Feeling Gothic

It's spring- the sun is shining and the daffodils are in bloom, but for some reason, I'm loving the gothic right now. Here's a sketch of my new gargoyle necklace. He'll be holding a black drop pearl, and I have some gorgeous blood red ruby beads to string him up with. Very fancy, indeed! Well, I better go start cutting out some silver...

Back from Baltimore...

Wow. As much as I love making enamel jewelry, thinking about enamel jewelry, and talking about enamel jewelry, six days in a row is a lot of talking and thinking (and standing!). But it was such fun! Met loads of interesting people and saw some amazing crafts. Here's a pic of my booth:

I also had a great conversation with fellow enamelist Ricky Frank. He's such a nice guy... He shared a lot of great information for grinding, polishing, and finishing my work. So I'm very excited to get back to my grinding station and start honing my polishing skills.


Also present at the show was limoge artist Karin Pohl. She had the most exquisite miniature portrait of Katherine Parr:


So, all in all, a great show. The surprise hit seller were these little guys. I made little angel/devil cuff-links (and earrings) and they completely sold out. In fact, I took a couple of orders for them and need to make more tomorrow. (so if you want a pair, let me know!)

Busy as a bee!

I'm going to be doing the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore February 22-28. It'll be two days of wholesale and then four days of retail. I'm getting excited! There's so much to get done that I've been working non-stop.

I'm doing a whole series of Gothic pieces in shades of grays and black, and I've been enjoying them immensely. Here are two pendants:



And another charming flower necklace. This one will be in shades of purple:

And more butterflies too!

Pins!

Yes, I'm branching out into the glorious world of pins. It's actually very liberating to be freed from shapes that need to fit themselves into necklaces, bracelets, or earrings. I've made a whole garden of flora and fauna.


I've made a charming lotus flower pin in shades of pink and green. Below, you can see the setting I created echoes the motif:


Here's my bench right now. As you can see, I'm very busy getting ready for my two upcoming shows- The Piedmont Craftsmen show in Winston-Salem (November 20-22) and the Carolina Designer Craftsmen show in Raleigh (November 27-29)

My New Grinder!

I know, it doesn't look like much. I assure you that the grinder you see above is truly a work of art. No more hours and hours of grinding by hand, my fingers bloody and my joints in agony.

My friend Lillian (see her gorgeous work at www.enamellist.com) helped me get it all set up. There's two parts- the arbor in front that you can attach different grinding/sanding/polishing wheels to) and the motor in back. It was a tricky business- the motor is attached to the arbor with a pulley, and we've mounted it on a board with hinges so I can easily change the belt. (thereby changing the speed) The motor itself was a pain because the silly cord came unconnected! We had to wire it up ourselves.

It has a little spigot that drips water on each wheel. Check out my ingenious water delivery method. (okay, so it's a plastic jug and some tubing, but still... the wonders of gravity doing all the work!) All the water (mostly) drains into a bucket on the floor. I've put it in the basement because it is a little messy. And, although my basement looks sort of scary, it's really not. I love our basement!


I cant really hold onto the piece while grinding, so I've attached the piece to be ground onto a paint stick using dopping wax. The dopping wax smells really good when it's melting, so there's another bonus.


Here's me actually using the grinder. Remember that dragon from the last post? I spent two entire days grinding and polishing it by hand. There's definitely a learning curve to using the grinder- you have to be very careful not to use too much pressure and to keep the angle correct, or it quickly turns disastrous. I did pretty good- I ground about 20 pieces and only destroyed one. (sadly, it was a charming bumblebee pendant, but that's the price you pay for learning new things.)

"Flight of Fancy"

Here's a picture, hot off the presses, of my newest creation, "Flight of Fancy". It's actually very comfortable to wear, and very striking. I fabricated the chain out of 18 gauge silver wire.

Color in Transition

One of the things that I love about enamel is the way the colors change as they cool. When I first pull a piece out of the kiln, the colors are backwards- the blues are green and the greens are glowing red. As the piece cools over the course of a couple minutes, the colors fade into their true shades. It's all very magical.



I snapped the left side just as I got it out of the kiln. I was a little worried that I'd damage the camera putting it that close to the enamel, because the heat was so intense, but things all seemed to work out. The right side is the cooled enamel with the true colors.