Cold Connections for Stone Setting 

Danaca Design Studio - July 14-15 in Seattle, & Peter's Valley Craft Center - July 20-24 in New Jersey

Introductory to Intermediate Level, Skill based workshop

This workshop will focus on the use of cold connections (rivets & tabs) as design choices for setting stones and found objects in jewelry objects. Participants will learn to make and intergrate tabs, 4 styles of rivets, pierced and bent finger prongs asa well as staples will be explored. Fragile found-object and alternative materials can be intergrated into jewelry design utilizing these flame-free methods. Faceted glass "gemstones," copper, aluminum, sheet, wire, and tube are provided in the kit, as well as setting burs. No Silver will be provided. Students are strongly encouraged to bring their own materials and found objects for inclusion in class.

 

Also @ Danaca Design Studio in August
Hinges & Clasps for Boxes & Lockets

Intermediate Level Class,
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM on Monday nights starting August 6th thru August 20th, 2012

Students will learn to make flat hinges that can then be adapted to work on lockets and small scale boxes. Soldering and cold connectiond will be integrated into a keepsake locket or box made during classes. Roll-printing metal for texture and design will be included during this class. Students will also learn the use of a Disk cutter and Matrix dies with the Hydraulic press to explore the different shapes and forms readily available for boxes and lockets. Short cuts and tips to make locket cases more quickly will be shared. Featured Photo (below) is of a tea diffuser made by one of my students using a flat hinge with a simple snap closure.

Please contact Danaca Design Studio or Peter's Valley Craft Center for registration and class costs.

Thanks and have a great summer!

I am so proud of my students who stepped up to the challenge of entering Seattle Metals Guild's,  jewelry/sculpture/hollowware, state wide, high school, competition know as "Passing The Torch." This first piece is a tea defuser, titled "Tea Nut" by senior Jose`Lins. Jose` etched a floral pattern onto a brass plate and then roll-printed that pattern onto copper to create the two halves of the tea defuser. The defuser snaps closed with a solid click - a sure sign of a well made friction clasp. From this photo the beautifully delicate hinge cannot be seen, but he also made the chain soldering each link with fine precision. In order to make the defuser functional (a high priority to Jose`) I took it to Prestige - a local Seattle jewelry manufacturer who I have a good relationship with going back to my days as the fine jewelry designer at Nordstrom, to see if it could be plated. When Deb (the owner of Prestige) saw the exceptionally well crafted piece, she asked if the young man who made it needed a job! Then as a reward for his hard work, Deb nickel plated the tea defuser at no cost. We will know next week if his hard work will earn him the reward of recognition from the Seattle Metals Guild. 

  My second student who stepped up to the challenge is Avery Williams, the maker of these playfull floral brooches titled "Telephlowers." Avery used a "score and fold" technique to add dimention to the petals of these copper "phlowers", while incorporating rare earth magnets epoxied into bezels to act as the findings for them. The intriguing title of these brooches comes from the recycled, phone cable, color coated, copper wires, which spiral out of delicately fabricated tube settings. What is so exciting and fun when working with a student like Avery is that once he has the technique he will get so caught up in the creative process that he will not let me know what he is working on until it is finished. These brooches were a wonderful suprise and I hope they also recieve recognition from the "Passing the Torch" judges, which they truly deserve.

Wish us luck!

On November 4, 2011 a show of my jewelry (and other art) opened at the Allied Arts Gallery in downtown Bellingham during the First Friday Gallery Walk. I unfortunately posted the wrong times for the opening on my Facebook page and I'm really sorry to have missed so many friends who came early, but thank you for coming and leaving your kind messages.

First Friday Gallery Walks in Bellingham have been a lot of fun for myself and my son during the time we were together in Bellingham. So, having my work as part of the First Friday Gallery Walk in the lovely space that Allied Arts occupies in downtown Bellingham is especially endearing to me.

The Allied Arts Gallery staff, Kelly and Katie, are such great, hard-working ladies that they made the display and the opening night really special. Since August, I have been teaching down in Renton, which is about a two-hour drive south. Like most control-freak metal artists, I was concerned about how the jewelry would be displayed. It was a great relief to know that these two bright young women (who are dedicated to the arts in Whatcom County) would be setting up my jewelry for me.

I was also luck enough to get my newest piece the Crystal Cross (seen below) back from Lapidary Journal/Jewelry Artist magazine in time for the show. I have been told this pendant will grace the cover of the December Issue.

Traffic in the gallery for the opening night was brisk with many people asking questions about my two fingered rings. At about seven o'clock Kelly asked if each of the artists whose work was on display could give a brief talk about their work. I was asked to speak first. Using my best teacher's voice I was able to tell the crowd of about 25 art patrons how the two finger rings were based on the concepts of the Tarot. For more information check Les Bijoux de Tarot on my Articles page and see my Gallery pages.

Since the bottom of the display case was kind of a difficult space to light, I made good use of my being included in the many 500 Series, Lark Books and used a couple of them to fill that area. I want to thank all my friends who did make it to the show (you know who you are), who texted me, and e-mailed their support. The show will be running until the end of November. If you want to stop by and get a personal tour of my jewelry I will be attending the gallery on November 26 from noon to five. If you missed me the first time - please stop in on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays!

What an extreemly satisfying adventure I just returned from! In the (seemingly oxymoronic) rural area of New Jersey known as Peter's Valley Craft Center, I taught a wax carving and lost wax casting class from June 10th to the 14th. Thunderstorms delayed my arrival and I got to my accommodations in the dead of night. Undaunted, I rose early to have breakfast and be given a ride to the Metals Studio. The first few days the class carved waxes with ease and quick assimilation of the information.                            Artist Fellow in Metals, Bifei Cao (the recent recipiant of the Educational Endowment Scholarship through SNAG) worked tirelessly to help make the workshop welcoming, fun, and productive. His creative presence was vastly welcomed! Studio Assistant, Jennifer Jordan Park, also was a dynamo of go-to, get-it-done, energy. She not only carved a couple of waxes, but also cleaned out the terribly over filled office room of the studio and painted it before the workshop was over!!! The first project was to carve a wax (subtractive process) and sprue it up for casting. Here is Laurie's wax.

Then we played around with additive processes and a brave, young, buck named Tim charmed us with his little skeleton dudes. Now, you maybe wondering why I would correlate this class with the Greek myth of Sisyphus or more exactly to Camus' philosophical essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" (published in 1942). Well - it would be in the philosophy of the absurd, which Camus introduced in his essay. This philosophy contends that the human mind's search for meaning, clarity, and unity in a godless existance is futile. Camus compares our existence with the struggle of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was doomed to push a boulder up a mountain side each day only to have it come rolling back down. In the comedy of errors which insued over the final 3 days of the workshop the philosophy of the absurd became my daily reality.

Top row left to right: Tim, Nanz, Bifei, Jennifer  Bottom row left to right: Michelle, Laurie, Kelly and Pat

To sum up the "rolling boulder of chaos" (Tim's critique) this class became I would start with worn out torch hoses leaking out the gas from 2 tanks, many sprue bases left with plaster in them for who knows how long and losing their elasticity, having to use 3 kilns to burn out the flasks and those kilns blowing the breakers for the whole facility (3 times) and crucibles slipping out of their tongs while pouring molten silver - no one was hurt. Finally, the rosebud tip for the oxygen/acetylene torch we were to use for the brass casting grain was dangerously backflashing. Staff members at Peter's Valley did what they could to help solve each problem. While this litany of troubles could have discouraged any workshop attendee or instructor, this great group of individuals persevered, laughing, sharing, and learning with each turn of events.

Proving Camus' assertion that "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's [or woman's] heart."        As evidenced by these great castings, "one must imagine Sisyphus happy!" Each student (after many trials) was able to cast twice and get their waxes into metal. I want to thank Jennifer Jordan Park for her spectacular commitment to Peter's Valley and it's Metals Studio! I want to thank Befei Cao for his unflagging good nature and positive problem solving attitude. But most of all I want to thank the wonderful, sharing, exciting, enthusiasm of the students in the workshop!

Great News! On top of all the hard work of putting together my board reports for the SNAG conference, writting syllabi and reflections for Masters of education classes, filming video for YouTube, and gather supplies for the WAX CARVING and LOST WAX CASTING class at Peter's Valley - I was selected to be a featured artist on Jewelry Observer. Click here to see the nice write-up! Very cool.

Here are some cast rings from my tenure as the Fine Jewelry Designer for Nordstrom. This style and many other wax carving techniques will be covered in the class at Peter's Valley. That's all for now, I still have about 5 - 1000 word papers to write before the quarter is over next week.

The week of May 23rd through May 30th has been a very busy one for me. On May 23rd my son (soon to graduate 8th grade) was nominated by his teachers for and Academic Achievement Award. Seen here receiving it from his writing teacher who called him a "warrior/priest." Little did he know that the name "Kenric" means: brave leader in Danish.

So, Kenric's Papa and I are not suprised that his teachers are discovering his awesome-ness!

Another awesome fellow is Harry Caldwell IV, from Seattle, WA. Harry is the only winner in the Professional Division of the Harmony Jewelry Design Competition! He was able to attend the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) most recent conference at the Westin Hotel downtown Seattle. Here he is posing next to the Harmony Jewelry Design Competition Winners display in the vendor room at the SNAG conference.  

Quite the cutie isn't he! Congratulations Harry! The SNAG conference was a wonderful event. There were over 900 attendees and the presentations during the conference were all exceptional. The Professional Developement Seminar was one of the stand-outs for extreemly helpful information about professional photography. The Pin-Swap was (as always) a lot of fun! Meeting and socializing with all my fellow metalsmiths was (as always) the best part of the conference.

And now for somethiing completely different: In the Masters of Education program I am in we had to write an "I'm From" poem to introduce ourselves to our class-mates. I liked the one I did so much that I thought I would share it with everyone. Hope you like it too!

“I’m from”

I am from the middle
Mid-century modernism
Middle America, middle class
A middle aged, middle child

From making crafts in Grandma’s kitchen
With sunshine through gingham curtains,

Fresh baked rhubarb crisp and home canned pickled beets
That were worth fighting for

I’m from my father being stationed in
Alaska during the Korean war
Training dogs and learning to ski
Then...his bring those loves home
And sharing them with me

From sneaking out of bed
When cousins slept over
To lay on our tummies under the dinning table
Watching as our parents listen to
George Carlin and Dave Brubeck
On Vinyl

I am from metal
Inside and out
Saw cut, cast, forged,
And sometimes totally hammered
Alchemical ascendence, iron to gold
Plain as dirt and twice as complex
 
 

During the first week of May, I taught two terrific jewelry workshops at the Mendocino Art Center. It was so beautiful and the students were especially great! 

The first class was Etching Without Acid and we were able to get some pretty amazing results.

Here the delightful young artist, Priya, puts some finishing touch-ups on the PnP resist.

After etching, I was able to offer the brass and nickel plates that were etched to the Swivel Locket class participants for roll-printing. This lead to even more really wonderful results This pattern was a rubber stamp which I stamped onto grid paper for regular spacing, then I photocopied the pattern to reduce and reverse it. Finally, the pattern was photocopied onto PnP paper and applied as resist to a nickel plate. The Etching without Acid process gave the pattern a good deep etch in about 2 hours, which was then roll-printed on to Karen's sterling silver. Karen Murad then hydraulically pressed the silver into the 1-inch triangular Matrix Die for these locket cases. Way to go - Karen!

Not to be out done - Cole Kickliter and Karen Carpenter worked together as "safety partners" on the hydraulic press.

Cole was able to create some lockets that truly imbody the voice of the maker.

Many other Swivel Lockets were made and solder free beads as well. All the patterns imprinted on the metal were from etched metal created in the Etching Without Acid workshop. The creative application of those patterns for lockets and beads was FUN to watch and participate in as an instructor! Thank you ALL!  

Just so you know - I will be returning to Mendocino Art Center in August of this year. August 1st-5th, I will be teaching my wildly popular Cold Connections for Stone Setting class and then from August 6th-8th I will be continuing the stone setting theme with the Custom Settings for Faceted Stones. I supply faceted stones from both of these classes and the inspiration for the projects in these workshops can be seen on the covers of the March 2010 and the January-February 2011 issues of Lapidary Journal/Jewelry Artist magazine. Please Join me in Mendocino, we are going to have fun!

 

I want to share my excitement over being asked to teach at the Mendocino Art Center this spring. I will be teaching two workshops which blend together really nicely and both can be taken by an absolute beginning student. The first 2-day workshop starts on April 30, a Saturday, is focused on the Etching Without Acid process. This process will etch nickel, copper, and brass without the use of toxic chemicals or hazardous acids of any kind, so, it is safe for use in a home studio or if you have pets. I will be demonstrating the use of several different resists as well as PnP (Press and Peel) Blue paper resist. The PnP Blue paper is wonderfully versatile and can capture quite fine detail, which this etching method is also capable of capturing. When this method is used on brass and nickel the etched plates can then be used as a texture plate to roll print onto Silver or for metal clay. Here are a few samples of what can be attained with this etching process.

This nice deep etch and lovely detail brings me to the second workshop I am teaching which starts on May 2, a Monday and runs until May 4, a Wednesday. This second workshop is my Swivel Locket workshop, which is based on the articles I have written for Jewelry Artist/Lapidary Journal magazine and Art Jewelry magazine.
The Swivel Locket workshop is also a workshop which a beginning student can take and will be able to complete the project while learning many useful skills. What makes this workshop so rewarding is that I have designed my instruction to be able to encompass many different skill levels.

More advanced students will be able to use the hydraulic press and my silhouette dies to make non-traditional shaped lockets,

while beginning students will be able to successfully make a more traditional round locket with decorative etched detail.  

  What has me so pleased with these workshops at the Mendocino Arts Center is the remarkably affordable tuitions they offer. I have made some brief comparisons over the Internet with other workshop providers and I feel the tuition that Mendocino Art Center offers their workshops at is a true value. I am very proud to be associated with the excellence of art and craft the Mendocino Art Center offers. I am sure these classes will provide an abundance of useful technical information for any metalsmith as well as a fun and rewarding experience for students at any level! There are a few seats still available in both workshops. See You There!

On February 19th and 20th, only 3 weeks after I underwent total hip replacement surgery, I taught a stone setting class at Danaca Design Studio in the University District of Seattle. The focus of the class was making "heads" for oval and cushion cut gemstones. A "head" is the finding with prongs that holds a gemstone. Sometimes these are also called "crowns." I wanted to show how to make a basket style head and a slot-in-slot style head for oval and cushion cut stones. I selected these two cuts of gemstones since it is very difficult to find pre-made heads for these two cuts. It was so much fun to show up for class to find so many students who I have not seen since last year!  I was able to find some great large (12mm X 18mm) faceted glass Ovals and Cushions to practice on. Zuzanna also brought some really creative slot-in-slot ring settings for large, faceted, rutilated, quartz gemstones.

Here is Zuzanna, Erin, and Josette looking pretty for the teacher.

 

And here is Missa working hard on the slot-in-slot style head. And wouldn't you know it just as I was going to start shooting pictures of the "heads" we were making in class the battery in my camera went dead! Arggg! It was a wonderful class and I want to thank all the students for being so kind to me as I hobbled around with my cane.
What is really great is that Mendocino Craft Center in California has booked me to teach this class for them along with my Cold Connection for Faceted Stone Setting on August 1st through the 8th, 2011. Plus, due to student request Dana at Danaca Design Studio has asked me to teach a Jewelry Repair/gold use/Custom Order Pricing class and a Jewelry Rendering one-day on July 22, 23, and 24, 2011. More info to come soon!

 

I wanted to put up yet another post regarding the jewelry making workshops I will be teaching this Spring. They say in Marketing that it takes a person 7 times to see or hear of an event or product before they recognize it or take action on it. Since I am just one person and have more limited time, energy, resourses, reach, and advantage then say a multi-national corporation - I have to just keep plugging away at it over and over again, til I can get someone to listen. Please check with the craft centers and Jewelry schools listed here for registration details. Check my Workshops page to get more info about what will be taught and what will be regurired for each workshop. Feel free to email me with additional questions. See you soon! Nanz