Working Together

As many of you may know, depending on the day and the project, a business partnership with a husband can be wonderful or horrible. Sometimes both on the same day! It's the joy of camaraderie-- or a lot of deep sighs and muttering under your breath. Mars vs. Venus, big time!

My husband, Douglas, takes many of my Etsy photos and has collaborated with me on numerous jewelry projects -- doing metal work and etching--and as long as I tell him what I want but not how to do it, we get along just fine. He doesn't care about the big picture – and, in truth, usually I can't tell him what the final product is going to look like-- I don't know myself! That's just how I roll.

The August Art Bead Scene challenge-- an ongoing monthly call to interpret an artwork using art beads and stringing-- was Hokusai's “The Great Wave ”, a woodcut print I've always loved. If you've ever been in a small boat at sea during stormy weather, you can appreciate how the artist has captured the feeling of the icy, angry sea washing over the deck as you struggle to keep from going under. The picture really captures the majestic yet unpredictable power of Nature.
As I pondered what to make for the August piece, I remembered that Douglas had been bugging me to give him a project so I had him do a repousse base for the clay I planned to use as a pendant. We are still working in nickel, as the price of silver continues to escalate, but this metal sheet actually had just the right kind of dark shine that was needed in the design. After lots of hammering and bending of the edge around a wire to smooth it, Douglas' pendant was ready for its clay embellishment.

I mixed up the clay for the various blues to extrude for the pendant and to make the accompanying beads. I did several versions-- a swirly wave one, one I call the “Cloud Bead” and a simple marbling of all the blue tones together. I noticed that the background of the print is a subtle gradation of charcoal gray to pale gray so I did some metallic marbling for those beads and made them into organic square shapes. After arranging them all on my bench, I realized I needed something to offset all the blue/black/gray/silver tones. I just got my copy of Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio's book, Polymer Clay Color Inspirations, I've only dipped a toe into so far, but I had been thinking of bamboo beads so I mixed up some sandy orange clay and scored and antiqued some spacer beads to break up the round shapes and add some complementary color to the mix.

I finally posted the finished work on the Art Bead Scene Flickr site-- yes, I know it's September but I really want to keep completing these challenges once I start them! I'm compiling a nice body of work in the process and every month's assignment really stimulates me to push the envelope of what's possible-- a potent exercise both for the brain and for the creative Muse. The other enjoyable thing is seeing the diversity of what everybody else has done using the same artwork as a starting point. And sharing what we've all made with the same intention in mind is truly the best kind of working together.

Synchronicity

A guitarist friend of mine once told me that a musician's fantasy was a band composed of clones of themselves, with each one playing a different instrument. That way, you would have total artistic control over tempo, phrasing, improvisations, etc. I could see his point, in a way-- I was in a few bands and if you could find a bass player with rhythm, then the banjo player couldn't keep up with the fiddler, or the backup singer couldn't sing harmony. Synchronicity-- similar ideas happening independently of cause and effect-- seems to happen only when the right combination of personalities and talents come together.

This tale begins with an e-mail from Lorelei Eurto, a jewelry designer I met this spring. She traded one of her lovely necklaces for some of my beads (that she took and transformed into “The Convertible” a necklace which will debut in The Best of Stringing, due out on September 22). She and Heather Powers had cooked up a bracelet exchange--a la A Charming Exchange, a book by Kelly Snelling and Ruth Rae--that featured artists collaborating on various jewelry pieces. It was tremendously inspiring and looked like a heck of a lotta fun! Now they were inviting ME to play with them! along with Erin Prais-Hintz of Tresori Trovati and Erin Siegel of Every Heart Crafts .

Alternately thrilled and nervous-- would I sing out of key in this “band” of artistic sisters or lose the collaborative beat in the flow of my own ideas? Due to blips in my personal schedule, I chose the caboose position on the Bracelet Train, an exalted or a hellish position, depending on your point of view. Most of the design was already in place--would my editions to the final product add or detract? Well, I was up for the challenge-- I might be scared but nobody ever said I was a quitter!

We started by supplying something to get the process started-- a bead, a section of chain, a clasp, some fiber-- the items were as individual as the artists. Then, beginning with Heather, each person added to the bracelet as it was sent on to them. In order for you enjoy everyone's point of view of the process, visit the blogs of the participating artists (see links, above) for their comments on their additions. I'll discuss the final additions and present the completion photos here.

Lorelei's bracelet came with a wonderful color scheme—lemon-lime-- based on the saucy little bottlecap bead that she supplied to start. I decided to keep that color going using one of Cindy Gimbrone's slinky chartreuse glassblown links, connected with some antiqued bronze chain. To add a little tension to all the curvature, some bronze cubes joined the party. Finally, to partner the large circle link proclaiming “Motivation”, I built a hook from a copper-coated flat forged donut from Jatayu with a polyclay slice in my Apocalypto colorway. I've fallen in love with 50s-era copper jewelry and this was my homage to the work of Marjorie Baer (see my post "A Good Nose For A Deal", July 28 ).

Erin Prais-Hintz supplied an incredibly elegant start to her piece, a wonderfully embellished button clasp with wirewrapped goodies and resin. It was my intention to add my “signature” to every bracelet so I made up some mokume gane clay I call “Erin's Mokume” in shades of pear, deep lilac, cordovan and gold leaf and made a couple of roundelles with it as dangles. Lorelei had contributed a round brass locket so I put a tiny circlet of Erin's Mokume inside as a surprise! Two color-fumed Czech flower trumpets peek out beneath her clasp and I added one of my signature swirl beads in bronze. I think my additions are uniquely my style yet enhance the whole without overwhelming what had been added previously-- my goal throughout my process.

On to the other Miss Erin, Erin Siegel of Every Heart Studio, and the woman I knew the least about. But I did know she used beautiful, vibrant colors in her clay pieces and I was getting a strong color direction from the other additions. I have lately fallen in love with Picasso-finished seed beads. The fine chain and black waxed linen cord seemed to beg for some color to play with so I strung some stone amethyst color no. 8 Toho beads between the strands. Staying subtle but wanting to add some shine, next came a couple of labradorite chip stacks, dichro-dotted glass beads and a silver-washed pewter spike from Jatayu. I forged a figure-eight clasp end from silver and saluted all the bracelet's colors by adding several purple/tanzanite swirl half-Picasso finish roundelles and an “Erin Mokume” roundelle to play off Heather's. The result--lovely, intuitive colors in a soft, informal stringing style.


Heather's bracelet reminded me of an adornment to celebrate Midsummer's Eve in Lothlorien! Shimmery silver tones everywhere, fairies and dragonflies and swallows and splashes of blood-red color paired with jade green baubles. I would have to channel the Lady Galadriel for inspiration on this one! Many elements in interesting variety were already in place-- what could I possibly add to enhance this eclectic yet magical mix? I pondered for days and finally the Muse came to my rescue-- one night the moon was circled by a misty ring of ice crystals, and an idea was born! I looped two fine strands of polished steel in a bezel around Heather's bead and looped on Karen Hill Tribe molten silver drops, tiny carved silver rounds and sparkly no. 11 seed beads to halo her amazing disk. A few soft gray pearls with silver spirals rounded out the tones and I was content.

My own bracelet came back home to me as well, my starting element of a simple faux jade bead transformed into a strikingly colorful, woodsy and wonderful symphony of form and texture! Technically and artistically, it was complete. Did you notice that all the pieces had a word included in some clever way-- a hammered disk, a forged ring, a resin charm? These were the brainstorm of Erin of Tresori Trovati, who asked us all at the beginning of the process to supply one word to describe ourselves. Well, my word was “transformation”. I decided to transform my bracelet into a necklace! I used several strands of different antiqued brass chains from Vintaj and a bronze ring from Michael's to balance the ornate antique button that Lorelei had crafted into a clever clasp. After repositioning a few elements so they would hang properly in their new orientation, I had an adornment that was not only handsome but something to make me smile every time I wore it, remembering the happy and challenging collaboration we five shared. If you get an invitation to be part of something like this, jump at it! You won't be disappointed.

Thank you ladies all! I celebrate your creative spirits and generous gift of your time, thoughtfulness and skill!

Synergy*

It's always been a real chore here in rural Vermont to get together with other artists for the kind of idea-generating, think-outside-the-box, give-and-take of artistic energy that's the real excitement about taking a class. That's one of the reasons I am so looking forward to the Bronze and Copper Clay class that I'm taking at Celie Fago's studio next month. I have fond memories of Friday afternoons after class in my ceramics program at the School for American Craftsmen. The wood shop folks, at the studio next to us, would wander in and frequently the glassblowers and textile people would stop by as well. Lively conversation was usually about the work and design ideas were thick in the air. We potters often visited the studios of other craft disciplines and found inspiration in the creations of the other student craftsmen. It was heaven!

Now we have a powerful tool for forming working relationships with other artists-- the Web. We swap photos, ideas, sketches, and inspiration easily. We share our work, critique and encourage each other and benefit so much more than if we stayed isolated in our own little worlds. Lately, I was priviledged to collaborate in two different projects with other jewelry artists. The enrichment that this has created in my personal artistic life is immeasureable. I'm writing about them in separate posts--one today and the second later this week.

I first met Cindy Wimmer virtually through a tutorial that was published in Step by Step Wire last summer. I'd been thinking about a necklace all composed of various styles of silver links and loved the ones in her creation, called “Heart Strings”. I saved the article in my design notebook for future inspiration. Next thing I knew, she had e-mailed me that I was the winner in her blog giveaway, and was shipping me a lovely little mixed metal pendant called “Joy”. This gift came at a time when I was struggling with the bureaucracy of a mortgage re-finance and I can't tell you how many times looking down at that word—JOY-- around my neck saved my spiritual equilibrium!

We started up a correspondence and shared ideas and personal stories and when the opportunity came to submit a design to the Objects & Elements blog of Susan Lenart Kazmer for a challenge called “Summer Colors”, I suggested we collaborate on the piece. I loved the idea of dangling charms in mixed metals and we agreed that stamping them with the names of colors would add an extra interest. Cindy's clasps are amazingly well-crafted and inventive so she agreed to supply that element as well.

The rules of the challenge require using items from the O&E shop. The colorful recycled sari silk yarn caught my eye immediately and served as the inspiration for the colors in the polymer clay pendant disk. I have to say I've been very influenced by Robert Dancik's book “Amulets and Talismans” that I purchased last month so I did a faux ivory disk to back the main pendant and set the colors off. I added a handforged bail and wirewrapped the silk around it and the clasps and named it “Midnight in Mumbai”.

It was a dream working with Cindy-- she is a superb craftsman and we seemed to swap ideas almost by ESP! Her metalwork was even better than my expectations. We are planning future adventures together, maybe a magazine submission? Anything is possible when like artistic minds meet and the result is synergistic.

Oh, the voting is open until August 26, 10 pm EST this Wednesday. There are a wealth of beautiful interpretations to choose from and, if you feel so inclined, we'd love your support!

*Synergy--from the Greek syn-ergos, meaning working together, is the term used to describe a situation where different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome--meaning teamwork will produce an overall better result than if each person was working toward the same goal individually.

Sometimes A Great Notion

Living in the brave new world of instant communication as we do, new ideas are hitting us at the speed of light. Trends live out their lives in nanoseconds-- sometimes it seems as if we just hit our stride on a technique or style when something touted as better comes along and off we go, chasing the new and different.

As a designer, I feel a great responsibility for my jewelry to be stylish but sturdy and comfortable as well. As much as I love those gallery photos in various magazines showing rings for two fingers or crazy-shaped bangles that you just know wouldn't be practical to wear, at the end of the day, it's gotta feel good and fit the client.

I love the notion of a cuff bracelet. They are a bold statement in any style and have an ancient lineage in the history of jewelry. As a clay artist, they are large enough to show off my patterns and colorways to their best advantage. But the way I have been doing them is very labor-intensive and allows little leeway in sizing. So I'm retiring them in favor of a tile bracelet design I've been working on.

I finished up my last one yesterday and for the swan song of my grand experiment in cuff bracelets, it ain't bad-- at least I like it! I actually made the base mosaic in January, from remnants of my entry for the Van Gogh Art Bead Scene challenge for that month. I lined the inside with a different pattern-- that was my big innovation over my previous designs-- but got stuck on the edging. I hated doing those dang edgings! Plain black had a nice elegant look but showed every little eensy mark and metallic clays – with their tendency to show the mica shift as a blemish-- were hellish.

After spending an inordinate amount of time smoothing and smoothing again and fussing and pinching I managed to drop the precious thing on the cat-hair-and-dust-ridden floor of my studio!I think I probably blistered paint for a 5-mile radius with what I had to say about that! Now my exquisite little border was dinged and crud-embedded. But just as I was ready to drop the whole annoying project in the wastebasket, a little voice said “Texture the edge and then those little mica shifts wouldn't show up so much”. Thank you, Muse!

So here's my little gallery of cuffs-- you were a great notion while it lasted and some of you are still for sale in my Etsy shop. I could do matching earrings for any of these if you convo me. Coming soon to a blog near you--same sorts of colors but as tiles with wirework. Sometimes change is good.

Dark & Stormy Night Cuff

Alhambra Cuff

Byzantine Cuff

Cozumel Cuff -- Available in my Etsy shop

Aztec Cuff -- Available in my Etsy shop

Mayan Cuff -- available in my Etsy shop

Tramontane Cuff

A Good Nose for a Deal

One of my favorite book characters is an antiques dealer named Lovejoy, described as a “divvy”, someone who can tell instinctively when an antique is real. He gets a kind of vibe about a piece and has been known to sniff out a real Chippendale in a barn full of broken junk and fleamarket trash, fierce in his pursuit of those treasures lovingly crafted by masters of old.

I am an inveterate antiques hunter and committed fleamarket hound. My experience has been that many a treasure can be had by those willing to wade through boxes and bags on someone's front lawn or prowl through the back room of a dusty barn. I found my first Jenny Lind bed (also known as a spool bed) leaning against a stack of old doors in the farthest dim recesses of a Vermont shed. The owner couldn't believe that I would pay him $75 for it! But refinished and primly dressed in my finest handmade quilt, that little frame was a beauty-- so charmingly authentic. I may not be an actual divvy but I do have a nose for what might be hiding in the most unlikely place. I've sprinkled this narrative with some winners from past hunting.

One of the casualties of this so-called summer, caused by frequent deluges of biblical proportions, have been weekend outdoor fleamarkets and yard sales. Spurred by reports of fabulous finds by other blogger friends, when Sunday's weather predicted only the possibility of a thunderstorm, we hopped in the van and sped off to Waterbury, VT to a large outdoor venue. I've both bought and sold there and I usually discover at least one wonderful find special enough to make my visit worthwhile. But the place was practically deserted! Woe! The weather was finally hot and sunny and should have been teeming with buyers and fleas but except for one table of so-so vintage costume jewelry, it was mostly used cassette tapes, tools and limp produce. But something told me to take another look at the costume jewelry.

My persistence was rewarded with a funky little copper and bronze bracelet. It looked handcrafted and had a nice patina. The emblems were soldered but the rest was cold-connected. I got it for $7. The vendor told me it was a signed piece and sure enough, in a little oval on the back was “MB SF”.

Copper and Bronze Marjorie Baer bracelet

When I got home I found out that “MB” stood for Marjorie Baer, a San Francisco designer who has been making jewelry since the early 60s. Her work is very collectable and I found many examples of it on Ebay, going for lots more than I paid! So I'm very happy with my one find of the summer (so far).

I may not be a true divvy but I do have a good nose for a deal.

Be Kind to Your Muse

This past week I was madly scrambling to get two designs done for a magazine deadline. This was the first time I was going it alone to submit my work to a major beading venue and the necklaces had to be at the FedEx pickup box by Monday afternoon at 5:00 pm. Everything was going wrong—first, the US Postal Service “missent”(their official term for “lost”) my 2nd day air package, so I was lacking the supplies I needed to finish. The design that looked so good on paper failed dismally when it was translated into three dimensions. A technical problem was stymieing all attempts to make my seedbead strands hang properly. Design Hell! No time to step back and think about my poor pieces overnight—no time to tweak, re-do, enhance, embellish. "They're good enough" I had to say -- "just get 'em in the mail!"

Some lessons you can't learn too many times--“Be kind to your Muse” is one of these.

No matter what kind of urgent and immovable deadlines you may have, bludgeoning your poor Muse doesn't work! Ever! I thought I had learned that back in college, when I'd have a really great idea for a paper and then wait until the last bloody minute to write it. All-nighters never quite produce the result when you have to force your creativity to meet your deadline.

Polymer Clay Daily posted a quote by Tory Hughes a few days ago-- here's the part that applies: “Playing and creating are very close together.” To play is to dance with your Muse. Dragging your Muse onto the dance floor leads to effort and struggle and ultimately--failure. I don't mean to say that you should give up if an idea isn't working--keep on trying but give yourself time and be open to a different way of doing it. When I was a potter, the phrase going around the studio at school was “Let the clay tell you what it wants to be”. Let your Muse tell you if she wants to tango or to waltz. Or to sit this one out. Go ahead and push your materials in new directions and to new ideas but also let them show you the way.

Along the same lines, making do with less or other than what you intended to use can turn design dross into gold. When I designed mostly in fiber, I used this forced creativity principal all the time. I would find expensive or vintage materials, piece them into garments with less costly fabrics and come out with a much more creative and interesting result. But be warned--one very important factor in the successful application of this principal of being more creative with less is TIME. You can't rush this, you can't be doing your project last-minute or the stress factor is off the charts! Be kind to yourself AND to your Muse. You just can't rush good design! Let me say this again-- good design takes time! I have learned this the hard way and just lately in the above-mentioned projects.

In the end, the deadline passed and I decided that the pieces weren't up to my standard. Instead, I played with them some more and the Muse rewarded me with gold. I've submitted them elsewhere and I'll keep you posted on their progress. No matter what happens, I'm proud of my work now that my Muse and I are in step once again.

Here are a few pieces that happened when I just let myself play. Thanks to Lorri Scott for her fabulous fibers!

Lascaux Necklace

Kalahari Necklace

Lazy Days of Summer

For folks in parts of the country where the weather is not characterized as “ten months of winter and two months of bad sledding” as it is in the fair state of Vermont, summer can possibly be described as “lazy”.

But warmer temps here mean a frenzy of activity, not only for farmers, housepainters and construction crews, but for the plants of the northeastern habitat. A riot of green-- both of forest and fields-- brought on by spring rains and relative warmth means that every little fern, weed, tree and wildflower is doing its best to fertilize, seed, blossom and fruit in the short, sunny days of July and August.

So as much as my summer designing palette would like to draw from the soft, ocean hues of aquamarine, and the beachy whites and sandy colors of the seashore, this year I'm drawn to hot, fecund colors that shout life and hectic activity!

Papeete necklace - available in my Etsy shop

So after trekking to my nearest Borders store last week to purchase Ronna Sarvas Weltman's new book “Ancient Modern” I sat down with my coffee looking for a few good ideas, my criteria for feeling justified in spending money on a new craft book. My dollars were amply justified-- it's got ideas and techniques to spare! There are many I could wax rhapsodic about but one of the very simplest got my attention this week-- marbeling with hot colors.

I love intense colors but don't normally use “hot” colors-- fuchsia, orange, yellow, red-- without blending to tone them down. Also, I find it difficult to work in neutrals or strict black and white themes, finding the extreme contrasts too modern for my style to stand alone. But as guests to the party of color, I love nice, contrasty graphic elements. I was so inspired by Ms. Weltman's color aesthetic that I decided to throw caution to the winds! Looking more closely at the method, the marbeling tempers the intensity of the colors by laying them closely together and partially blends them, so you still have the intensity but also new combinations. Also, the added white clay makes the colors appear brighter. Here's what I did with her palette. She points out that using a hot color next to more subdued ones can make an entire compostion sing.

Sands of Mars necklace

Stay tuned for more Ancient Modern influences in future posts. Thank you, Ronna, for a great book!