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Today is the first time I've been in the studio for over a week. The office relocations are almost, very nearly done. I don't have to go into the office this weekend. What a relief! Combining two offices into one involves a lot of things you just never think about. Doubles of things, and things missing. It's a challenge, and never boring!
This morning the weather is cool and mild, so I opened up the studio and started playing around, nothing definite in mind, trying to warm up the hands and brain to a creative session.
These pieces are blanks, ready for color and patina. If you've ever wondered how things sometimes start, this will give you a little bit of an idea. It starts with shapes, ornamental designs or textures, in a chalky white or ebony slate black. A clear slate, so to speak.
After they are shaped and sanded and ready it's time to play with color. I don't always know how they will be colored when I start. I dab and wipe, sand and polish, until they get an aged and worn look that I like.
So you can see some dark beauties, and some white chalky or glimmery ones, before I start squeezing the color out of the tubes and take a brush in hand, to have some fun with color.
I love Art Nouveau designs, they are beautiful and organic. I have two huge framed posters by Mucha hanging in the house, they're wonderful. So when I saw that Dover Publishing is having their summer sale, and a book of art nouveau designs as a coloring book are included, I was so excited! I thought you might like to see some of them.
I have some of Dover's other art nouveau coloring books too. It's great to take out a set of colored pencils and just fill in the colors as you see them, reminds me of times when I was a small girl with crayons and a coloring book.
Dover publications are copyright-free and in the public domain, so they're great for collage or designs, when you need something unusual or historic. I signed up for their sampler, they occasionally send me a list of new books as they come out.
I can see this design printed onto a transparency sheet and put over a hand colored background. Or printed onto a large sheet of paper and colored in, with lettering or images put over the top.
They have a whole crafts section in their summer sale, with books on quilting or stained glass patterns and all sorts of good things, pop over and check them out. Maybe you can save some money on a great book you've been wanting, or find a gift for someone!
I've mentioned before that I'm very fortunate here in Saint Louis, there's a lot of glass options, resources and talented glassworkers here. There's also a nice place for classes and exhibits, it's the Craft Alliance on Delmar. They're having an exhibit that starts in a few days, the Faculty is showing their wares!
Last year I signed up for a lost wax casting class in silver there, they have a nice facility with all the equipment and great teachers. Unfortunately my torch terrors closed in on me and I had to abandon the casting class.
Now that I'm casting pewter, I can still do metal pieces, but without invoking my terror of the torch. It haunts me, and keeps me from doing any glass lampwork beadmaking or taking classes that involve using the torch.
This piece is called "Carmelized" and it's by Mary Smith. She's a lampwork glass bead designer, and I love the graphic quality of her work. But it's understandable, as she started as a graphic designer for twenty years! I don't know her personally, but I understand she lives here in Saint Louis, or nearby.
This glass necklace is stunning, don't you think? Just look at those colors and the chunky glass globes. I want to go over to the exhibit and see it in person. I have the postcard to remind me, it's hanging up on my bulletin board right in front of me.
She has now won three international jewelry design awards, the prestigious Saul Bell Design awards, for 2006 and 2007. First place for two years in a row, pretty amazing. And again in 2009, taking second place with her jewelry piece "Carmelized" - check out her blog for more details.
I'll have to make sure I go over to this exhibit, I'd love to see these pieces in person! It makes me regret even more my TORCH TERROR limitations ... such gorgeous lampwork glass.
Before I left on vacation, I ordered some wire from Rio Grande. They were having a sale, so I splurged.
Not sure how long this much 18 gauge wire will last, but I can't wait to get it unwrapped and start shaping and hammering it.
I will patina and darken some of it for rosary wrapping, to make necklaces and bracelets. And for cold connections like rivets and stitching things together.
Each wheel is one pound of copper wire! It was waiting for me when I got back from vacation. I have some projects in mind to use with it, and now I won't have to keep making trips to the hardware store to pick up copper wire.
I can solder with it, make wire wrapped beads and all sorts of lovely ideas to try out. If you're in need of copper wire, check out Rio Grande, they have sterling and fine silver wire also. They ship quickly and package nicely.
Here are some Tuesday Tips for working with copper wire:
1. If you want to patina the wire with liver of sulphur or other oxydizing items, be sure to use uncoated wire. If the liver of sulphur can't reach the copper, it won't darken. Some wire is coated with plastic to keep it from changing color. Choose raw copper wire if you want to use a patina.
2. Although it seems backward, the higher the number of the gauge of the wire the smaller the diameter of the wire. A 24 gauge wire is thinner in diameter than an 18 gauge or 14 gauge wire. If you want a really thin wire, for crocheting with beads or something of that sort, use a 30 gauge wire.
3. Sterling silver wire comes as hard, half-hard and soft. This indicates how easy it is to bend. For wire wrapping you will start with either half-hard or even soft. Copper wire doesn't come with these different initial choices.
4. As you work with wire, it begins to stiffen due to being work hardened. If you hammer it or wrap with it, gradually the wire begins to get harder to work with. To make it softer again, it needs to be heated to its annealing temperature. Copper wire in coils can be annealed using a torch or by putting it briefly in a kiln at the annealing temperature. Just be careful and don't melt it, or handle very hot copper wire and get burned!
5. Copper wire, together with copper foil, solder and a soldering iron, can be coated (or "tinned") with lead-free silver solder, to use the wire with your glass or other projects. You'll need a good water-based flux and the lead-free silver to use in projects that will be worn, to keep them safe and non-toxic for handling and wearing next to skin.
6. When learning a new wire wrapping technique, practice on copper wire before you do the newly learned technique on sterling silver or fine silver wire. You can measure your wire lengths and also master the technique using inexpensive copper before you start the same project with silver wire.
On Sunday, I took the day off. After crawling around on the floor in the office disconneting and re-connecting computers, moving printers, lifting boxes and pushing carts of things around to finish (mostly) the relocation and move at the office, I was bushed. Wore out. Cross-eyed and pooped!
So I gave myself the day off, to just sit and read. Eat a little frozen ice cream desert. Possibly nap a little. Sleep late, go shopping if I wanted a distraction.
Then a huge thunderstorm came through, making the day a little darker and wetter than I expected. Thank goodness we did the outdoor grilling on Saturday and avoided the downpour and wet deck on Sunday.
So I'm sharing some more photographs off my camera, to help me remember the images from my vacation!
These photos are more from my vacation to Louisiana. I know that when I get back into the studio, the images, colors and spirit I picked up on the trip will show up in the work.
Isn't that a cool sign on the gate found on Front Street in Nachitoches, Louisiana? Always good to know what happened in 1835, right?
Don't you love the designs in this outdoor chair on the square, with its stylized fleur de lys and wrought iron swirls and curls? And in the gate between the buildings, with the vines climbing on it?
I will be rested and ready to go into the studio and creatively inspired this week, since I slept twelve of the last twenty-four hours, I know I'll be ready to roll again! Sleep, glorious sleep...
And I bet these images will be there, lurking in the tips of my fingers and ready to pop out into the designs, what do you bet?
Discovering the flavor of the Louisiana country, both visually and at mealtimes, was a delight. The colors and designs of the plantations and the old city streets is a unique pleasure.
This stroll through history included a marvelous meal of shrimp and crawfish, with just the right amount of heat to tempt the flavors fully out of the seafood.
I haven't had shrimp that tasty in a very long time.
There's a lot of history and long years of human stories in these Louisiana towns.
We made a leisurely stroll all through a very old hardware store, the kind that has one of everything and something for everyone. The wide plank floors, the high ceilings with skylights, built in the days before electricity when the light had to come from the outdoors to light up the building.
It's always interesting to see how different cities decorate for the Independence Day holiday, it's a regional affair with a shared theme, but unique twists reflecting that city and culture.
This is a sign from Front Street in Nachitoches, Louisiana. There's a lot of interesting things, including art and cookery, that goes on in this town and especially right on this street.
We ate at Mama's Oyster House. Lots of good, finger-licking food for a hearty lunch. YUM!
Early on a summer morning, the air is cool and clear. The breezes off the lake and through the tall, shadowy trees are refreshing. It's so pleasant to sit in a chair outdoors by the water, watching the birds swoop and soar for their breakfast while I'm sipping a cup of coffee.
Over the Independence Day holiday I headed south, driving almost an entire day, to arrive in the deep south with its thunderstorms and humid heat.
A while back, when I lived for years by Galveston Bay in Texas, the house was beside the water, too. And the purple martins, in their numerous communal houses, soared and slid through the air, catching their meals in the sky.
The dock juts out into the lake, a grand viewing place for nighttime fireworks displays. The waves gently slapping the piers of the dock make a peaceful, soothing sound.
Some vacation photos, to keep the memories close to the surface. A slower tempo, a deeper rythmn of life.
How do you know when you're tired, weary? I've had a few clues this week that I'm tired.
I intended to drive to the library to return some books, and I ended up somehow at my office, parking the car in the garage instead. Oops! I guess I'll try again after work.
I'm reading books by the mother-son writing team of Charles Todd. The books are set in Britain after WWI, about a soldier returning home to go back to Scotland Yard. Their hero is Inspector Ian Rutledge. There's an interview with the fictional character, very surprising.
I just walked into the library one afternoon and plucked the books off the shelf at random, not knowing anything about the authors or the stories. I like them, the characters are well developed and it's a period of history I don't know much about. Interesting.
There's a lot going on for me right now. My office is consolidating two offices, lots of construction, moves and change in the entire building. Packing, planning, getting things arranged. It's happening this weekend. I don't mind change, but it does take a toll as it's happening.
The last several evenings I've been sitting out on the deck in the twilight, reading a book until the light fails me. The sound of the wind blowing the windchimes and the cicadas singing is very soothing. I've been enjoying it.
It reminds me of summer evenings on my grandmother's front screened-in porch, watching the lightning bugs light up in the grass of the yard.
The peach tree, with ripening fruit, in the back yard. The bountiful harvest of ripe, home-grown tomatoes, sweet and sun-warmed. The cotton sheets and towels hanging on the clothesline to dry, smelling like fresh summer air.
I have some plans to get back in the studio after the office moves are done this weekend. I'd like to make some more fine silver charms like these, while I'm still inspired by all the summertime fancies and memories.
Maybe if I have enough energy left, I'll get them made up and in the kiln to fire, before I go back to the office on Saturday to unpack and set things right again. Until the next set of changes.
And I still need to post vacation photos, of my journey in the southlands. Soon.
Before I left on vacation I was thinking about old-fashioned images in beads and the worn, aged look of them that I like. I made these in a marathon session of creativity just before the trip, and I'm sad to say I haven't been down in the studio yet since I returned.
I made these two focal beads with hammered loops on top, I wanted them to have a lot of detail but with an old-timey flair about their design.
The two lovebirds and the key are not terribly large beads, they'd be fun used for a decoration on a necklace, a keychain or as an ornament, but maybe oversized for a bracelet charm or earrings.
The key is a tiny miniature replica skeleton key, it looks almost hand carved. The background behind both emblems looks like a riveted metal design, radiating out from the center of the bead and wrapping around to the back side.
They complement each other, with the same web open weave design on the back, and they're about the same size and shape. The back looks like it has tiny rivets or metal brads on it. Sort of a mahogany color, reddish, rich and dark.
Maybe this weekend I'll get back to work in the studio, and get inspired.
