Studio Set Up, Part I

I posted previously about tackling my utter disaster of a studio. Last year was a year of craziness, running around back and forth to Arizona to visit my father as much as I could. I also exhibited at a lot more festivals than usual, so I was home even less of the time. And actually, after the major jaw surgeries in 2011, I hadn't given the studio a good overhaul / organizing in nearly two years..it showed. Everything, everywhere, was just a pile of clutter. I wasn't really being as productive as I wanted, because I either:  a) couldn't find things when I wanted them, or b) couldn't get to things when I wanted them.

You know how sometimes you get smacked with the realization that YOU are your own worst enemy? As I looked around the studio, I saw myself. And it wasn't at all pretty. Or manageable. So I took some time to sort through what was working for me and what wasn't. And I made some small changes that I think will make me SO more efficient going forward. The small details are just as important as the big changes.  :)

What wasn't working:

The soldering table was the biggest mess (actually, maybe *not* the biggest, scary as that thought is). But it certainly was impeding my ability to create. It's hard to see in the photo, because of all the white flux and crap all over the table top, but there are scattered bits of sanding disks, wire, sheet, and assorted other miscellaneous detritus all over the table. I must have had eight or so little sorting dishes (I use these) that held assorted "metal to use", left over from other projects. But they never got sorted. And I didn't know which type / shape / gauge of metal was in them - they were all mixed together in each bowl - so I never wanted to go looking for what I needed. I just ended up using new metal - horribly inefficient and not exactly cost-effective.

It seems that I somehow get flux all over everything when I'm working. I just do. I'm a crazy flux-spatterer! Like Pollock, only it's all white on black background. I can live with that (it washes off pretty easily), but having all the bits of metal around was not efficient or productive. So I sorted ALL OF THEM. Tedious? Definitely. Necessary? Absolutely.

Jump rings, fancy jump rings, flattened dots, beaded wire, square wire, tubing, etc. And they all got new homes:

Each tin holds one item - say, square wire. It doesn't matter what gauge wire, but I now know where the square wire IS when I need snippets for design elements. I labeled all the tins with painter's tape and a sharpie, and they all live in the box you can (sort of) see behind them, the one with the butterfly on it. MUCH improved. Also, notice how clean the top of the work table is without all that flux splattered on it??   :)

This is an "after" shot, because the lazy susan on the right of the wooden chest of drawers used to be here:

Pretty much where the white basket is. The lazy susan holds all my mandrels for making jump rings, as well as a bunch of pliers. Which was fine when I did a lot of wire shaping and wrapping that didn't require torch work. But I found that as I spent more time at the soldering table, I needed the mandrels to be within arm's reach. It took me over a year to move them. Sometimes you just can't see the forest for all the trees in your way...

My ring mandrels (seen on the back left of the chest of drawers) were on top of the chest already, but I had my less-often-used disc cutter on the right. Now the disc cutter is in one of the drawers until it's needed. A small, but really effective change. I also moved more tools (pliers) over to the soldering table so they'd be within easy reach as well and it's really made a difference.

I've show this photo before but it bears another look. Because I spent the better part of a year just shuffling all this stuff around so that I could do what was necessary. The mess you see in the above photo made it nearly impossible to get to any one of the work tables, at any given time. I am TERRIBLE with paper filing. It ends up in "piles to file" on the floor and then I end up working in a 2' x 2' area because I can't maneuver around the studio. So I went to this:

Which makes my life so much easier. I  put the current month's paperwork on one of these four shelves, and then at the end of the month it gets filed further into the brown expandable monthly folder. I do throw monthly receipts into the basket that you saw on the floor (I know myself!) but now they'll get filed in the expandable folder too. And the basket is now sits on a shelf, not on the floor.

Don't look too closely at the paperwork *beneath* the filing area...it will go away as soon as it's all checked and verified for taxes (that's last year's paperwork).  :)

Now I'll have to take photos a few months into this year and see how well I'm still doing!  ;)

Ups and Downs in the Studio

Oh, 2013. You and I are not friends yet!  It's only 18 days into the new year and it's already been a roller coaster in so many ways.

As I mentioned in my last post, my father died on the 13th. And even though he'd had cancer for over thirteen years, you're never quite ready to get the actual call. So it's been a tough week. And there are other things going on, other personal things, that I may (or may not) talk about in a future post. I want to share the metalsmithing journey on this blog, but it's hard to not include the things that affect the metalsmith herself. And I don't like getting too personal here because who wants to read that kind of stuff? Pfft.

Anyhoo, I've had the studio in a bit of an uproar for some time (okay, it was in a big mess for some time), and now it's in a whirlwind of cleaning and organizing. I've been sketching out some new designs, but haven't felt the urge to pick up the torch this week. At least not until this afternoon, and then it was probably too late to get started on something major. So I tackled paperwork and cleanup:

Paperwork to be sorted (after the really big stack was sorted). This is the pile of "needs to be handled ASAP".

All this is on the FLOOR in front of the bead table. It gets a little hard to maneuver around the studio with floor piles.

But wait!

MORE floor piles. Those black trays with the gray inserts (and the stuff on top of them) are bits of silver, jump rings, beads, wire, clasps, etc. that need to be sorted and put away.

I *am* happy to report that this drawer has been sorted and is now back in the chest of drawers where it belongs.  Progress!

So no jewelry at all this week, except to show you these little bits of happy:

Small textured discs with rubies, available in the Etsy shop

I had some leftover 20 gauge silver but not enough to make something big, so I put these together. Bright little spots of color for a gray wintry month. You knew I couldn't leave you without something.  :)

Tomorrow I am out of the studio celebrating a dear friend's birthday, and that will help move the week on to a brighter note. Check back for some new jewelry photos next week!

Walking...and Fishing...and Playing with Puppies

I don't usually talk much about my personal life here, but I just lost my father, so I hope you'll  indulge me for just a moment.

I'm not close with my family, but I have / had a deep respect for my father. My dad was a hard worker, a respect-er of women, a man who always put the best face on everything, and the most loyal and patient man I have ever known. I often tease Brett that "I married my father" but in reality I married the best parts of my dad (my husband is also quite long on patience, thank goodness, among his other qualities).

In the last week or so, every blog in the world seems to be talking about new year's resolutions, and though I have several, I think that this one (that I'd posted on another blog) pretty much sums it up:

[My resolution is] To honor my father, who is dying from cancer. His dying has been slow and steady and given me time to think about my relationship with my family, where I am in my own life, and how I want to go forward. 

My father worked his entire life straight through to retirement and never complained. Many of those years were spent working in an un-air-conditioned shop in Phoenix, Arizona...I spent a summer working with him when I was a teenager and it was uncomfortable, to say the least in the hundred-degree temps. The year that he and my mother retired, he was diagnosed with both prostate and bladder cancer. He had surgery, but the prostate cancer was already Stage IV, incurable. 


As the cancer's hold on him has grown, true to form, Dad's never complained. He's taken each change for the worse as practically as he's approached everything else in life. It spread to his bones, and eventually ate away at his spine. He spent a year in a wheelchair. Now he's on hospice care. 

During this time, I left my unsatisfying corporate job and began working for myself. I design and fabricate jewelry, and the actual work is bit messy, a little gritty; most days I'm wearing a work apron and not looking glam in the least. But I think about the kind of messy, dirty work my father did for years. Quality work, made to last. The end results were always beautiful, and he delivered them to ecstatically happy customers.


I'm not restoring and reupholstering furniture, but I'm designing jewelry that has personal meaning for my own customers. My actual work happens in a studio that's turned out much like my dad's shop: gritty. Dusty. Messy. I am a shop girl and like my father before me, quite happy to be one. It's the best way I can think of to continue my dad's legacy.


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 Family get-together, 2004. Dad is in the lower left corner.

I had two long chats with my mother yesterday, and at one point, she said, "I guess he's walking now." And I said, "and fishing" - one of Dad's favorite pastimes. And playing with puppies...that man had a thing for dogs.  :)

Dad taught me the value of hard work and integrity. The satisfaction and joy of making something lovely and special for others. He showed me the essence of loyalty and patience. He was a man of few words but I know without a doubt that he loved me. And Daddy, I love you right back. Always will. If there is a Heaven, I know you have a wonderful place in it.