Slow and Steady (Wins the Race but Tests One's Limits)

I'm currently working on new mosaic pieces which will become my new jury photos. This was last year's goal, which got completely sideswiped by many, many things. I've told you all about them over the course of last year's blog posts, so I'll just tell you today, that progress IS being made. Slow, slow, sloooooow progress, says the instant gratification girl...

This is SO not instant gratification. But also so very worth the time and effort. See why, below...

I am having to force myself to stay on task as I add mosaic after mosaic piece to my designs. I love the mosaic work but not all at once...I'm ready to switch gears a bit and make some more of the Pop Rocks pieces (or something else entirely new....). They're a lot of work too but boy, do they ever come together faster! And I'm itching to design around some yummy gems.

like these DELICIOUS agates I picked up recently...

...but...

Last year was a year of many rejections. Not that I'm surprised by that. The odds are against anyone who applies to art festivals, especially in the jewelry category. I know this. I've lived this. I've sort of come to my own happy place - well, not quite happy. Maybe my own "okay" place, with this situation. But since I currently feel that my own images / designs are not helping me with my goals of being accepted to more suitable events, it's time to update the images. And right now, while I don't really *have* any events, is the time to get the jewelry made, photographed, and submitted.

Which explains why I'm working on so many mosaic pieces all at once. So far, I've made three rings:

Yep. You've seen these before (or variations of). Problem is, some have sold, some are at my galleries; they're not all together for a photo. Now they are...and I'm not listing or selling them until they're professionally photographed!


Now I'm working on necklaces. I've sawn out the circles, textured the backs and stamped them, and now am cutting more mosaic pieces to put on them. There's a ton of work to still be done on these, but I'm putting one foot in front of the other and following the game plan. Once these are done and I have some festivals lined up, I can focus on the other 20,000 things I want to accomplish this year.  :)

In the interim between making the mosaic rings and starting the mosaic necklaces, I slipped in a little side project:

for what will eventually be a charity auction of the handmade chain, showcasing the work of 100 metalsmiths. Or maybe more...people have really gotten on board with this project and the project may go over 100 at this point. It's slated to be editorialized in both Art Jewelry and Lapidary Journal Art Jeweler magazines, there's talk of a book, a tour, a poster...who knows where it will go and when it will end, but ultimately the goal is to auction it off (or the separate links, depending on how big the chain gets) to benefit CERF, which benefits artists in need.

The idea is that your link is a snapshot of your work at this time in your career, and the links range from stunningly simple to fascinatingly complex. They're all amazingly individual, each one beautifully crafted.

If you'd like to see or learn more, check this Facebook page out: A Hundred for One. I'm so happy to be able to contribute to this! My link is mailing today. :)

And next on my agenda is my annual shopping trip to Tucson!! I've got my list made and can't wait to shop for new gems this year and of course to enjoy the winter weather in Arizona. After my last blog post, you know why!

Can't wait to show you my newest gem toys when I return...until then, be creative, productive, and happy!

I Am So Close to a (Somewhat) Regular Schedule

..and I can't stand it. Today I am really *not* wanting to work...I mean, I DO want to work, but my body is tired and my energy is low. But I'm in the same situation I've been in all year - too busy to stop, too busy to address anything but sitting-at-the-work-table-and-fabricating, too busy to catch my breath.

Once the Memphis festival is over next week, I have two months (or most of two months) to work my schedule and take my time designing, working toward a larger goal than "in ten days I have another festival". I am really, really ready for it. I have had several things click into place, or at least start to, in the last few months, but no time to fully develop or work on my grander plans.

I'm not the patient type, as anyone who knows me will tell you. So I'm waiting, gritting my teeth, trying to calm my mind from all the things I'm thinking about and trying to focus on the necessity. Which is having more inventory to sell:

ohisthisnotatonoffuneyecandy?

I've been trying to slowly step back into wholesale, but growing a wholesale business takes time (lots of time) and a product range that I simply don't have yet. I've designed several new rings, just recently, and I think they'd be great wholesale items. But I can't make the mosaic ones fast enough, and I have NO MORE STONES that will work for the pop rocks rings...it's sort of a problem, no? So wholesale plans are a bit stymied right now.

Also I am wanting to really stretch the mosaic designs to their fullest, and those are so time-consuming that I can barely keep three or so in stock at festivals. At Nashville, a woman randomly said to me, "Well, you must have had a good show!" I asked her why and she said, "Your booth looks a little sparse". Um...it always looks like that! At least this year it has. I actually had as much inventory out as usual, but absolutely no back stock to fill in with. 

So it's back to the making. Which I do love. But maybe notsomuch when I HAVE to make it every day. My shoulders don't love it that much. Or my wrists...one more big push for Memphis and then I can regroup, refocus, and (maybe) even relax, a little...

Gratifying Results (the Obstacles Are the Path).

That post I wrote last week on pushing myself and learning new tricks? I didn't have the pieces I made quite finished when I wrote it. But they are now...so I'd like to show them to you.   :)

The first piece, that gave me SO much grief, is this one:

Tales and Trails Ring

It's wide, nearly an inch wide, and thick gauge sterling. And I shaped and soldered those swirls...or THOUGHT I'd soldered them...but they kept. falling. off.

Now, I have struggled with soldering "not taking" before...primarily with joining two items side by side, which is why I made quite a few of these designs:

because all the pieces on the top get soldered side to side. So now I'm fairly proficient at that.  :)  Struggling with something? Try making fifty pieces that use the technique you're struggling with. That'll make you improve.  :) 

So. Usually soldering something on top of something else is not a problem. But...joining on a curved surface is *so* not the same as joining on a flat surface...I forgot one of the Basic Rules of Fabrication:

You Need A Good Join. Solder Will Not Flow to Fill A Gap.

(Actually, solder *will* flow to fill a gap...but a very small gap). In the case of this ring, I wasn't getting very good joins. Chalk it up to impatience, inexperience, just generally being clueless that day, but for some reason I thought that if I just had *part* of the swirls touching the ring base, the solder would take care of the rest. I'd sort of "tack" down the swirls and then go back and hit the parts that hadn't soldered.

FAIL.

What ultimately had to happen was that I went back and re-shaped the swirls (which took more time, but it would have been less time overall if I hadn't done it wrong to begin with) so that all parts of them laid flat on the curved surface. It wasn't easy. And now I can see why some handmade rings are made...well, let's say differently.  :)

The other piece I made, which also presented a challenge, was this ring:

Terrain Ring 

I've been wanting to make rings with the mosaic designs for a while, but soldering all those pieces onto a curved surface isn't easy either! But it's not all about easy in the studio; otherwise everyone would be doing it.  :)   I helped myself a little by Euro-square-ing the ring base before starting to solder the embellishments on top of it:

source

This ring mandrel is squared, as the photo shows. Most ring mandrels are round, but sometimes, especially with a wider band, a squared ring shape will be more comfortable on the finger. Also, if you're making a ring with a heavy top or a big stone set on top, a square shape will help keep the top of the ring upright, rather than the shank sliding around the finger. 

So I squared the mosaic ring. Which at least gave me a partially flat surface to solder the silver pieces on to. Though they're not quite ALL on the square part...since I did three "stations" of mosaics, each station drifts off to the side a bit. But the overall ring is balanced.  :)

AND comfortable. Always important in jewelry design.   :)