…and then it was December.

What a busy, productive, exciting time this has been. I’ve been making and selling lots of jewelry. I haven’t participated in any formal shows, but have created (or stumbled into) some out-of-the-ordinary sales opportunities.  One of my pieces was selected for publication in the Art & Design of Metal Clay Jewelry 2011 Calendar.  Jim and I grooved our way through (possibly the last) MagnoliaFest music festival. At the National Mango Board, we got approval for the 2011 budget and are working through a proposal to increase the assessment rate.  Most days, I’ve woken up a bit breathless in anticipation of the deadlines I need to reach in order to stay on track.

But, it’s December, and that means the pace slows down just a bit in my world.  I’m still selling, but I’m not in crazed production mode anymore.  Work is busy but not insane, and I can look forward to having the week off between Christmas and New Year’s.  I’m starting to clear out the flotsam and jetsam that’s been building up in the corners of my house.  I just LOVE this time of year!

I also love that I’m spending some time creating just for the fun of it.  Check out these super-cute copper birdhouse ornaments I made.   They’re about 3″ x 3″, and they will grace the tree of my friends Deborah and William.  These ornaments were my contribution to our annual ornament exchange at the Mango Board. My co-workers have come to expect that I’ll bring handmade ornaments for the exchange, and who am I to disappoint them?

I’ve never created anything this large in copper. I anticipated some problems with the shrinkage of the clay causing splits and cracks, but I did my best and trusted the outcome to the kiln gods.   Much to my amazement, all of cracks were on the floor.  The walls, roof and birdies came out of the kiln in perfect condition!  The splits in the floor actually add a rustic flair to these pieces.

To construct these birdhouses, I formed and dried each piece, then used a carving tool to add the texture to the roof, walls and floor.  After carving, I assembled the pieces together using thick slip.  The bronze wire loop was inserted through a drilled hole and fixed in place with wet clay before firing.  This was a really fun little experiment!

I’m in rural Vermont right now taking a class with Celie Fago and having a great time with my metal clay buddies.  Celie’s studio is very comfortable and she makes her students feel so welcome in her slice of paradise.  Pictured above is her teaching studio.  To the right is the view from the studio.  We’re just a bit early to see the leaves in full autumn blaze, but a few of the trees are starting to change.  Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful place to hang out, learn and stretch my creative muscles for a few days.

After signing up for this class, I learned that some of my online metal clay friends were also attending.  This was fantastic news! It got even better when I learned that one of my friends had access to a house just 20 minutes from Celie’s place.  There are five of us staying together and the house is filled with laughter each evening as we get to know each other better.

We’ve each taken responsibility for feeding the house one night.  Angie and Marly served an amazing veggie quiche last night, and on Saturday, Holly shared her homemade minestrone soup.  Barb started the trip with a bang by steaming nine live lobsters.  Nine lobsters!  She lives on Little Cranberry Island in Isleford, Maine, and her husband is a lobsterman.  To us this was sheer extravagence, but to Barb, it’s really no big deal.  Doesn’t this lobster look like it just threw a punch?  Trust me, I got the better of him in the end!

I’ll post more later about the class, the project we’re tackling and the other lovely women in our class.  Now, it’s time to go get my hands in the clay.

Here are a few random pieces I’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks.

One week from today I start a 4-day workshop at Celie Fago’s Vermont studio.  Between now and then I need to finish a website update, pack and participate in a board meeting in New Jersey for my day job.  One thing is for sure—my life is rarely boring!

I stumbled across these photos of a vase I made in early 2007.  I had just gotten into polymer clay and was toying with the idea of  layering the clay on a glass vase.  Of course, I couldn’t start with a small vase.  No, I had to commit myself to a 14″ tall piece, and I wanted to make it a gift for my best friend, so it needed to be really good.

I learned so much in the making of this vase, and I applied that knowledge to a series of really cool polymer-covered glass pieces.  My friend still displays the vase proudly in her living room.  It was created with highly translucent clay, which makes it a beautiful, glowing candle holder.  This isn’t the best photo, but you get the idea.

I was always into crafts, but never considered myself an “artist” in my younger years.  I think this was the first piece that made me believe there might be an artist hiding deep inside me.  It still makes my heart seize up a bit to see these photos and remember how that felt. Do you remember the first time you felt that burst of pride in your artwork?  Do you remember the piece?  I would love to hear your stories.

A friend asked me to create a custom pair of earrings for her.  She had a pair that she loved, but they were made of cheap materials and were starting to look quite worn, and well, cheap.  I didn’t feel comfortable making a direct copy of these earrings, but we talked about how I could interpret the design in fine silver, change things up a bit, and hopefully create a new pair that she would love even more.

This design is WAY outside my comfort zone.  Seriously, left to my own creative whims, I would never have created something like this.  I like the design, it’s just not my style.  The good news is that I had to push myself to figure out creative engineering solutions and develop new skills to complete this project. I have a love/hate relationship with custom orders for exactly this reason.  I always learn something new, but custom orders frustrate me more than anything else I create.

I thought it would be useful to me (and hopefully to you) to recount the techniques I attempted, the problems I encountered and the lessons I learned along the way.

• My first attempt was to use 16 ga fine silver wire embedded in a pad of wet clay on the backs of the greenware butterflies.  I learned two valuable lessons.  First, a long stretch of 16 ga fine silver wire will not work harden to my standards of durability.  I considered using a heavier fine silver wire, but the wire was just too bulky for the scale of the other elements.  Second, if you hit a CZ with a hammer, it will shatter in place and become an instant cloudy mess.  Duh!
• My second attempt was to solder argentium wire to the fired butterflies.  Through my research, I learned that you can get argentium paste solder, which is useful for ensuring that the solder is as tarnish resistant as the wire.  I don’t have much soldering experience, and I apparently got the piece too hot, which once again cracked the cz.  I probably could have made this work with practice, but was unsure how many butterflies I might ruin in the process.  But, I now have argentium solder in my toolkit whenever I need it in the future.
• The third attempt was the winner.  I used argentium wire and embedded them into pads of wet clay on the backs of the greenware butterflies.  I had to reduce the firing temperature to accommodate the argentium, but I think it was a good trade off.
• I also got some practice with creating photopolymer plates.  I was taught to first create a transparency, then develop the  design in TNF (thermo negative film) and then use the TNF to create the photopolymer plate.  I think this process was developed because most transparencies don’t come off the printer with rick, dark blacks.  Mine tend to be a bit muddy.  The TNF creates a nice, crisp black and clear image with really solid blacks.  But, in my opinion, the TNF step is a time-consuming pain in the neck.  So, I experimented with my butterfly image to see if I could skip the TNF.  I printed 2 of the images at exactly the same size, printed them to transparency, and then stacked them up.  I had to fiddle with them to get the transparencies perfectly aligned, and then I taped them together.  This created a nice, solid image and it created a perfect photopolymer plate.  Admittedly, I’m probably not the first person to figure this out, but it was a real “aha” moment for me!

I really hope my friend likes the earrings.  I will be very happy to deliver them and cross this project off my list, and I know it will make me smile every time I see her wearing them.