On remembering to take photos….

I like photography. A lot. I like taking photos. I buy photos at art shows and such. I frame and hang both kinds of photos all over the place.

But, much of the time, I get caught up in what I’m doing, whatever it is I’m doing, and my brain just does not go to, “Hey, stop and take a photo of this.” Even if I’m surrounded by people taking then, and anymore even if I’m at some event where my view is blocked by people holding up their phones to capture it rather than just being in the moment and enjoying the view right then, I still don’t think to do the same thing myself.

I go to some events specifically to take photos. Then, I may remember to take a few some of the time. I take thousands each summer at the various garden-related projects I work on, for example, because my role there is often to be the event’s photographer. Until or unless I pitch in to help with some task, and then it takes me a while to remember to clean my hands up a bit and re-grab the camera… On this blog you may have noted, three posts back, that I got so involved in making my woven piece that I forgot to take photos of the process I was trying to record….

Thus, I have no photos of all the wonderful shows and events I mentioned in my last post. I went to, and enjoyed, all of them. And I really should pause my story here to thank all the wonderful people who purchased some of my creations, as well as the delightful ones who just stopped by to say hello.

Back to tonight, when my brain did something ever so slightly different: When I saw Samantha Bower step up to take a photo of Adam from Wigle Whiskey at Koolkat Designs, I managed to take a few too! It’s such a great little place, jam-packed full of all sorts of goodies for this season and throughout the year.

With Koolkat reinventing itself as the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh next spring (an event I’m really looking forward to, as both an artist and a teacher!), this may be the last time I’ll think to take a photo there, so I figured I should share here one from tonight.

‘Twas a delightful evening of shopping and spirits along with the rest of the Koolkat crew & clientele.

Another “It’s Always Something, Isn’t It?” Situation

Another gap in blogging, it seems: I guess I could just post text without photos, but somehow my writing-mind goes blank without images. And I’m really short on images at the moment: the little camera I use here for jewelry photos died right after my last post. Given the symptoms, I don’t think it’s a mechanical failure of the basic camera mechanism; this is a little digital camera and it looks to me like something has gone haywire in the digital processing part of the device (some “chip” issue). Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t had time to even figure out where to take / send it to see if it’s something fixable (in an affordable way), or if I’ve been pushed into replacement-land (i.e., expense). Sigh.

I borrowed a camera for a few hours today for something else I had to do (i.e., photos required, deadline firm) and, while I had it, grabbed a few quick shots of new jewelry items. The ones I include with this post show a pendant in Copper and Bronze. One side (bigger image here, right) shows some “cane slices” from fairly near the end of a cane (where the disks of each metal are fairly large). The top one, in fact, had a huge copper center. I could have drilled into that and added some bronze but, I will admit, I took the “easy way out” for a change: I saw that space and said to myself, “If I put this one at the top, I can drill a hanging-hole right through that copper area!” I’m happy with that solution.

I’m OK with the fact that it developed some gaps between the square elements as it was fired. I did spend some time debating with myself whether to fill the gap between the copper and bronze rings in the fourth element down from the top. That also appeared only after the whole piece had been fired, so patching would have required a second firing (and, thus, possibly more gaps elsewhere that might bother me more). The “ridged” area between the third and fourth elements only showed up this clearly after I’d polished the whole thing and applied the patina solution to bring out the contrast between the two metals. I could probably have gotten that out with a file but, afterwards, the whole piece would have needed more polishing and another round of patination. This is a small, relatively simple piece, meant to be a somewhat inexpensive option for someone who likes my work in this technique but doesn’t want (or can’t afford) the larger, more complex ones. Doing either of those “repairs” would have bumped the price up (or forced me to take a loss on that time and energy). I love the look of this technique when it all works perfectly, but I’m torn about how many pieces to make using it because of the time it takes (both just to do it at all, and then to do all the extra “fixing” it so often involves) compared to the prices at which I’ve seen these pieces sell (or, when marked higher, not sell…). Clearly, this is a situation where artistry bumps right up against reality! Does that happen to other people? How do you deal with it?

Of course, this being me, the piece is reversible! The other side (smaller image here, left) has copper in a sort of woven design (that reminds me of some of my mother’s wicker baskets) embellished with three bronze bars. The techniques used on that side are just so much more reliable. I am constantly asking myself, “Should I just stick with this sort of work, overall?” Questions like that come into extra-sharp focus as one addresses the issue of replacing equipment like a jewelry-grade camera. (Trust me: for this, I need a camera with a particularly good “macro” mode, one that not only shoots good close-ups but also captures those colors especially well.)

But I’ll worry about camera later. I have a whole collection of bronze and/or copper pieces made and fired, but somehow not quite finished. Some have not yet received any polishing, let alone any other finishing. Some are polished but need a patina to either accent their textures or contrast the different metals used. Some have made it through all of that, but need to be hung on something. I’m hoping I can borrow camera again to photograph those when they’re done, and then I’ll enter them into inventory and make their sales-tags. I’ve got a week to get all that done (along with my next assignment for the workshop I’m doing with Hadar); then I’ll clear off my worktable, wash all the tools and such, set the space up in its workshop configuration, and turn back to silver for a few weeks.

The next workshop I’ll be teaching will be another silver one: we’ll be making reversible pendants, textured on both sides, and curved into interesting shapes (domed disks, wavy oblongs, free-form curves, etc.). It’s a great project for beginners (first timer through advanced-beginners…), and is scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday, November 9. There are still a couple seats open … so do let me know if you’d like to join us!