier too. Here's the cleaned up version:

It's still hard to see the satin finish in these in the photos. Probably if I'd edited them...but this is a short work week for me so I'm being as efficient as possible.  :)

I still have to design an earring that will go with the rectangular necklace / bracelet piece - I tried once but it ended up in the scrap jar. And I want to make a nugget-y sort of piece that will serve as a single pendant or a multi-piece necklace. In the meantime, I'm sending these out today to have molds made:

Please note that this piece above and the three below were photographed when they were still unfinished (not cleaned up or polished) but you get the idea. I think this will serve nicely as a smaller pendant and earring (same piece for both).

I've also made a mate to the oval earring:

Which I'm quite excited about. I love that it's oval horizontally rather than vertically but it will still work with the earrings.  :)

And you saw this already:

But it has a mate as well:

Probably the matchiest set in the collection, but  the pendant came out so nicely (and is the most symmetrical piece I've made, which is unusual for me. So I convinced myself that it was okay to do something more matchy.

But these nearly killed me. It's really difficult to put these mosaic bits into a circular shape. And the earring piece was so unforgiving that I struggled with getting the pieces to fit - there was so little room within the circle to make them work! I almost re-thought these, because they definitely made for some frustrating moments. But now that they're done I really like the end result (and am glad I don't have to make them over and over again).   :)

Getting the collection to this point took longer than I'd have liked, and with having to allow for molding, casting, and cleanup time, I'm not sure they'll all be ready for early October. But it took time because I struggled at first with how to use the mosaic bits without a center stone as the focal point (story of my life! I love to design around gemstones; designing *just* in metal is harder for me). Though some pieces didn't work, some pieces that had to be remade (the oval pieces were trouble and both the earring *and* the necklace prototype had to be entirely re-done), I'm really excited about the end result so far.

I've also got some new stone pieces to share as well, but I don't think I'll get them posted before I head to South Carolina for a few days. Look for them early next week...

Have a wonderful week!

Roller Coaster..woo hoo hoo :)

I spent Wednesday working in my studio, beginning the game plan for the four day, Michigan show next month. I just found out that I will be exhibiting (I had been on the wait list), and I'm feeling simultaneously excited and maybe a little panicked. I need a lot of inventory. The first three days the show is open from 10-9 (uh, YEAH, you read that right) and the last day, 10-6. It's grueling and I need to have quite a bit of jewelry. So I hit the bench hard. My plan is to make the "tough" stuff - cab work and one of a kinds - early on, then switch to the less demanding items as the show date gets closer. Also, I am planning to use July and August to revamp my design aesthetic and push myself more to create more exciting jewelry...not that what I'm doing now isn't exciting. But I am really wanting to create some fabulous metalworked items.

So I spent seven hours in the studio Wednesday, ruined two pieces, redid one, and one was redone on Thursday. Right now I have a total of two earring designs and three pendant designs. Two of the pendants are not finished yet - no bails, no embellishments, and one earring had to be remade. It doesn't seem like quite enough...they all have to be cleaned up and polished and the stones set as well...!

Somewhere deep inside me the panic rumbles. 

I would have worked for at least another hour on Wednesday but my hands, neck, and shoulders hurt. By 6 pm they hurt enough that I knew to stop for the night. And then I couldn't sleep. Just laid in bed, simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted. Wanting to push, wanting to run, but knowing it would have to wait.

Quick snap of the pieces from Wednesday. Upper row are two pendants. Bottom row are two earrings (not a pair, just one of each) and another pendant. 

Thursday was an afternoon full of appointments and errands, so I knocked off two hours worth of work in the early morning. Redid the ruined earring, added embellishments and a bail to one pendant. Now to figure out what embellishments I want on the third pendant. I had a plan, but as often seems to happen, it shifts in the time between sketch and fabrication work. And a new plan takes time to develop.

Here are the stones as well - upper level left to right, Pietersite and Larimar. Lower level Peruvian opal, ocean jasper, and a yummy boulder turquoise. 

Now it's Friday afternoon and I had jewelry class this morning (I signed up for another ten weeks at the Spruill Center, so I'm working through a few hours this afternoon. I really enjoy the jewelry classes but each week they cut one of my work days in half, so I have to manage my time well when I'm taking classes.

The week's schedule and studio time:

Monday - got home from Nashville at 1:30 a.m. Slept in until about nine, napped on the couch, dinked around the house a bit. NOT a work day. But after nearly three weeks straight of work and travel, I don't feel guilty about it.  :)

Tuesday - exercise. Unload car. Two loads of laundry. A couple of hours with the sketchbook and my stones, detailing out designs. Online research. Grocery store run.

Wednesday - exercise. Then all studio, all day.

Thursday - exercise. Two hours in studio. Ran errands and had meetings in afternoon. Dinner out with husband.

Friday - jewelry class. So far, almost two hours in studio and a few more to go before an evening appointment tonight.

Saturday...yeah, I'll probably be working a bit tomorrow. My husband has a BIG golf day planned, so I can steal a little of our "couple time" since he isn't here for it anyway. And I need the studio hours, as this week's hours so far are a measly 11.5 (probably 14 hours by the end of today). That's not much!

Life seems simultaneously exciting and a bit stressful. If I had time, I'd put some Yoga on the schedule (and yes, I know how kind of oxymoronic that last statement is).  :)

Taking A Moment

I should be (and am!) working on building inventory for my next festival. But I needed a breather and so I sat down to fill out an online application for a metalsmithing group associated with Etsy, where I have an online shop.

The application is fairly extensive and asked some thought-provoking questions that made me really consider where I am and where I'm going. So I thought I'd share some of the questions and answers here.

Q. What drew you to work with metal, and when did you start? What is your favorite part of the creative process?

A. I began my jewelry career (though it was initially a hobby) as a humble bead-stringin' gal. But soon I wanted more, so I taught myself to work with wire and did a lot of cold-joined designs. This kind of work satisfied me and sustained me as the hobby transitioned into a career but eventually I had too many designs in my head and my sketchbook that could not be realized (or at least not in the "clean, simple, modern" way that I preferred) with my existing skills.

I have taken fabrication classes at the Spruill Center for the Arts in Dunwoody, GA, which opened up my world. They were fantastic, but eventually I realized that classes alone would not be enough and in December 2009 my husband and I made room for an actual studio in our home. Over the last two years I have spent a lot of time at the torch, with the saw, at the polishing wheel...I have burned myself, gotten silver "splinters", melted and destroyed some things along the way (but thankfully only metal - not the house or myself!) and have learned a great, GREAT deal by trial and error. I still consider myself a "baby" metalsmith but I'm growing and learning all the time.

My favorite part of the creative process is twofold:

1. I love stones / cabochons and I will sit down with several at once and start doodling in the sketchbook. These are always rough ideas as I find that my perspective shifts or happy accidents happen in the actual fabrication process and sometimes the finished piece doesn't exactly match the original design. But I love the blank sketchbook page, the stone in my hand, and the "making what would not be there without you" aspect of the process.

2. I love the actual process of joining all the yummy metal goodness together. I'm still excited by the most recent solder flow as I was the first time I ever was able to do that with a torch. It's still a little mystical to me. Figuring out placement, how to position a design element(s) to not kill myself at cleanup time (my least favorite part of the process), how to keep trying to give myself more complex soldering puzzles and solving them...that gets me out of bed every day.  :)

Q. Please list at least 3 metal working techniques that you employ on a regular basis, and describe how you incorporate them into your work. 

A. 1. Hammering. I love texture and am not in a position (yet!) to own a rolling mill, so I have to get creative with texture in other ways. Even with a textured hammer, the end result will look different on a thin wire than it will on a flat sheet, so creating the texture(s) I desire (and having them turn out the way I desire!) is part of the problem-solving process.

2. Sawing. I'm not as good with my saw as I'd like to be but I use it quite often to cut out sheet shapes for cabochon settings.

3. Soldering. My torch is used almost daily unless I'm traveling or working art shows. I sweat solder (most of my embellishments are sweat soldered) and placement solder. I don't pick solder much because I have tremors in my hands, so I tend to line everything up, get the solder placed where I want it, and then hit it all with the torch. I find I'm more efficient that way too.  :)

Q. Do you outsource any parts of your work, like casting , or have help in the studio? (Having help will not disqualify you, but we'd like to know what parts of your process you outsource when we consider your work).

A. I do have some items cast. I make my living selling my jewelry, and in my opinion it's almost impossible to keep up - since it is just me in the studio - with production for art shows if some items aren't cast. Plus it keeps my pricing affordable on those pieces.

Otherwise it's only me. I would love to have help but right now I am keeping a pretty tight rein on expenses.

Q. Please provide links to 3 pieces (need not be Etsy pieces) that best portray who you are as an artist

A. This is tough as my work is in flux right now while I am mastering fabrication and sort of re-designing all over again (or so it feels) but I'll show you three of my proudest pieces:

I feel like the Water's Edge pendant came together so beautifully and all elements are in harmony. This hadn't happened as well as I'd have liked in earlier pieces so this felt like a big step forward.

I feel like the Tide Pool necklace represents the beginnings of a new direction for my work that is more "me" - clean, simple, modern - I love the contrast of the darkened metal with the high shine components, and the bead dangle is a nod to my prior "beady" girl days.  :)

What I love about this piece is that it turned out so balanced. I am starting to play with asymmetry and really was happy with the feel of this one once it was done. The customer who bought it really connected with it as well which is part of what I strive for when I design, especially designing with stones, which is my favorite thing to do!

So that's my little snapshot in time. I should know if I'm accepted to the group sometime in June. And I can't wait to see where this path will take me next!