Blog
My New Studio Assistant, A Robot Vacuum
You may think this blog post is not metalsmith related, but you’d be wrong… in my world anyway.
Last June I was in some hot springs and got to talking with another traveler there. Somehow we ended up talking about the fact that she got and loves her Roomba (robotic vacuum… you’ve seen the videos of cats riding around on them).
A Few Cloisonné Pieces and A Mermaid
Okay, let's catch you up. What have I made since the last time I showed you my jewelry?
I wanted to try setting some enamel cabochon (cloisonné, to be specific) into traditional bezel settings. By "traditional", I mean flat wire, not gallery wire or scalloped or serrated. Those other wires are very easy to "push over" which is a good thing when it comes to pushing metal up against glass... but I like the look of a traditional bezel setting at times (most times) so wanted to see if I could do it.
My Open Front Cuff Ring Tutorial
As promised, this blog post is just to show you my latest tutorial (click here to see the listing with all the detailed info).
My Cloisonne Enameling Shelf
First, we must laugh at me. Well, at least I made it through 9 weeks (more or less). Then the snowball started. It was custom orders, then pandemic, and gallery closings, and tutorials, etc. I am OFF the schedule, completely, of feeling the need to fill a quota. As I said on Facebook, I've gone feral (in more ways than one).
On Saturday, I will catch you up on jewelry I've made recently. On Friday, I'll catch you up on my latest tutorial. And tomorrow, I'll show you the results of my comparison of finishing techniques for cloisonne.
Week #9 Musings and More
So you know that Beck song that goes: Soy un perdedor... I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me?
For years I thought it was, "I'm a lizard baby so why don't you kill me?"
I kinda still sing that in my head when the song comes on Pandora. Anyway, trying to stave of feeling like a loser... or a lizard. But it's hard when I've had two weeks in a row of NOT accomplishing my New Year's resolution of creating 10 items fo jewelry per week.
Week #8 Musings and More
Another short one as I am both pressed for time and have little jewelry to show.
I only have three pieces of jewelry to show for the week. I'm gonna let that slide because the other thing I accomplished this week was resurrecting my simple copper etching tutorial. Tutorials are an immense amount of time investment, so I'm cutting myself some slack on the jewelry this week.
Okay, other than that, here are the three pieces of jewelry that I made.
Week #7 Musings and More
This will be short and sweet. Nothing more than an accounting of my weekly progress.
Continuing to practice my ability to fuse fine silver, I made 8 small simple champleve disk pendants and a pair of earrings in the same manner. I was happy that out of 10 attempts at fusing, I managed to end up with 10 finished pieces (the earrings used two disks, of course).
So here is the array of that work.
Then I also did this piece... and that makes 10 pieces of jewelry for the week.
Week #6 Musings and More
Wow, what a week. I'm going to start off with my weekly jewelry update this time, then we'll follow up from last week.
So... I did NOT meet my quota of 10 pieces of jewelry last week and it's okay. I give myself a pardon when something out of the ordinary comes up... and it did.
Week #5 Musings and More
Last week I promised you I was gonna dish. So here's the deal. Not everyone is self-actualized... many artists I know are thin-skinned... Do we allow people's words to affect us, even though we know we shouldn't? There was an incident a few months back where I posted an image on social media of some pendants that were made using a technique that, while not requiring a lot of skill, can still produce some nice results and turns out a ton of people are interested in it.
