Way More Photos of My Work
(on Picasa, which Google took over, and broke the links; I’m still trying to figure out how to link to the album collection there…)
Yes, I am sticking to the (mostly / mostly) Second Sunday schedule for February.’s Open House. That is Super Bowl Sunday, but I’ll have my studio open for you to come shopping because it’s also the last weekend before Valentine’s Day!
This is just a shopping-day! Come on over to get a little treat for someone special, or for yourself! I doubt I’ll have a chance to clear up enough space for students to work along with me, but students are still welcome to stop by with questions or requests.
Unlike most Open Houses, I won’t stick around afterwards. I’ll probably even start packing up a little before 5. If you arrive near the end, you may be looking through my storage bins, rather than seeing pieces out on display, but I do expect to stay until 5.
Please stop by on your way to (or during a break as you prepare for) your Super Bowl party (or whatever else you have planned for that Sunday)!
(Photos: Love’s Garden in Pinks necklace. Handmade focal bead (fine silver (.999) lentil bead with small pink CZs) strung with cloisonné, crystal and glass beads. Upper photo here shows the Love side of the lentil bead, with a heart-shaped texture. Lower photo shows the Garden side with a leaf-pattern texture and the necklace’s hand-made heart-shaped toggle clasp.)
I was eligible to submit up to two pieces to the Pittsburgh Society of Artists’ Annual show, so why not offer two and maybe get at least one in! So I was truly delighted when I got word that both of them had made it in. Here’s a little (perspective-distorted) panorama of the show at the 3rd Street Gallery in Carnegie, PA. You can locate (not actually see…) my two pieces, displayed in long white shadow boxes on the orange part of the wall to the left here, and then I’ll tell you a little about my entries.
I started thinking about making the pendant I’ve titled Enjoying Nature during a few local political discussions about proposed zoning variances to allow for a huge condominium building on a parcel that, while not officially in the large city park that surrounds it on three sides, is still zoned as a park area. Those who treasure the greenery and wildlife (well, except perhaps for the massive overabundance of just a few, select species…) have been trying to emphasize the value of that oasis amidst the urban neighborhoods that surround it. And I simply wanted to try to illustrate it.
Click this image to see it rotate in my hand!
I started the piece I’ve titled Circling Into Control way back last year, in 2022. But I kept debating with myself about how actually to finish up the mechanism that would allow it to hang so that the wearer would be able to spin it around if s/he wished to play with it that way. I had one main idea, and a handful of spin-offs from that. But, finally, I decided there was enough going on with the piece so I should keep the spin-mechanism under control (as shown here): I let the piece have the little black onyx trillion I’d set into it from he start, plus all its textures and loops and other embellishments. Then I just kept the top lightly decorated but otherwise as simple as possible.
All of that making and finishing happened while I was in the depths of this summer’s covid-exhaustion. I had to work in much shorter spurts than usual. I held myself together pretty well while doing that — because I like doing that kind of work — but I did simply run out of functional time for a real photography session. I did manage to catch these quick shots in the last few minutes before I had to head out the door to deliver them, set into their display boxes, for the show.
Does either of them inspire you in any way? If so, please let me know!
Now that Mitsubishi has discontinued their (wonderful!) “PMC” line of metal clays, I’ve been experimenting with some of the other brands that are available. I want to do a few more tests before I start writing about them but for now I’ll add this one quick note:
I can work just fine with any of them, myself. I think I may have identified a couple favorites for my own use. But I have yet to find one that doesn’t have some major setback or other for use in classes. (This is not a total surprise: my favorite type within the PMC-brand to use for classes was not my first choice for the one I would work with in my studio!).
But I still have a few more to test out before I make any final decision (and since I am now into peak garden-prep season, my art-time is a bit constrained…).
Still, the point of this post: I have some great new pieces out of my recent explorations with these new clays, and I’ve got them ready to send off to new homes at either of the two events I have in May (which can also be found on my Facebook Page or website for Convergent Series) are:
First Sunday, May 7, 1 to 5 pm (Moved a week earlier than in recent months to allow for shopping before Mothers Day.)
It’s the last weekend in April, so it’s Art All Night weekend again here in Pittsburgh! Participants this year had the choice of entering for the in-person show only (you have to be able to drop off and pick up at very specific times), or online only (then you needed to submit a photo with your entry), or both. I am doing both!
And here’s the story behind my entry this year: While we didn’t have severe winter weather the past few months, the wild temperature swings (high temps could be 40°F higher or lower from one day to the next!) seem to have confused so many living things. I’ve no idea how my garden will do, nor whether we’ll continue to set high temperature records all summer too (30° above normal on a winter day is one thing; 30° over on an already-hot day is quite something else!).
So, amidst the confusion, what better style of piece to enter in Art All Night this year but another creation from my Urban Flowers series (that I first introduced back in 2016)! My entry for this year is the flower pendant I’ve titled Kiss Me Twice.
I have never promised my Urban Flowers to be botanically accurate… I say they come from just “a city-girl’s dreams”! So this pendant is not in any way an accurate representation of the Nigella damascena flower that is sometimes called Kiss Me Twice Before I Rise (or Love in a Mist or Devil in a Bush or any of a dozen or more other common names), but the connection here is the similarity I see in the position of the petals, and the way the blue glass in the center here, while not at all like the feathery bits in the real plant, does remind me of the blue in the real flower’s petals. Which seems like good enough reasons to use as a title something so interesting as Kiss Me Twice.
For those of you familiar with my interest in edible flowers, I will note that, while the seeds of Nigella damascena are, apparently, edible (perhaps reminiscent of nutmeg? I’ve never tried them), they are also reported to be far less flavorful than Nigella sativa, aka black cumin, black caraway, kalonji, charnushka, … Those little, black N. sativa seeds are among my favorites to add to my home-made breads, both loaf-style ones and flatbreads. I should get off my computer and get baking!
But not from 4 pm this Saturday, April 29, through 2 pm on Sunday, April 30! My plan is to do a volunteer shift on Saturday (then go to at least one of several other conflicting art shows and a music concert), try to sleep a little, and then get back over to actually see the show on Sunday morning. If you can’t get there in person during that timeframe, you can still see some of the entries at Art All Night’s virtual show. (I’m assuming it’ll show up there, on the event’s website. If not, you might try the Facebook page of Art All Night: Pittsburgh. There are lots of little, informative posts there too.)
I’ve been reorganizing a lot of “behind the scenes” parts of my studio, which doesn’t seem to lend itself to interesting blog posts. But I’ve got work in three shows, so I ought to at least let folks know that much. I’ve included the address for each location, plus a link to a web page where you can verify the current information on hours.
Plumes and Celtic / Waves -plus- Dahlia / Fern and Paisleys North Hills Art Center Traveling Gallery Show Northland Public Library, 300 Cumberland Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15237 January 6 – April 7, 2023
If you go up the stairs and turn right towards the non-fiction section, then go to the far wall and you’ll find my four pieces in two shadow boxes at the far-right of the show that wraps around two whole walls. Each piece is a reversible fine silver pendant (with a cubic zirconia on one side), hung on an 18″ sterling silver chain.
The first box, at the very start of the show, includes Plumes and Celtic / Waves. The second box is a mere two spaces over to the left, and holds Dahlia / Fern and Paisleys. An interesting fact about the second display box (shown here) is that the North Hills Art Center folks hung it just above an entry by LarryBrandstetter.
Larry and I are scheduled to have “solo” shows in adjoining locations in October, up in the Cranberry Township Municipal Center. He’ll have works in the Back Hall Gallery at the same time as I’ll have some in the central Glass Case. I am delighted to be paired with him: I think his doodles and my textures complement each other well. Stay tuned for news of at least one public event (and maybe even more) that we’ll hold together during that month!
Flower Play and Fern Botany Cranberry Artists Network Simply Spring Show Cranberry Township Municipal Center. 2525 Rochester Road , Cranberry Township, PA 16066 March 3 – April 20, 2023 Opening Reception: 6 to 8 pm on Wednesday, March 8
My pieces are among those in the big glass case in the lobby of the building, across from the library. The building hours don’t seem to be listed anywhere, but they match those of the library.
Fern Botany (both sides)
Each of my entries is a reversible, fine silver pendant (hung on an 18″ sterling silver chain). Because, in a display case, you can see only one of each piece’s two sides, I’ve displayed a QR code on the stands to an image showing both sides of each piece. (I’m not including that here because, while it now contains information specific to this show, I reuse it in different ways for different shows. Instead, I’ve just duplicated one of the images here!)
River Rocks, At a Bend in the River, and Ribbon Candy Community Art Show Mars Area Public Library 107 Grand Avenue, Mars, PA 16046 (approximate dates) March 15 – September 15, 2023
(I’ll try to update this with more specifics on dates and location once I get back up to see the whole show myself. But this library is much smaller than Northland, so I’m sure you can find them easily enough!)
River Rocks
River Rocks (shown) is a pendant with three fine silver hollow “rock” shapes hung between small snowflake obsidian beads (using Argentium silver wire, and then suspended from an 18″ sterling silver chain). There is no front or back to this piece: instead, all of the elements can rotate around the wire that connects them to the chain.
At a Bend in the River is a yellow bronze pendant with a green cubic zirconia on one side, and a simple texture on the other (hung on an 18″ brass chain).
Ribbon Candy is a reversible, iron bronze pendant with a brilliant bronze embellishment on one of its sides (hung on an 18″ steel chain).
Update, April 10: As two of these shows close, I finally found time to replace here a couple of my first-pass images (used just to get the post up at all) with at least slightly better ones. While doing that, I also added a “tag” to the post itself to include Larry Brandstetter, because the in-line one I’d tried the first time didn’t seem to be working…
I’m hoping to get up to Mars so I can confirm more about that show shortly, but no promises as to when…
I am honored that two of my pieces are included in the Cranberry Artists Network’s annual Holiday Show, Give a Gift of Art, that runs from November 15 through December 15, 2022!
Flower Party Fine Silver Pendant (with cubic zirconia) on Sterling Silver Chain
Stream Shield Fine Silver Pendant (with lab-created pink sapphire) on Sterling Silver Chain
As with most CAN shows, it’s in the Cranberry Township Municipal Building at 2525 Rochester Road in Cranberry Township, PA.
There will be an Opening Reception on Tuesday, November 15, from 7-9 pm. (Correction! The time apparently is 6-8 pm, so I’m not sure I’ll make it to that. The application had said it’d be 7-9, and I’d thought I could get there by 7:30 or so and it’d still be ok. But since it’s 6-8, folks will be leaving by 7:30. With an almost two hour round trip for me, that drive gets hard to justify. I’m sorry I’ll miss the people! I hope you can still go!)
Update: Thanks to CAN member Jim Tobin, I found this photo of the glass case with the 3D entries, including my two, on black stands, third and second from the bottom right, respectively. There are many, many more 2D entries down the hallway: you’ll just have to go to see those yourself.
I’m delighted that my reversible, silver “lentil bead” necklace, Acanthus, was selected to be included in the Pittsburgh Society of Artists Guild‘s 56th Annual Exhibit!
What was most stunning to me was that, of the 71 artists who submitted pieces, I was one of only 22 whose work was selected, and this was the only 3D piece chosen! What an honor!
Oh, and if you know me, you probably expect that piece to be reversible … and it is! The other side is a similar sort of leaf design, with a somewhat subtle difference: more of an “outie” than this “innie” pattern in the center. I had originally made them separately, intending to do two different things with their respective “other” sides. But once these components were ready, they just sort of told me that they belonged together instead!
In addition to the two receptions for this show that are noted in the “postcard” photo, above, there are two additional events related to this show that seem worth mentioning:
Saturday evening, October 28, an Ekphrastic Reading. Free and open to the public. (I’ve been holding off making this post, awaiting time and other details (poet, artistic inspiration) for this event, but so far only the evening date has been made available. Do let me know if you want to attend that evening but don’t see details anywhere else and I forget to update this.)
Friday, November 4, from 4 to 8 pm. This is the shift during which I will be staffing the gallery! (It’d sure be great to have some folks I know stop by to see the show and visit with me a bit during that.)
And, since I’m writing, I just realized that while I mentioned this earlier event on Convergent Series’ Facebook page, I didn’t note here that I’d had two pieces accepted in July for the Cranberry Artists Network‘s annual Martinis with Monet show, that one of them (shown on the left in this picture) had won an award, and that both of them were purchased by one of my collectors!
What with all that from Martinis with Monet, my solo “glass-case” show for the month of September, and now getting into the PSA annual show, it really feels great to have hit the ground running (and not falling!) again, at last. (Though I still have to remember about posting such things!)
Here’s hoping that we all have a great autumn. And, as noted in my last post, I have two classes scheduled and filling (as I write this, a few seats do still remain) at Artsmiths soon too: might I see you there?
It’s the last weekend in April, so once again it’s time for Art All Night!
Here’s what I posted on Facebook about it:
I just found the specific page for my entry. Both that, and the show itself, should be visible for a mere 22 hours. Then, poof!, the only way to see my entry again will be through one of my posts. (Of course, the piece is for sale … should you wish to look at it any time you want!)
I am really hoping that the show will be able to return to an in-person event next year!
ADDENDUM: Congratulations to Debra for your winning bid on this piece! I hope you’ll enjoy it for many years to come!
So here we are at the first Wednesday in April of 2021 and this evening I’m not going to be able to meet with other members of the Penn State Master Gardener of Allegheny County at the first regular Wednesday work-night at the lovely Edible Teaching Garden, and not because I’ll be at the opening of always-interesting Quantum Theatre‘s latest story-walk, 10 for 21 (10: based on the Decameron; 21: another year, still in pandemic…)
At the same time, instead, I’ll be at the (virtual) opening of the Cranberry Artists Network‘s spring show, Reawaken, Rejoin, Rejoice, where two of my pieces have been accepted for display!
Yes, while the reception will be virtual, this will be my first, actual, in-person show in a year!
Exit from the Vault is a fine silver (.999) pendant (hung on a sterling silver chain, not shown here) from my Doorways series. What can I say: I just hope it’s an appropriate metaphor for much of the world right now…
Leaves and Tendrils–As Spring Returns! is a fine silver (.999) reversible hollow bead (the other side has a similar but less-deep texture) suspended from Argentium silver (.930) round and square wire “tendrils,” with all of that hung on a sterling silver (.925) chain. This one just seemed highly appropriate for the season.
The reception tonight is from 6-8 pm. You can view the show at the Cranberry Township Municipal Center, 2525 Rochester Road, Cranberry Township, PA 16066. It runs during regular Municipal Center hours through May 6, 2021.
~~~~~~~~ If you would like to purchase any of my pieces but are unable to get to the show itself, please just let me know and I’ll be happy to review your (all very easy!) options.
Like so many of us over the last year, I have missed getting together in person with a lot of my usual people although, except for the worst of winter, I have been able to share outside activities with many of the local ones. In another way though, I have missed even more all the different, random people I would interact with at the Wilkins School Community Center (WSCC) where I have my studio.
Still, I am very happy to have two pieces in WSCC’s current exhibit, Artists Choice IV, even though is yet another virtual show. It looks as though I have the only 3D entries in this one! There are two pendants and, once again, I was able to make both of them reversible!
I Will Always Hold a Piece of Your Heart in Mine has two golden-bronze (“brilliant bronze”) hearts, one nestled inside the other, and hangs on a gold-plated chain. It is fully reversible: you can wear it with the pairing facing forward, or you can turn the chain around to keep the little one snuggled in, closer to your own heart. To me, the difference in the size of the hearts indicates a visual illusion, a sort of perspective, where the smaller one represents the heart of someone at a distance, for the moment at least, but the two are still firmly anchored together.
What do you see in it?
Spring is Peeking Out at Last! is another reversible bead, this time a hollow one made from fine silver (.999). One side is textured with an array of cute little spring blossoms. The other side shows a different flower eagerly peeking out through an opening in the ground. Like so many of us, all of the flowers are ready to get out into the sunshine and to get on with their lives!
What are your plans for this spring, and beyond?!
~~~~~~~~ Both pieces are available for purchase, so do let us know if you’re interested! There’s info on the show page, or you can simply get in touch with me directly and I can process it for you.
I was delighted to have two of my pieces accepted for the Cranberry Artists Network‘s Spring Show, Seeing in a New Light, that will be on display in the Cranberry Township Municipal Center at 2525 Rochester Road in Cranberry Twp, PA 16066 from March 4 through April 15, 2019.
The photo with this post shows CAN’s postcard announcing this show, annotated with little images of my two pieces:
Left: Seeing the Spirit in a Cube.Could a flat-sided cube hold the spirit of a few curves deep in its heart?!! This 18 x 22 x 23 mm sterling silver pendant with “puffy cube” black onyx bead (displayed here and in the show on an 18″ sterling silver snake chain) was made in August, 2016.
I’ll have to dig back through unfinished drafts: I really thought I’d at least started a post about it at the time, but can’t find it right now. I faced a number of serious challenges with that piece! If I can’t find a draft post to finish and publish here, I’ll try to recreate that story from my archived “troubleshooting notes” so I can tell that story here … eventually.
I did exhibit this Cube in one other show, the 2017 Annual Exhibition of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists. It did not find a new home at that show, and has been tucked away for safe-keeping ever since. And that’s not right: this cube with it’s puffy little center bead deserves to be out and about, decorating a new owner!
Right: What Is Behind Door #3 ?!!The answer to the question, shown in this little snapshot, is that you can find a moonstone back there, and it will be the owner’s choice whether to keep or to reveal that little secret when it’s worn! This 26 x 27 x 8 mm fine silver pendant with a 6 mm white moonstone cabochon (displayed in the show on an 18″ sterling silver rolo chain) was made in February, 2019, specifically to submit to be considered for this show.
This is yet another piece in my Doorways series, which I‘ve mentioned before. I made this one out of PMC Flex which in some ways is not the ideal silver metal clay formula to use for this specific layered construction. But I wanted to make a couple more of these, I had some “Flex” I’d opened for another project, and the amount left seemed like just about the right amount, so I went with it! And with a lot of wet-finishing, supplemented by some heat-fixing so the Flex would harden up enough to do just a bit of sanding in a few places, I’m happy with how it turned out.
Adding the moonstone on the back was not part of my original design but, as I worked on it, propping its little door open, the question “and what is behind that door?” kept popping into my head. I may have to explore other ways to “answer” that question in my next few Doorway pieces. But whoever ends up taking this one home will have the piece that sparked that exploration!
Happy New Year! OK, I am a few days late with that thought, but where has the time gone? How can it have been just over ten years already since I started this blog?! I want to thank everyone who has helped to make the past ten years so wonderful!
And here are a few of the things coming up early this new, coming year:
After a break for the Holidays, my (mostly) Second (mostly) Saturday Studio Sessions return on January 12!
This month the time will be from about 2 to 6 pm. I’m setting it a little later than usual so it will run into the International Pot Luck Dinner that Global Pittsburgh is hosting in the same building from 6 to 9 pm, to make it easy for folks who want to attend both.
I’ll have a little mini-shop open. Mostly it’ll have my newer enameled pieces on copper or steel, along with a selection of silver earrings and a few of the smaller silver pendants. (If you missed getting something special that you wanted last year, let me know ahead of time and I can try to bring that in too!).
And I’m planning to have one worktable set up, so there should be room for one or two students to join me. Again, give me a heads-up … otherwise, I’m likely to just spread out over the whole thing myself since I have several deadlines looming. (But company is always welcome!)
The next two Studio Sessions are tentatively, hopefully, scheduled for:
My first workshop for the year will be on Friday, January 18.
Petites on a Post is scheduled to be held from 6 to 9 pm that Friday night at the North Hills Art Center. You’ll learn how to make a pair of fine silver post-style earrings. But my classes are always flexible: No holes in your ears: join us anyway and make a couple lapel pins! Not into posts: they’re the “bonus step” in this class, but you can join us and make dangles instead. Not into tiny things: join us anyway and just work larger! (NHAC’s course fee includes enough silver clay for two petite items, but I’ll have more that you can purchase from me in class.)
Technically, registration closes a week ahead, so that’d be Friday the 11th. But since I’ll be able to show off samples and answer questions during my Second Saturday open house, I’m hoping they’ll still let folks sign up that weekend. But registration will definitely be closed before that next Monday, so if you’re interested, please sign up as soon as you can! (Click on the link at the workshop title, above.)
I’m currently recruiting students for two workshops in my studio.
February (date & time TBA): Learn to Make Buttons!
March (dates & times TBA) A Two-Day Introduction to Bronze.
If you’re interested in being kept in the loop for one or both of those, let me know! Send me an email, or leave a comment with this post, and you’ll be included in the discussion of when we’ll meet and some specifics on the possible projects.
Several years ago, I made a small series of “doorway” pendants. I have no clue why I don’t seem to have stopped to photograph and write about them: I must have been busy with something else at the same time and devoted my social media time to that instead.
Digging back through photos now, the only one I can find is a rather blurry snapshot of the last one from that series. But the funny thing is how that piece, Ancient Doorway, is the basis for this post!
Ancient Doorway had been bought by one of my regular customers. She comes by at least once a year, usually with her mother and/or occasionally with a sister, often with children and/or spouses in tow too, and they entertain me for a while as they explore my offerings, provide interesting critiques, and debate which to buy for themselves or each other. They are very enthusiastic, and thus a lot fun to have as customers. And I remember the time she bought that piece because, as she walked in the door her eyes landed on that one first and sparkled! She headed straight to it, picked it up, turned it over, checked the price, set it back down, looked at several other pendants, came back to it and made a few comments, looked around some more, returned to it again and held it up in front of a mirror, looked at some earrings, and finally declared something to the effect that it was definitely her favorite of all the new pieces I had that day.
The funny thing about that is this: I knew from the moment she first headed for it that it was the last piece left from that older series, adapted from a project in one of Hadar Jacobson’s great books (and being the last one is probably why I got at least a quick shot of it). And she had to have been shopping at least two previous times when it was there. So I stood there trying to remember if she’d expressed interest in it earlier, and didn’t think she had. But she was definitely intrigued that day. I was happy to have the sale, but I was also very happy that it made her happy even if that had taken a while.
Except when she came in earlier this summer, she was sad. I could have a few of the details wrong here, but I remember her saying that she usually doesn’t take jewelry with her when she goes on vacation with her family, but she liked that one so much she wanted to have it with her when they took the kids to DisneyWorld. She clearly remembered seeing it on the bathroom counter the last morning when she went to take a shower, but realized on the trip home that she wasn’t wearing it, and didn’t remember putting it back on as they rushed to get everyone out the door that morning. As soon as possible, they called the hotel to ask if it had been found, and were told no. She was disappointed in herself for having lost it: could I make another one?
Of course I said, “Of course. Yes!” I did add that I’d never be able to recreate it exactly, but was it OK if I made something similar. Sure. I said that I was in the middle of some other projects, so it wouldn’t be right away. Was that OK, or did she want it asap? She said that as long as she knew it’d be coming, that was fine. I said that what I’d do would be to make several, give her first choice, and then just put the rest up for sale to others. She liked that idea.
Through the Arches || Into the Vault
So I started out by making two more, shown above. With the old series I remember trying to make them two different ways, and I couldn’t remember which way I’d ended up preferring So, for those first two, I made one each way:
starting from the back and working towards the front, and
starting at the front and working backwards.
The techniques to make it work are a bit different and, in some ways, I now think that “easiness” may be a toss-up. It is far easier to control the design with the approach I used with the former (Through the Arches), but far easier to get great, smooth side-edges using the techniques I applied to the latter (Into the Vault). So I guess I’ll just have to make a couple more!
Just as I finished those two, I looked at my calendar and realized that I needed several entries for two upcoming art shows, so each of the new doorways went to one of those!
Through the Arches (left) will be on display (and available for purchase) at the North Hills Art Center in Ross Twp, PA, from September 8 through October 5, (along with a second piece, a quilt-design piece with a cubic zirconia).
Into the Vault (right) will be on display (and available for purchase) at the Arts on the Riverwalk art competition, sponsored by the Hoyt Art Center at the Confluence Cafe in New Castle, PA, from September 8 through November 1 (along with a second piece, a shamrock design that incorporates dichroic glass).
And I’m delighted to report that I just learned this great news:Into the Vault
has earned a Merit Award … and was the only 3-D piece to win an award!
You may notice that both of those shows open on September 8. In order to get to both of them (and accept the award in New Castle), I’m moving my usually-Second and usually-Saturday Studio Session & Open House one week later, to September 15. I hope I’ll see some familiar faces at the shows this weekend, and in my studio next weekend … though of course I also look forward to meeting new folks too!
One of the questions on the evaluations I ask participants in my workshops to fill out is, “Please describe one of the best things about this class.” And one of the most common responses to that goes something like, “I could use your samples for inspiration but then, with your help, I was encouraged to make whatever I wanted!”
The photo with this post shows four pieces related to a class I taught last month. The three to the left of the pencil (included to indicate size) show three of the samples I brought with me. The piece to the far right was made by one of the students.
The “nest” piece to the far left is the one that was included in the venue’s printed and online catalogs. But the description said that the techniques could be used to make other designs; participants would not be limited to that exact nest design. And I took several dozen others, showing lots of different ways to apply the techniques.
Reading left to right in this photo, the next piece shows one of those variations. It was a quick sample (done in a previous version of this class) as a demonstration of how to work “balls” (aka dots) into an existing design, how to create a spiral, and how to nestle that up against a dot-filled design. (In-class comment: Had I made that in my studio, instead of in a quick demonstration, I’m sure I would have domed the disk first before adding the embellishments. The flat disk is fine, and was quick to make for the demo, but in the design part of my workshops, I do bring pieces, like the one to the far left, to illustrate how even a little bit of dimensionality adds so much to a final product!)
The third piece was my smallest sample, showing how to fill a little nest inside a cut-out opening (rather than inside a nest from coils). It may be the second-smallest pendant-piece I’d ever made at that point. (I do make smaller pieces, but typically use those as earring components or as elements in larger designs, rather than on their own as pendants.)
I didn’t have time to set up a tripod and fiddle with camera settings, so I don’t have a decent photo of what everyone made (and even the bits farthest to the side on this one are slightly out of focus). But here’s what surprised me about the class: seven out of the total of fourteen pieces that students made in that class were smaller than my smallest sample! And the one in the photo I include here was the biggest of those!
Clearly, the students made what they wanted! I hope they were as happy with their pieces as I was with teaching them.
And I can go with the flow: one of the new workshops I’m now designing for the fall is tentatively called Tiny Is In!
Here’s hoping for a big turn-out for a making-tiny-pieces class! Full details should be available later in August.
There was an announcement for a Quilt Show at a local venue. (Which one may slip out elsewhere but, for the purposes of this post, I don’t intend to name it… Though I had a few moments of frustration, this is not meant as a rant against them; it is simply intended to describe some aspects of the life of a working artist…)
Here’s something you need to know about that Quilt Show from the start: it was announced as being non-juried opportunity! Entries would be juried for awards, but not to get into the show in the first place. The call for artists said that they’d accept entries all day each day for a week, as long as they still had room to exhibit them.
So I started to design a quilt to enter. My “medium” these days is more often metal than fabric, and my “scale” is typically jewelry-size. I decided to make a quilt-pendant out of fine silver, using the process of sintering powdered metal (aka “metal clay”). I would “piece” samples from a selection of different textures for one side. The other side would be textured with a floral pattern that I would accent by setting a small, yellow CZ into the center of one of the flowers. The pendant would hang by the use of an integral bail: a sort of woven-fiber pattern shaped into a “tube” much as could be used for a fabric quilt displayed as a wall hanging. And, yes, all those elements were deliberately designed as a nod to more traditional quilting!
I hoped that a quilter, or quilt-lover, or quilter-lover would appreciate it during the show and decide to buy it… I also wanted to make a piece that, while it did incorporate a number of elements, wouldn’t be an exceptionally complicated piece to make: I didn’t have a lot of spare time to work on it but, even more importantly, I wanted to keep it to something that could be sold at an “affordable” price! I started it several weeks before the entry-week but, with one thing and another going on, hadn’t finished it as the deadline approached. With a lot of other things on my schedule for every day leading up to the opening of the drop-off time, my only option was to use the one and only day I’d been holding open as a “day to play” for at least a few hours. Instead, I spent all of that time, and more, playing with ways to complete the creation of my quilt piece, then firing it, polishing it, adding a patina, finding a chain that I thought would work well with it, taking a couple photographs, deciding how best to display it, giving it a name, filling out the entry-paperwork, etc. It ended up being a rather long day.
But, eventually, my Yellow Flower Birthday Quilt pendant was finished and ready to go on display!
First thing the next morning I packed it into a carrier bag and drove off to the Quilt Show venue. I looked around for a couple minutes, taking in pieces from the previous show that were coming down and noting that already a few entries were there for the new one. When the person handling all that was ready for me, she greeted me with a cheerful, “Oh, I didn’t know you made quilts too!”
I pulled the quilt-pendant out of my bag, smiled, and said, “I know this isn’t a traditional quilt, but I read the prospectus carefully, and it does not specify fabric. I hope you’ll take this silver quilt.”
“What? It doesn’t say anything?! That’s a lovely pendant, but please hold on.” She went to get a copy of the prospectus, and came back saying, “You’re right. We never thought to specify fiber as the medium because I don’t think we ever imagined anyone would enter any other kind of quilt.”
“Well,” I replied, “when you’re dealing with creative people, don’t you expect to be surprised? She laughed, with “Personally, I’d be happy to have it in the show, but I think I’d better check.”
The person she went off to check with wasn’t available. She sighed and said, “If you’re willing, you could just leave it with me, and I’ll let you know the final decision as soon as I can.” I said that was fine, we chatted for a moment about logisitics, and then she got a call. No, they wouldn’t accept my quilt. She was sorry but wanted to assure me that before they presented another quilt show, they’d take care to be more specific about their requirements…
The show is now on. Because I’m not naming them, I can’t promote it for them either. In this case, I figure that’s fair enough. I’ve been back, have seen the show, and am impressed with a number of the entries. I did also note that the showroom still has in place several of their usual display pedestals–empty–where it would have been easy to exhibit my quilt-piece on any one of them. But that’s all water under the bridge, as it were.
But … the story doesn’t end there!
This past Sunday was drop-off day for this summer’s Artists Choice show by the Pittsburgh Society of Artists (PSA). Technically, that is a non-juried show too, but one big difference is that this one is not open to everyone, just to artists who have already been juried into the PSA Guild in the first place. It’s always an interesting show. Entries may be from highly prolific artists who are always looking for show possibilities to those who only make a few pieces and seldom enter any shows other than this one. They may be new, experimental works that an artist is just putting out there to see the reaction, or pieces that just did not fit into the “guidelines” for some other show. Now do you see where this is going?!
Yes, my Quilt Show piece has been renamed as Help Me Get Over the Quilt Show Rejection “because It’s Silver, not Fiber”! and entered in the PSA show at the Brew House Association (at the corner of 21st and Mary Streets in Pittsburgh’s South Side flats area). That one runs from July 6 through August 3, 2018.
And I’m still hoping that a quilter, or quilt-lover, or quilter-lover will find it there and want to take it home!
If you’re in the area, please join me at the Opening Reception from 6 to 9 pm on Friday, July 6. (At this point, I’m also hoping to head over to the Closing Reception, same time & place, on August 3, but who knows what may change in my schedule over the next month!)
Regardless of where you’re reading this from, feel free to comment: Do you enter art shows? Why or why not? How do you handle it when a piece doesn’t get accepted? Or gets accepted but doesn’t sell there (especially if you let the announced theme of that show serve as a part of your inspiration for the piece!)?
“Nests” are a workshop-project that I teach every now and then. It’s scheduled again for next Friday, June 29, at the North Hills Art Center. Online registration is available. If you’re interested, please sign up asap: the last day you can register is this Friday, June 22. There are two sessions listed, for afternoon OR evening. Sign up for your preferred time, but please let someone (me or NHAC) know whether or not you’d be able to participate in the other one (in case one or the other ends up over- or under-subscribed).
Having gotten the “promo” stuff out of the way, I’ll get down to the reason I decided to write a whole blog post on it: I’ll use that workshop to talk a bit about how an instructor builds up the ideas for a class. Different teachers may look at theirs in different ways, but this is the approach I favor.
Some “consumer arts & crafts” classes are designed so that participants all make exactly the piece illustrated. Others use the image as a starting point to explore a process or technique. I tend to teach the latter, simply because those are the classes I enjoy taking the most. Of course, participants are always welcome to make something very close to the illustration; it’s just that I encourage exploration, experimentation, and creative variations too.
Unless noted otherwise, I try to design each workshop so it will be great for beginners with metal clay, serve as a refresher for those with limited experience, and offer specific techniques so you can continue to build both your repertoire and your local metal clay community with each new class.
We start with the basics of rolling and texturing clay, cutting it into an interesting shape, giving it some dimension, deciding how to hang it, and more. Students are welcome to make a pendant and / or a pair of earrings.
What varies across my classes is what else we do each time. In this one, we explore ways to hand-decorate those creations with silver strings and balls. So I call the class Lovely Silver Nests because it’s really easy, and fun, to shape those into an interesting “nest” design, as shown in the first photo with this post, my usual illustration for this class.
But once you know the process, you are free to arrange the strings and balls in various other patterns, instead of or in addition to nests! We also consider several ways to decorate the other side of each piece: with more strings and balls, by using more complex textures, by adding layered embellishments, and more. My goal is to help you create a unique piece of silver art that is reversible.
As usual, those with some previous experience with metal clay are welcome in this class too. My target audience here is not folks who’ve mastered the medium and seek advanced challenges (those, more advanced, sessions are usually just held with a small group in my studio); here, it is people who are curious and interested in learning more about manipulating metal clays in their creations. They may work right along with the beginners, perhaps finding time to create a more complex bail for hanging their piece, or they may add this style of decoration to a more complex project they’ve already mastered. I’m often surprised when folks tell me how hesitant they’ve been to try these specific techniques before this class, and I’m delighted when I see the designs they come up with as soon as they’ve learned how to follow a few specific steps to make this work.
So, while I call the class Lovely Silver Nests, it’s not a nest-project class. It’s a strings and balls techniques class. They can be used in so many ways: on some of the simplest pieces, on many very elaborate designs, and even for pieces constructed solely using them!
That’s why I’m also including in this post a quick snapshot with (a) one pair of basic earrings, and then (b) the back sides (or as I tend to think of them: the simpler, other sides) of three pendants. Even if you only know it as the “back” you can still know that there’s another little piece of art hidden back there!
Hmmm, I wonder if I should call this workshop Dots & Lines then, or leave it as Lovely Silver Nests? I’d love to see photos (or even just links to photos) of what other folks have done with their own dots & lines!
I wrote about Kepler’s Dream on Thursday. On Friday, I learned that Spring Thoughts on a Gray Day had been accepted into a second Cranberry Artists Network event, their 2018 Spring Show this year with the theme of Drip, Drizzle & Splash (DDS).
Now, to be honest, I’d wanted to submit both these pieces for consideration for DDS. Except I was in California for the second half of February. How is that relevant? The invitation to submit one piece for the International Womens Show arrived while I was in the air on my way there: ’twas the first message I saw when I turned off “airplane mode” on my phone upon landing. And that is when I saw that the deadline for submission would be the day before I’d return. So, um, I was going to have to submit for that something I’d have ready before heading home! So, as I described in my March 8 post, I decided to enter Kepler’s Dream for that show.
I could still hold onto Spring Thoughts on a Gray Day for Drip, Drizzle & Splash! (And another big “thanks!” to Hadar Jacobson for the recent workshop and also for this photo.)
The prospectus for Drip, Drizzle & Splash, which allowed us to submit two pieces for consideration, had encouraged us to consider “the emergence of new beginnings and the way our weather and environment makes this happen.” While I didn’t have another piece ready that complemented Spring Thoughts, I did have a shamrock piece from my Urban Flowers series that I’d just made in December that seemed to fit the theme. So that was my second entry. And I was delighted to learn that my Metropolitan Shamrock has also been accepted! That show will be hung on the night of March 12 and officially open on March 13.
Metropolitan Shamrock
Both shows will be on display through April 5, 2018. There will be a public reception for both of them from 6 to 8 pm on the evening of March 22. If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there!
Happy Winter! Happy New Year! Happy Second Saturday!
This is now the fourth of what has become a pattern: spending the Second Saturday of each month in my Studio. I’ve been considering whether to continue the pattern, at least for a while, and make it a more-or-less recurring event.
So, if you’d like to join me for a Studio Session on a Second Saturday in the future, please let me know! At this point, I do not plan to offer actual classes then but will open my studio to others for a small fee: If you already have some clue what you’re doing with metal clay, you’re welcome to just come over and use the facilities in my studio! I will plan to get some of my own making-work done those days too, and we can chat about it as we go. I will have a bit of clay available for purchase too: I don’t promise to maintain a complete stock of every variety, however, so if you want to purchase a particular one, do check with me in advance. (I can get most of them with a week’s notice; if you ask later, however, we may have to add your express shipping fee to what I’d normally charge.)
Since there is a certain amount of clean-up involved in switching between precious and base metal clays, on many Saturdays I am likely to restrict things to precious (silver) metals only. If there is enough interest in base metals, however, I’m happy to occasionally set a session specifically for those instead.
Note that I am qualifying this: I’m not really calling it SSSS, for Studio Sessions every Second Saturday. I’m thinking more along the lines of SSmSmS: Studio Sessions, mostly on a Saturday, and mostly on the Second one of the month.
I may have to shift a few of them to the Friday. (If Friday would, in general, be better for you, let me know. Most months I should be able to accommodate that!) Or maybe the subsequent Sunday. In the occasional months where the second Friday is ajacent to the Third Saturday, I may switch my in-studio time for one or the other so they are consecutive days.
Why didn’t I post earlier about today? Well, I had already agreed to let a few folks come over and use my studio! Space is limited, so please PM me if you want to come in future months.
FYI, here’s one of the things I worked on today: adding bezel cups to a lentil bead. I’d taught a workshop on using fine silver metal clay to make lentil beads last month, at the Appalachian Rock Shop & Jewelry Emporium in Harmony, PA, and made this bead as part of my demonstration. I hadn’t added any embellishments to this particular bead, but fired it along with all the class pieces anyway, despite knowing it needed something! How about a gemstone? Which stone: either this sunstone or the sapphire would look nice with the texture I’d used. Which side: each one has an area where a little stone would fit. Hey, why not put one on each side?!! So I used PMC3 paste supplemented with a few drops of lavender oil to add a bezel cup to each side. And fired it today while working on other projects. This photo shows how I propped it up as the paste on both sides dried, along with the sunstone and sapphire I’ll add after I’m done with patina and polish:
As a teacher of metal clay techniques and processes, there is one thing I particularly like about that photo! Notice how the bead, having been fully sintered in a previous firing, has a sort of matte-white look, while the bezel cups, made from fine silver sheet metal, look more shiny like we typically imagine silver to be. Well, it is all fine silver. The “white” look is just a result of the way the silver crystals form as the powdered-metal pieces in the clay sinter into the solid-metal final form. (It is NOT, as some novices assume, some sort of outer crust that needs to be removed. It IS silver that we want to keep!) With polishing, the invisible-to-naked-eye peaks in the silver crystals will all get pushed over in one direction, and only then will we be able to see the shine that we normally associate with silver. I’ll try to remember to post a picture of this piece once I’ve finished it. (Though I have several others I must finish first….so this one may have to wait until my next Second Saturday Studio Session, in February…!)
Whenever I walked into my studio last week, I passed lots of red and green Christmas decorations throughout the building.
As I sat down with some silver clay and a small box of dichroic glass cabs, I think that decor is what lead me to be drawn to several green pieces.
With over half of my studio turned into a show-room, and only one “holiday” show left after I’d have time to fire and finish anything I made between visitors, I had to work simple.
But then my maker’s-sales brain kicked in and I picked up those green cabs and used them in … shamrocks! Three fine silver pendants for spring.
And the “lucky” four-leaf one, with a “spring green” piece of glass, has already been purchased! Knowing that it will age slowly over time, the customer wanted it like this, without any patina. I managed to grab this quick photograph while the buyer selected a chain to go with it. The photo shows a sterling rolo chain though it went out the door on (what I do agree was a better choice for this particular texture) a foxtail style chain.
For those interested in technical details, all three of these were made with PMC Plus and PMC Flex. Why those clays? I’d taught a lentil-bead class last week in which we used Plus, and I had a lot left from a big packet I’d opened there, so I used that for the backing pieces, the leaves, and the bails. To be sure those were fully sintered, that much was fired at full time & temperature: nominally, that’s 1650°F for two hours. (I say nominally because, since my kiln fires about 50° hot, I set it to 1600 … which means it should have fired at about 1650… And I did hold it for two hours.) That gives all the “structural” elements the maximum strength possible for that particular silver formula, even though it would have been way too hot for the glass.
The next day I made the “bezel” elements to surround each glass piece and hold those in place from the top. I used PMC Flex for that. I could’ve used PMC3 or Art Clay 650 or any of the “low-fire” fine silver formulas but, again, the Flex is what I had handy, so that’s what I used. The point here is that I needed a clay that would reliably sinter at a low-enough temperature that I could fire the glass in place! Clay fired down at “glass” temperatures might not be quite strong enough for the leaves (that hang off to the side) or the bail in back (from which the piece is hung when worn), but with a good, strong backing, the use of a lower sintering temperature should be fine for just holding the glass onto strong backing pieces. I used a four-segment program that experience has shown to provide good strength to the silver bezel while keeping the glass happy.
I did choose to add a patina as I finished polishing these two after their second firing. And, if you’re interested in a few notes I wrote about using a mix of sterling and fine silvers in this sort of design, feel free to check out my post from October of last year.
Even though these designs reflect the shape of shamrock (young clover) leaves, because of the textures I used and the glass centers, I’m calling them part of my Urban Flowers series. I never claimed that my urban flowers were going to be biologically correct representations of particular species, more that the plants would serve as “inspiration” for those pieces.
In some ways that concept also fits with the colored glass ornaments I make during the summer (when I can work outdoors). Those are designed with a double-loop on the top of the ornament and a flat bottom to the glass bases: they can hang on your Christmas tree if you want and then, for the rest of the year, you can set them on a table or desk and use them ho hold whatever kind of note or photograph or other reminder that you want!
Similarly, I hope that these shamrock pendants fit both with the green fir / pine / spruce decorations during winter holidays, and can continue being worn to reflect the natural world as spring returns! Or maybe the heart-shaped leaves will even warm someone’s heart in time for Valentine’s Day?! Regardless of the “connection” made, I do hope the rest of these will soon find good, new homes!
I’m delighted to report that I have three pieces in the current Members Show at the North Hills Art Center! The pieces were hung as they were accepted last week, but the official “opening” of the show is Saturday, September 9, from 7 to 9 pm, and runs through October 6.
As usual for NHAC, the majority of the entries are paintings. But when I dropped off my art jewelry, I did see fiber art, pottery, mixed media assemblages, and more too! A lot of the pieces were made by students of the center so, if you’re curious about that, this show can also give you an idea of what you might be able to learn in the classes there. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll stop by to check it out! It would, of course, be great to see you at the opening on Saturday but, if you can’t make it then, do go whenever you can.
I’ve already said a few things about each of my entries, separately, in earlier blog or Facebook posts, but I thought I’d assemble a few thoughts on each of them together here. They are all available for purchase at the show.
GWV!
If you look closely, you may notice that the flowers in this “rose bronze” bracelet are Green (nephrite jade), White (cubic zirconia), and Violet (amethyst). Embellishments in those colors were a code in Edwardian / Art Nouveau times for Give Women the Vote!
This piece was made before either of my other two in this show, but since then I’ve been holding on to it myself. This is the first time I’ve ever really considered putting it up for sale!
Night Moon
As one of the earlier pieces I made with EZ960 after its introduction in 2016, this was made as a class sample, to illustrate the draping/folding process. But it’s notable to me because it’s the first piece I made using only “scraps” from earlier projects. Obviously, that test was successful!
In draping, sometimes the material tells me the shape it wants to form, and that was definitely the case here! The title of Night Moon comes from how, once the piece was completely finished, it suddenly struck me how much it evoked thoughts of a particular night in June of 1988 (a truly wonderful summer!), when I was climbing (well, at that point, descending) Emeishan, one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains in China.
Keystone Wildflower
Yes, this is yet another piece from my Urban Flowers series! Like the earlier ones, this pendant was made using sterling (.960) silver for most of the piece, for strength, and in a separate step the dichroic glass cabochon was attached with fine (.999) silver because that form plays better with glass. It hangs on a sterling (.925) silver chain.
The dichro in this piece is a cabochon made by local glass artist, Elise McVeigh. It is also one of the priciest pieces I’ve had in a show in a good while: that is because, at something like 75 mm across, it is one of the largest pieces I’ve made in a good while too! And big uses a lot of silver, so the price simply reflects that. But Elise’s lovely glass is noticeably different from the other dichro cabs I’ve added to my earlier urban flowers, and I just thought it deserved to go into a “statement” piece! I hope it will find a new home with someone who agrees with me.
Wow! Another event in the North Hills! Since I only added the Norbth Hills Art Center (NHAC) to my set of teaching venues at the start of 2017, this month provides me with my first opportunity to participate in their annual “Instructor’s Show.”
This post will let you know about the opening of the show, which is, umm, today, Saturday, July 15, from 7 to 9 pm! That just happens to be a few days before I’ll manage to sort out a few specifics of my fall schedule but, as usual, I’ll add them to the bar down the right side of this blog in just a few weeks.
Now, if you’ve already taken a class with me, you probably know that most of them are single-session events: you complete the making of a piece during the class, I fire and tumble-polish it afterwards, and it is returned to the class site about a week later (I am specific about timing in each individual class, depending on my schedule, how much firing time is involved, expected road construction delays, etc.).
And I’ll be offering my two button classes (silver or bronze) exactly that way. In the silver-buttons class, we will make ones that you attach via holes in the surface of the buttons. In the bronze one, you will have the option of using holes or of adding a shank on the back!
Then, the other classes I have on NHAC’s fall schedule are a pair of multi-session, multi-project events: one each in silvers (both fine and sterling silver) and base metals (several bronze formulas and copper). We’ll start out with the basics and add new techniques as we go along. I will fire pieces between classes and bring them to the next session. About half the projects will be similar in the two versions although, with the different metals, the results will be very different. So if you choose to take both, you’ll be able to reinforce your skills in slightly different ways. The other half will be entirely different, chosen to take advantage of the differences among the metals. The base-metals course will have one additional session so we will have enough time to cover a few extra finishing techniques appropriate for those.
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Note:
I’d’ve sworn I’d queued up a post about this show, but it hasn’t appeared and I don’t see it now, so I must have dreamt that post!
Thus this last-minute re-do is short notice for the opening, but the show itself runs through July 28. I’m posting it from a train as I head off for some family-time this weekend. I hope to update it with photos for these classes, not the one from a different class I taught last year at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh (just so there’d be something pretty with this post), once I get back and onto my main computer.
So if you are interested in any of those class ideas, feel free to check back for updates, and let me know if you have any questions or other requests. What’s in this instructors show is what I’ll be teaching at NHAC this fall, but I’m still working on my schedule for south and east of the city. I’ll be announcing the rest of my fall schedule in just a few weeks.
As I mentioned last October, I’ve been experimenting with different ways of incorporating glass into some of my pendants, while also trying to ensure that the process I use for converting (sintering) the clay-like substance I work with into a proper all-metal construction will yield results that are as strong as possible.
I’ve been having a lot of fun doing that: designing pieces, redesigning them when tests don’t work out as planned, and coming up with more ideas for continued explorations. And, now that spring is approaching, I’m delighted to be able to report that two of my experimental blooms will be allowed to sprout (i.e., have been accepted for display in) two upcoming art shows.
The Cranberry Artist Network’s late-winter show actually opened last week, but the meet-the-artists reception will be tomorrow, March 8, from 6 to 8 pm. If you’re in the neighborhood, do stop by to see my five-petal flower (along the lines of a “cinquefoil”) with a silvery-blue glittery dicrhoic glass cabochon in the center.
On this particular piece, I decided to not try to emphasize the texures on the petals by adding a darker patina. They will darken with age slowly over time but, for this From Dark to Light show, I thought I’d let viewers consider the strong contrast between the darkness of the glass in the center and the bright-light color of the metal that surrounds it. The presentation of any sort of flower also fits the theme, as plants of various sorts begin to emerge in reaction to the increasing duration of light each day. Finally, the addition of a few little silver balls represent a flower’s pollen to remind us of the importance of pollinators for so much of what we appreciate being grown, whether for sustenance or simply for beauty.
A sort of companion to that is my “double shamrock” piece. It will be on display in a sort of companion show, called One Night Stand (take note: it runs for one night only!), at the Mars Area Public Library on (no joke!) April 1 at a special evening event that will run from 6 to 9 pm. They had in mind that their “art show” would include paintings, but I’m not the only one who submitted other media that was accepted so I’ll be interested to see what all makes it into the displays. I am a big believer in local libraries, so I really hope this show will be a success for them!
I chose to try to enter this piece because of the “companionships” I mentioned above. As with all my Urban Flowers, I know that this one does not accurately represent a shamrock. But when I looked at that lovely green and gold glass, I wanted to make something appropirately green for it. And, having just finished the “cinquefoil” I wanted to try a different mechanism for holding the glass in place … without making yet another cinquefoil. I was fairly happy with how it turned out. (Actually, I was very happy, except that I had to add a four-leaf clover design to the back to get everything as secure as I wanted, which looks great but increased the materials cost, and thus the price, a little more than I’d wanted.) I did add a bit of patina to this one, to help bring out the veining in the petals.
Given what I learned with these two, I’ve got several more in the works now. The latest ones have long, thin petals. Maybe I can get them out on display over the summer…!
For reasons I’ll explain at the end, here are a few examples of pottery I’ve made over the past few years to use in some of my early experiments in adding silver metal clay decorations to them. Since I’m showing here my first experiments with various techniques, for those I chose to not risk my best pottery pieces and the decorations were deliberately kept very simple. But each of them does seem to have a little story to tell!
I threw, bisqued, glazed, and fired these pieces. The same electric kiln was used for both firings. The relatively rough glaze was a deliberate choice … I then smushed some clay onto the surface and fired that with a creme brulee torch to sinter the silver. For my first-ever attempts at these, I was happy with these results.
I threw several pieces, cutting ridges into their outside surfaces. After bisque-firing those (in a different electric kiln), I glazed the inside and smushed silver clay onto the outer ridges, then fired those (in a gas kiln). Most turned out wonderfully, and I’ve already sold all of those but the one shown here. Part of the back of this one did break off. (I used the same glaze inside this one as on the piece in item #3, below.) The fault could have come from either a flaw in the pottery (perhaps I’d cut a ridge a little too deeply?) or because I’d applied the metal clay a bit thicker there (and the shrinkage as the binder burned off and it sintered was too much for the pottery clay), or even from both of those combined… I haven’t yet gotten around to trying to distinguish among those possibilities.
I threw, bisqued, glazed, and fired this piece. (Those firings were done in the same electric / gas pattern as #2, above.) Then I rolled out some “snakes” of a low-shrinkage silver metal clay and spread a tiny bit of overlay paste onto them (in the setting where I made this–not my own studio and I’d forgotten to take a tiny paintbrush for this step–that was far easier than applying paste to the pot). I pressed those onto the vase, and fired this piece yet a third time (and in yet a different electric kiln, a small one that another artist had for firing metal clay molds). The clay shrank: the upper snake held at the ends but cracked open at roughly 1/4 of the way from one end; the lower one held along its length but pulled up into itself leaving a little smudge of silver paste at the end and at a few places along its side. The little “splats” of silver must have been a bit of clay/paste from my fingers as I was sticking it all together. I didn’t notice those until after the firing, but I really like that accidental result. Now I want to figure out a way to reliably recreate those, especially like the one above and to the right of the top snake!
I threw this piece and bisque-fired it (in an electric kiln). I applied glaze to the outside. I rolled several “snakes” of a low-shrinkage metal clay, wet them on the bottom, and applied them in a “spray” pattern to the unglazed inside bottom and edge. The piece was fired in a gas kiln. When removed, the silver looked sintered and the patterns were all still intact. The piece was immediately (i.e., still hot!) dropped into a newspaper-filled can, and covered. (Those who know the process will recognize that as a “raku” firing!)
This outcome was my biggest surprise! The gas kiln did not over-fire the silver, but the fire from the raku-process did then get the inside of the can hot enough to completely melt the silver! You may just be able to see some faint hints of where part of the pattern had been: tan spots where some of them were even show little trails of tiny silver balls. But most of it pulled up into two balls in the center! (Another small bit from the edge must have just fallen off in the raku-can and disappeared as it was emptied out. That’s experimentation!) I was able to get a number of pieces with ball-decorations to survive the raku process (similar look to both #1 and #2 above) and turn out beautifully, but I have yet to figure out how to approach, in raku, designs like those that later developed from the technique I first tried with #3.
While I’m sure that many readers with metal clay experience will have taken their clue from the size of the silver balls and snakes above, I will end with another little pot from that session. The pencil is there to give you a sense of scale for all these pieces! And if you look carefully, you should be able to see the small (3 mm) clear cubic zirconia I’d set into the wet clay. All the ones I made with those did survive all three firing steps (bisque and two-part raku).
While the previous items all show my very first attempt at each technique, this was my second try. The very first piece did have one very tiny crack just off to the side of the CZ, visible but with no obvious damage to the structure. That was probably due to my having used too-wet clay until I figured out that I could set CZs in stiffer clay. That bowl did have a great shape, and another artist really wanted to swap me some art-glass for it!
I’ve been playing around with miniature pottery, off and on, with and without such embellishments, for several years now. Though I have been offering my miniature pottery for sale at various shows, I haven’t taken the experimentation seriously enough to feel inclined to write much about it. (And I’m not teaching this, at least not yet, so I don’t have that inspiration for writing about it either…)
But I decided to post these examples after seeing some experimentation that Terry Kovalchik has been doing, and writing about, with painting silver clay paste onto pottery shards, and reading some of the reactions he’s gotten to that in the Metal Clay Now group on Facebook. (Metal Clay Now is a “closed” group, but readers of my blog who use Facebook are certainly welcome to ask to join it!)
While many of his results are superb (as usual!), Terry has reported some further breakage of the clay shards during the sintering process. But, like my #2 above, that could be from any or all of: a weak spot in the pottery (at initial construction or from whatever created the “shards”), the shrinkage of the silver clay (how thickly or how evenly it’s applied, exactly how it aligns with any weakness in the clay body), or any number of other little peculiarities. So I thought it was time for me to bring out a few of my explorations too, and maybe others will start to chime in with what they’ve tried and how it’s worked out for them.
If you are working with similar combinations, please leave a comment: I’d love to hear from you, see some of your results, and compare more notes!
Great news! My four-week introductory series on working with silver metal clay still has a few seats available in “Session 2” — from 6 to 9 pm — starting next Thursday (Feb 23) at the North Hills Art Center, and we’ve agreed not to close the registration this afternoon, but leave it open until next Tuesday!
So if you forgot to sign up, there is still time. Or, if you didn’t notice the listing among my classes down the right side of this blog, didn’t check the Classes section of my website, and you’re not on my mailing list nor the one for the North Hills Art Center … well, now you know about the series and that it’s still possible to sign up.
We’ll cover the basics of designing, texturing, shaping, cutting, and refining pieces. You’ll make a woven piece. And a hollow one (open or closed design: you choice!). With every piece you make, pendant or earrings, you’ll have the option of making it reversible! By the end, we will also have covered various ways to polish and add patinas to your pieces, to help bring out the textured designs. And we’ll have lots of fun doing it all!
For my one- or two-day workshops, registration is usually cut off a week ahead: I need time to order the silver we’ll be using (and I sure don’t want to charge students for overnight shipping)! I have ordered silver clay for those who already signed up for this but, since I’m getting enough to cover all four weeks, I can sneak enough out of that for late-comers to use the first week, and replenish it in time for later evenings.
If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll be able to join us!
Also please notice (e.g., down the right side of my blog) that this session will be followed at NHAC by a simple, two-night introduction to making a beautiful piece out of bronze metal clay. Registration for that one will close on March 16. (Bronze is a little trickier to work with than silver, so you may end up making only one piece … but the materials cost less, so bronze worth risking for big “statement” pieces!)
Whew, what a day. Today, Saturday, started out with all news outlets stating, “If you don’t absolutely have to be somewhere this morning, please stay home. Don’t even try to go anywhere for several hours and, if you can wait, then please do wait until late afternoon or even tomorrow.”
Well, I was out the door before 9 am, heading over to The Artsmiths of Pittsburgh to finish setting up for my Trunk Show that started when the place opened at 10 am. And I sure do want to thank everyone who did venture out to Artsmiths today! All the ‘Smiths Shop artists, and especially those of us holding Trunk Shows downstairs, really, really do appreciate your support.
Four of us have decided that we will go back again on Sunday, in case folks whose schedules were mangled by this weather would appreciate a second chance. We’re already all set up, so why not?! Several of the others who were there today already had different plans for Sunday and have already left, but Paula Nettleship, Samantha Bower, Larissa Graudins, and I will all be there. Since Sunday wasn’t actually advertized as a Trunk Show day, if people don’t come down to see us, we may decide to leave a little early. Artsmiths is open from 12 Noon to 5 pm on Sunday, though some or all of us might start packing up a bit early. So, if you’d like to come find us, I’d suggest you try to make it to Artsmiths betwen 12 Noon and 3 pm. If you want to come later (i.e., after 3 pm, until about 4:45 … to allow at least a little time for shopping until 5), then please just contact one or more of us (or Artsmiths itself) to let us know you’re coming. Any or all of us will be happy to stay as late as the upstairs is open, as long as we know you’ll be coming to join us!
For now, I include one very quick photo of one of the last pieces I finished up last night, a super-simple design but in my usual make-reversible-designs approach, what looks like the top of a lock from this side, actually shows as a heart on the other! It’s still out at Artsmiths so you could hold it in your very own hands tomorrow…and maybe give it as a gift to someone you hold dear in your heart later in the week?
Yes, we have a whole month left! The title of this post contains a bad pun … but I’m hoping you’ll wrap up some of my creations as gifts, or receive one wrapped up for you!
Here are places where you can find my art jewelry this December (and you can find me—in person, with extra treats—at those with an asterisk):
Holiday Sparkle Art & Craft Market at the North Hills Art Center, now through December 10
Studio Open House *, in my studio at the Wilkins School Community Center, December 2 (6-9 pm) and December 3-4 (10 am – 5 pm) I’m not promising to be back in my studio all day the following weekend (Dec 10-11) but I’m likely to be there for a few hours at some point. If that’s the only time you can make it, please let me know so we can agree on a time to meet there!
Trunk Show *, The Artsmiths of Pittsburgh, December 17 (Officially I’ll be there myself just that day, but check with me if you’d like to come out on either Friday (16th) or Sunday (18th) as I may be there part of those days too. And I have a smaller, but still great, selection in the ‘Smiths Shop year-round!)
And, finally, I’m honored that, as a member of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists, I was able to have one of my pieces selected for display (and for sale) in The New Collective show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. The show runs from November 18, 2016, through February 26, 2017, and I sure hope you’ll be able to get over to see all the wonderful artwork that’s been included. To find my entry, first head upstairs and then turn right, and right again, and then head down the last gallery on the right. My Bronze Bead Shelf is at the end of that, on the left. Since it’s framed for display in the show, so you can see only one side there, here’s what it looks like on both sides:
I hope to see you, or to at least have you see my work, at one or another of those events. If I don’t see you in person, there or somewhere, please know how much I appreciate your interest and support, and that I’m wishing you all the best!
This post is going to jump into the middle of a story about several different things I’ve been working on: adding a little bit of color to my creations by incorporating some glass (especially dichroic glass) and working with sterling silver metal clays.
Why start in the middle? Well, I really do miss writing about all the explorations I do in my studio. I haven’t been saying much about them lately because we still don’t have reliable internet access in the building … and I used to compose posts as I worked. You can probably imagine that, after a long day of working on explorations (and more), the last thing I want to do is go home and stay up for hours more writing from there. But it’s a gorgeous fall day and I suddenly decided to enjoy it by staying home this morning, sitting out on my back porch with a cup of tea, and writing about a piece I just finished on Friday.
I will provide a bit of background:
The second, or maybe it was the third, piece I ever made using metal clay incorporated a lovely, long, oval, pink glass bead, set with loops of syringe-clay to hold it in place. It was fun to do, but it took me a few more years before I got into adding glass on any sort of regular basis. About six or seven years ago, I went through a phase of using glass fairly often. Then I moved off in other directions, with what remained of my collection of glass pieces sitting in a corner of one of my stash-drawers. I’d acquire another bit of glass every now and then until, a few years later, I made a few more pieces using some of those, and taught it as the final project in a couple of private lessons and multi-session intensive workshops.
Probably the main reason I didn’t keep pushing with glass is because I’d felt limited to using PMC3 or Art Clay 650: those were the only metal clays that could reliably be fired with glass. Now, those are both fine metal clays: I have been quite happy using either one of them. But glass just isn’t happy at the 1650°F (900°C) for two hours that all fine silver clays require for the strongest sintering, even with those formulas. Although they will technically sinter at lower temperatures and shorter times, they still don’t get as dense, and thus won’t get as strong, as they could do at 1650°F for two hours. They do come out perfectly acceptable, and I hope people will treat any piece with glass somewhat gently … but I just like going for the strongest pieces possible.
Still, I do love glass. So this summer I made some more fine silver pieces with dichroic glass cabochons, called them class samples, and included that process in another four-day session I was scheduled to teach at The Artsmiths of Pittsburgh. The first photo with this post shows one of the sample pieces I made for that class. While a couple of my samples used the same PMC3 and Art Clay 650 that I’d used in the past (mostly to refresh my memory of how I’d done it) this one and several others used PMC Flex. Flex is similar to PMC3 but it has a slightly longer working time (good for workshop students not yet comfortable enough with metal clays to work really fast) and it remains a bit flexible when dried (which makes it very useful for anyone fashioning the parts that capture and hold the glass). And, though there’s still the problem of not sintering to the maximum density possible, it does sinter reasonably well at temperatures where glass remains happy. So, for fine silver with glass, it seemed a good choice.
Now, at last, on to the Urban Flowers explorations:
After I’d made those samples, on some of the hottest days this summer when I just didn’t feel like going out to work in my garden, I got to thinking about a possible new series of pieces, ones I’ve taken to calling my Urban Flowers. They are flower-like designs, but from my imagination. While they may be based on some actual flower varieties (and may or may not be named for their inspiration), I am not attempting to make biologically-accurate representations. They’re just a city-girl’s dreams. The textures come from urban life: wallpapers, flooring, construction debris, household objects, etc., and they feature glass (or, occasionally, something else that is commonly found in urban environments).
I’d been happily exploring these designs, mostly using PMC Flex, while working on some other styles completely and, for those, using diy-960 clays (i.e., mixing PMC+, PMC3, PMC Flex, and/or Art Clay 650 with PMC Sterling clay).
And then CoolTools released EZ960. OK, I didn’t really need it, as I’d been doing fine with my various diy-960 combos, but why not give it a try? Soon after, both PMC and Art Clay released their own silver-rich sterlings (PMC One-Fire Sterling, a .960 formula, and Art Clay 950, where the number designation has switched from a minimum Celsius firing temperature to a Fine Silver percentage). I got some of each of those and started testing them too. At some point, I hope to find a chance to write about all that testing. For now, though, let’s stick to the Urban Flowers story.
While I do love the color of plain fine silver, I can also appreciate the gain in strength that it gets when a bit of copper is added to produce sterling silver. And, as noted above, I much prefer to produce pieces that are strong. The 950-960 formulas will be stronger than a 999 fine silver; they get you to almost as much strength as you can get in the great 900-925 alloys. Plus, they have the benefit that they are as easy to fire as the 999 clays (i.e., much easier than the 900-925 ones, where having more copper complicates the firing). So, yes, any 960 (diy or commercial product) will be a compromise, but still an excellent choice.
With one exception: the 950-960 clays need temps and times higher than glass can take without just melting.
But, d’oh, why didn’t I think of this before (even with the .999 fine silver clays!)? I work with base metal clays, and I do some pottery, and we’re talking about multiple firings to get many of those to work. So here’s the inspiration I had, and the first (simple) piece I made to test it out….
I made an Urban Flower base out of EZ960: the petals, the stem (if included), the bail on the back … everything but the glass and the bit that holds the glass in place. I fired all of that according to the schedule for 960, to achieve maximum strength. Afterwards, I positioned a glass cab, surrounded that with a .999 fine silver washer shape to contain it, made sure that was well-attached to the already-fired petals, and fired the whole thing again at a schedule that worked for just the “bezel” and the glass. After a bit of tumbling, polishing, and patina, voila! It may not be perfect, but I am really happy with this result! (Though both the silver and the glass are brighter in person than they look in this photo….)
What do you think?
I do still need to figure out a reasonable pricing schedule to accommodate the fact that I’m doing two firings, and that attaching the unfired clay to the fired metal can be a little trickier than attaching two unfired elements. Though that will add a small amount, in the grand scheme of things, it won’t be much. Once I’ve found time to make more to extend the series, and refined the process of doing it this way, I can see how the time works out and apply that even to my initial-trial pieces too. The only real problem with this approach is the way the two firings will affect trying to do this in a class … but it’s just another reason to offer multi-session workshops, rather than the quick one-shot ones, when including easy but still advanced topics.
To help my local reader or potential visitors with planning their metal clay adventures, here’s a summary of the next round of workshops I have on the schedule at the wonderful Artsmiths of Pittsburgh. The link at the title for each one takes you to the registration service for it.
For the rest of September and on into October, I’ve chosen to offer a mix of classes where you can learn to create pieces that make a definite statement, or elements to use in more complex designs of your own.
Monday, September 26, Noon-5 pm: Sparkle-Dome: Make a Hollow, Reversible Pendant with Bling!
As mentioned in my last post, “lentil” beads are always gorgeous, and now you can learn to make yours even more special by adding a sparkly cubic zirconia in a simple yet elegant way!
Sunday, October 2, 1-4pm: Wrap A Straw in Silver and See What Happens!
Simple tools can be the best: We’ll texture some silver clay and explore different ways to wrap it around a straw. The end result will be a large, stunning “tube” pendant-bead … unless you’d prefer to make a whole little collection of smaller ones. (The latter make great earrings, but they also pair perfectly with the mini-beads from the October 11 class!)
Tuesday, October 11, Noon-5 pm: Mini-Beads: So Cute You Can’t Stop at Just One!
Another session making lentil beads, this time learning some of the extra tricks for making little minitature ones! These are great for beaders, or earring-makers, of all sorts. Making these little beads is easy and addictive, and you will find so many different ways to use them. (Hint: they fit wonderfully with the little-tubes you could make in the session on October 2!)
Thursday, October 20, 6-9pm: Lovely Silver Nests
Tiny silver balls are easy and fun to make. They’re a great way for beginners to get a sense of metal clay, and they’re a wonderful way for others to use up bits of clay that’s left at the end of a session. And once you have such a collection, one fun thing to do with them is to collect them into a little “nest” design. (Or, if you prefer, spread them along a coiled “track”!) Explore the possibilities.
Thursday, October 27, 12-4 pm: Simply Stupendous Cylinders
Whether or not you’ve ever made a tube bead before (which you could have done on October 2), this is the afternoon when you can practice making one or two more and learning how to close one end, which will let you hang them in any of several different ways. (The ones shown in the photo can rotate the whole way around!)
Then, in November, I’ve chosen to focus on sessions were you (yes, you, even if you are a total beginner at this!) can quickly make several simpler pieces … where the emphasis will be on making items you can give as gifts in the coming holiday season:
Saturday November 6, 1-4pm: How Charming!
OK now, the Holiday Season will be approaching, and you’ll be thinking about gifts, won’t you? But why spend an afternoon shopping, when you can spend it making several adorable little silver charms, ones you can hang from a bracelet, zipper pull, fine chain, earwires, etc. They make wonderful gifts … if you can bear to part with them!
Thursday November 17, 6-9pm: So Precious!
Once again geared for gift-giving, the idea behind this session is to make a very special pendant piece (or two, depending on how carried away you get with embellishing your first one!).
Beginners are welcome at all of these, while the projects are designed so that those with some previous metal clay experience are still likely to learn some new techniques with each one.
Note: the links on each session will open a new browser page where you can read a bit more about each class and register for the session. You may notice some minor discrepancies between what’s shown here and what’s there. Having tried (without success, for technical reasons not worth going into) to set up some the sessions I offer in my studio using the Eventbrite system, I have a LOT of sympathy for the several folks at Artsmiths who worked on setting up the registration pages there. It is not easy! The thing I will say is that the descriptions, date, time, price, etc., on the Eventbrite pages ARE correct. It’s just a few photographs that got mixed up, and a few titles that somehow got changed, from what’s shown above (here is what I submitted for these sessions). So … look at the titles, photos, and summaries here, then click the link and get the full description and registration information there. I hope to see you before autumn has passed!
What with all the ‘net-connection issues and photo-sharing dilemmas I’ve been going on about recently, I am waaaay behind in posting about upcoming workshops: sorry! I actually have a bakers-dozen on my schedule already, and I’ll write about the bulk of them as soon as I can. For now however: coming along soon are two metal clay workshops that are not my typical stand-alone jewelry-projects!
Funny thing is, I really didn’t get into this metal clay arena because I wanted to go off making pendants and earrings and bracelets and more. My original goal was simply to find a relatively easy way to make an array of different elements because I couldn’t find ones that I wanted to use in my other creations: bead caps and clasps for my bead-work, buttons for my fiber-work, etc. If you are anything like I was, you should know that my first two classes this month harken back to those beginnings!
Thursday Sept 8, 6-9pm,
Make Your Own Unique Silver Bead Caps
This one is especially for Beaders: Learn to make your own fine silver bead caps, designed to go perfectly with some of the favorite beads in your stash!
Thursday Sept 22, 6-9pm Silver Button Originals!
This one is especially for Fiber-Artists of all sorts: Hand-made creations deserve hand-made buttons, don’t they?! Whether they will be functional or simply decorative, they might as well be your own hand-made sterling silver treats!
Click on the title of each workshop, above, and it should take you to a page where you can sign up for that particular session. Beginners are welcome! These are fun ways to add both decoration and value to your lovingly-made creations.
Along with my other ‘net- and photo-woes, however, for some reason the folks at Artsmiths who’ve been setting up those registration pages have been adding the sessions, then changing, fixing, and again changing … the names of my classes. Some are showing the names I gave them; others show something that does fit but is not what I was calling them. Who knows? Problem is, the session name shows up in the URL I need to use to add the links! Not to worry, though, I think I’ve (finally!) found a way to add reliable links above but, should they fail, you can also get to them either of these ways (these will require an extra click or two, but they should be more stable…):
from the Eventbrite site, scroll down a list of my upcoming classes (it may help if you first click to sort them by date rather than Eventbrite’s guess about relevance…): https://www.eventbrite.com/d/pa–pittsburgh/scheftic/
I hope I’ll see you there! Then again, if you’re just learning about these now, and the notice is too short for you to make it work with your schedule, let me know!
I can find a time to schedule the Bead Caps one again, either at Artsmiths or at my studio. I’m also happy to do one in my studio on making your own toggle clasps: as soon as enough folks tell me they’re interested, I’ll email you about picking a date that will work for everyone.
And I plan to hold button-making sessions again when Indie Knit and Spin is on: we’ll be making the same sterling-silver-with-holes buttons on November 12 and, depending on interest, I’ll either repeat that one or lead a session on making shank-style buttons in bronze during their February 25, 2017, gathering. More on those, and other button-options, shortly.
I’m really excited: The Artsmiths of Pittsburgh has scheduled five of my metal clay workshops in July and August, and two of them are special multiple-day events so I’ll be teaching there for nine days in all during those two summer months!
Layered Silver on Wednesday, July 13, from 11 am to 3:30 pm
(Some day, I hope to arrange a lighting set-up that will give me a consistent color background regardless of the time of day when I take my photos … sigh! The shots above show the range from morning to afternoon to after dark at night; and, yes, all of them DID have the same three bright “daylight” bulbs trained on them in addition to the room’s ambient lighting.)
The length of the various sessions does give a hint about the complexity of the different projects, but everything I’ve scheduled at Artsmiths for this summer should be do-able even by complete beginners. The reason I set aside more time for some of them is so that I can welcome even first-time clayers into any of these classes! Folks with some prior experience with metal clay are likely to learn some new techniques, and may well be able to apply their existing knowledge to kick their designs up a notch.
If you follow the links above to get more information and/or sign up for a class, you may notice that the descriptions there often talk about making a pendant (and the corresponding photos show a range of possibilities for how you might construct yours piece). Anyone who’s taken my classes already knows that, while I often demonstrate a pendant design, I’m happy to support reasonable variations on any given project. By reasonable, I mean variations that are appropriate to the materials we will be using, appropriate to the skill level of the student wanting to make something else and, tied to both of those, appropriate in the sense of the amount of support you’ll need to succeed at your idea while also being “fair” to others who are trying to complete the specified project. But I want everyone to make a unique piece they are happy with, so there’s a lot of leeway in exactly what you might make! Get in touch with me directly if you have any questions about that aspect of my classes. Or, just come and make some gorgeous, unique, and (probably) reversible pendants!
Also, if you have time and material left once you’ve completed the main project, I’m always happy to have you make a little something else with what’s left, often a pair of earrings or a few small charms, or even embellishments that you might add to future projects. I’ll fire those along with the regular class pieces.
With my one-day classes, I fire pieces for you after class, tumble-polish them to an even, high shine, and return them to the site of the class in about a week. This time, I’m especially happy about the two- and four-day sessions, because I’ll fire everyone’s pieces before the last session listed and then, on that last day, we’ll review and practice a number of different finishing techniques, ones that often get overlooked in the one-day sessions (unless you schedule a time to come to my studio for a private or semi-private lesson on finishing).
I’m going to try to post a little something about each session in the coming week or two but, given how spotty my blog-posting has been recently, I figured I should get the overview up for you to consider all at once now…
ALSO / alternatively …
Is Mt. Lebanon too far for you? Would you prefer another date and time? I’d be happy to teach any of these classes in my studio (in Regent Square) or at another location (that you arrange). Let me know if you’d like to discuss any other possibilities!
Artsmiths of Pittsburgh
Hoyt Center for the Arts, New Castle, PA
Portage Hill Gallery, Westfield, NY
_Open Houses in my Studio
_Or…contact me about hosting a private party!
Also please notice (e.g., down the right side of my blog) that this session will be followed at NHAC by a simple, two-night introduction to making 
Convergent Series 