Something to look forward to...

The American Craft Council show at the River Center in St Paul… all kinds of great stuff to see & be inspired by… 

Sniff, sniff...

Just found out yesterday that there won't be any weekly Jewelry classes over the Summer, in fact there won't be any after mid-April… bummer… so now I have to decide if I want to purchase some equipment and set up a mini-studio here at home… hmmm… not sure if I'm ready for that yet… not sure if I've got a good spot for it… this needs some thought…


At the same time this opens up some time for me to focus on other things, like my extensive gardens, and like other art-type pursuits I've been wanting to get to (Mosaics, Clothing, etc)… hmm...

A Touch Of Spring...

This piece used all the methods I've learned to date, and ended up fun & funky… it makes me smile!!


I started by creating a press-plate of a Daisy-type flower shape, then I pressed a piece of sheet copper using the plate.


I used the piercing saw to cut out the Daisy from the plate, and soldered a fine silver bezel in place.


I did some torch fired enamel on the body of the Daisy, first with an opaque white, then with a translucent blue.


I set a small Amethyst cabochon into the center of the Daisy (very carefully as to not break the enamel).


I created a whimsical little sterling silver filigree piece to hang the Daisy.


Enjoy!!

Filigree Initial, backward setting...

Some history… many years ago in my first Computer Science class (I'm a retired Software Engineer now) I did my homework as instructed, and far exceeded my instructor's expectations… then he discovered I had approached the problem exactly backward of how he'd expected, resulting in a 5x improvement in computation time needed… for being so creative & doing so well he gave me the nickname "Bat-Ding" (yep, backwards for Ding-Bat)…


This piece is similar… I wanted to place a filigree initial of "A" over the top of a dark green stone, and I did it by creating the "A" with prongs that wrapped around the back of the stone…


My instructor tells me he's never had anyone try this before…


The results aren't perfect (what is?) but I like it, and if I ever do something like this again I've learned how not to do it :)

Bezel Setting…

This was my very first Bezel Setting, and my first finished piece with Filigree… I would probably have done something more logical/symmetrical, but my instructor pushed me to exercise my creativity… I'm glad he encouraged me, I enjoy this piece...

Piercing...

On this class day our instructor had us doing piercing… i.e. sawing through metal with a very fine saw blade… this simple piece was a lot harder to make than it might look… Once it was cut I couldn't resist bending it up just a smidge to make it more 3 dimensional.  I enjoy wearing this as a cute piece of casual jewelry...

Next Steps...

Second day of Jewelry Class, did a little filigree work in copper… this is just a mock-up, though I'm keeping this idea tucked away for a pendant in the future...

Beginnings..

First day of Jewelry Class… made 3 textured silver rings and soldered them together…


I enjoy wearing this simple little sterling silver ring...

Playing in the sandbox...

I feel like a kid out playing in the sandbox… no rules, just having fun…


This is a new blog, dedicated to my explorations into art…


I've always been an experimental person, but my creativity is only recently expressing itself artistically…


Come along & enjoy the ride...