Breathe Scent Box (2011)
Copper, fine silver, sterling silver
Constructed, coiled, woven, cold-joined
H: 2.0 cm x W: 2.6 cm x D: 2.96 cm

Alright… I’m back… sort of…

I got hit with a perfect storm of personal and professional chaos in May, and my weekly postings to YOJ were the casualty. *sigh*

This piece, created for the upcoming HSTA Faculty Exhibition, is the only wire my hands have touched in the last month. It’s one of those pieces that has had to lend itself to being picked up and put down frequently while I deal with other pressures.

This year’s theme is “Breathe”. Years ago, during a conversation with a friend about being overworked and looking forward to a time when we’d be able to come up for air, I deadpanned “Breathing is overrated,” and then quipped about how that would make a really good epitaph for my headstone. The comment laid us both completely flat with laughter.

She reminded me of the conversation a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about all the “stuff” going on in our lives. This time she made the observation that it just seems to be part of my nature to throw myself into lots of projects at the same time. It’s true. I thrive on deadlines. However I’ve noticed a change in the last year or so in how I’m reacting: I seem to have developed insomnia. I regularly wake up after only a few hours of sleep, unable to shut off my brain, which spins with thoughts of all the things I need to get done.

I’ve come to realize that I do, in fact, need to breathe and relax.

This insight was reinforced as I was transcribing an interview I did with Dee Fontans, who teaches in the Jewellery Metals Program at Alberta College of Art & Design. We talked about the need to find balance between work and play, about re-energizing and feeding the muse. It’s something she struggles with as much as anyone else. ¹

So, I’ve recently started making a more conscientious effort to slow down, go for bike rides, and take notice of Spring. And breathe.

With the lilac and lavender in my front yard coming into bloom, giving off a wonderful perfume, my thoughts focused on how to carry that scent with me. I continue to be obsessed with containers, so I decided I would make a little box for holding a sachet of herbs or perfumed salts. Lavender, in particular, is supposed to be good for helping with relaxation and sleep.

One thing I wanted to experiment with was patterning. Years ago when I visited the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, I was really impressed with the patterns the inhabitants carved and painted onto their pottery. Likewise, I was struck by the patterning on the First Nations baskets I saw in BC. I was able to incorporate a triangular pattern on the rim of the bottom half through a structural change in the coiling of the basket. Because I knew it was going to spin while being worn, I also added decorative elements on the base and top. So there’s lots going on.

Of course, now that this piece is done, I have ideas for a half dozen other pieces, but those will have to wait.

I still have to catch my breath.

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The Haliburton School of The Arts Faculty Exhibition 2011 will take place from July 2 to August 5, 2011 at the Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, 23 York St., Haliburton, Ontario. Faculty will participate in a weekly meet & greet at the gallery on Tuesdays from 4:30-6:00 p.m.
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Registration for Wire Jewellery at Haliburton School of the Arts has begun!

Nestled in the Haliburton Highlands in the heart of Ontario’s Cottage Country, the Haliburton School of the Arts offers week long and weekend courses in everything from painting to glassblowing to blacksmithing.  I’m pleased to be returning to HSTA for the week of August 1-5  to teach wire jewellery!  Come join me for a week of fun and fabulous jewelry-making!  You’ll make earrings, chains, bracelets and pendants in a relaxed and enjoyable learning environment.

Please see my Classes page for more information.

A former boss made the comment to me once that we are all dependent on the products of mining:  “If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined,” he said.  While this statement could almost be considered a universal truth, it is particularly true for jewelers.

I wanted to show a piece through various stages of its development – the passage from ore to granule, from granule to ingot, from ingot to wire, from wire to jewelry.

Having attended a number of fine craft exhibitions during my time with The Metal Arts Guild of Canada, one thing that has always struck me is how jewellers have dealt with the issue of effectively displaying something so small.

The first MAG show I attended, Behind Glass (2000), directly challenged the problem by asking everyone to display their pieces in shadow boxes.  The pieces I remember were a silhouette of a person – a brooch in silver – attached to a picture of a beach, to give the illusion of it standing at the water’s edge.  Another entry was a ring topped by a tiny sewing machine displayed in front of a old photograph of the artist’s grandmother, who loved to sew.

At the most recent exhibition, MAGC 2067:  Crafting the Future, several of the artists included supplementary props with their pieces.  Anne Lumsden’s piece was displayed over a bed of zebra mussel shells.  Rosalyn Woo’s award winning brooch, “Dear Linda” was envisioned as a birthday gift for its fictitious namesake, and included the “letter” written by the “maker”, Jacob.  Some might argue that the props detracted from the work – turning them into sculpture rather than jewelry – but for me, it added visual interest and helped to put the pieces into the context of the scenarios they were made to represent.

So, for this year’s HSTA Faculty Exhibition, I decided to approach my submission as jewelry cum sculpture.  The pinnacle of the Passage – and the piece that took the longest to construct – is the torus bangle.  Despite my ravings last year after a previous attempt at a torus, the thought of trying again appealed to me.

My six year old is currently obsessed with all things LEGO and Star Wars, so when I got the tube to the final length (18″/45 cm) I decided to have a little fun, and took a picture of myself in my best Jedi Princess Warrior pose.
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My wonderful handyman husband whipped up a wooden drawplate with large holes for me.  (He loves it when I give him an excuse to buy tools!)  After drawing, the length of the tube was over 40″ (101 cm). The reason I made it that long was to give me extra material in case I had to try again.

The technique for making a seamless join is called kitchener stitching.  It’s a common knitting technique for adding pockets to sweaters, or fingers to mittens, etc.  It’s tricky to do in wire, because the wire work hardens very quickly and the join tends to have a bit of a bulge.

I made two attempts at tori before finally working out an effective way of keeping the seam from being visible.

The casting grain and ingots gave me an opportunity to feed my own tool fetish:  I now have a new ingot mold! *grin*

The silver ore came from a vendor at the Bancroft Gemboree last year.  Unfortunately, no locality info was included with the specimen, so I don’t know if the source is a Canadian mine.

The mahogany display blocks play an integral role in delineating the passage through the stages.

I am grateful to be able to work with metal and to make wearable art, and so my submission to the HSTA Faculty Exhibition is really about paying homage.

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Passage:  From Ore to Jewelry (2010)
Silver ore, slabbed
Grains, 18.43 g, sterling silver, cast
Ingot, sterling silver, cast, 6.844 g
Ingot, sterling silver, cast, forged, drawn, 7.992 g
Torus, sterling silver, viking knit, kitchener stitching, 1.3 cm tube, 8.5 cm OD
Displays, mahogany wood, danish oil finish, various sizes

Every piece of jewelry is the end of a journey.  The metal forms as ore deep underground.  It is mined, extracted and formed into granules, then melted and cast into ingots.  The ingots are compressed and made into a usable shape.  In this case, it was drawn into wire, then knitted into a torus.

We see and admire only the final form, and acknowledge only the artist whose name is attached to it; yet the piece has been touched by many hands.  I wanted to recognize and thank those who labour behind the scenes to bring my jewelry into being.

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PASSAGE: HSTA Faculty Exhibition
Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre
23 York Street
Haliburton, Ontario, K0M 1S0
June 30 – July 30, 2009
www. railsendgallery.com

Registration for my classes at Haliburton School of the Arts is now open!

I’m very excited to be heading back for my third year teaching at Haliburton!  I will be teaching two classes, Wire Jewellery I (August 2-6, 2010) and Wire Jewellery II (August 9-13, 2010).

The school is nestled in the heart of Ontario’s Cottage Country near the shores of Head Lake.  Come for a peaceful and relaxing week, and have fun making jewellery!

See my classes page for course descriptions and a link to register!

Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting the work produced by my students in Wire Jewellery 1 and 2, but for this week’s YOJ entry, I’m posting my teaching sample of the AN Cab Bangle.  This project ended up being quite challenging for the students and took an entire day for the class to complete.  That was something I hadn’t anticipated, so there’s going to be a scheduling adjustment for next year’s class.  What really impressed me was that everyone showed a lot of persistence in doing the project, which had a few tricky steps in it.  One lady, Janice, was so determined to do it – despite how much it was frustrating her – that she refused any suggestion by me to modify it to something simpler.  That caused me to joke that she was channeling her inner German:  “I VILL complete zis bracelet!”  The class cracked up laughing.

The next day, Janice came to class proudly showing off the bracelet, which she had attempted again on her own at home.  She said that she’d found the instructions very clear and easy to follow.  She had every right to be proud:  her bracelet had turned out beautifully!

I’ve been in Haliburton for the last week teaching the Wire Jewellery course, so this week’s entry is one of the projects made during the week.  This is the “freeform” bangle we made on Thursday.

Week 2 and Wire Jewellery II start tomorrow.  Four of the ladies from last year have signed up again, and one from last week is in the class as well.  So there are going to be lots of familiar faces!

I’ll write more about the classes after next week when I’m home again.

Although it’s supposed to be a calming stone, I’ve always found bloodstone to have a kind of overpowering “in-your-face” energy that’s difficult to deal with.  For the last few weeks, though, I’ve been wearing it while working on my tutorials, and it’s been helpful for keeping my energy levels up and focused.  I love the red spotting on this cab, and the slight yellow cloud overlaying the green.  This was part of a group of cabs I bought when The Nautilus closed 10 years ago.  The Nautilus was *the* place in Toronto to buy rockhounding and lapidary supplies.  Located in the far, far east of the city, I remember it taking an obscenely long time to get there on city transit from where I lived in Little India.  But what a treasure trove!  The owner, Roy MacLeod, was a passionate rockhound and filled his store with all the bits and bobs needed to work with and admire rocks.  Sadly, Roy didn’t live to see the millennium, and the closing of his store left a void that still hasn’t been filled.

In designing the Level II course for Haliburton, I was thinking about what skills would be most useful for the students to learn.  In Level I, they learn the basics:  working with single wires, developing dexterity with tools, etc.  There are very few multi-wire projects.  In Level II all but two of the projects are multi-wire pieces, and the students have to deal with doing steps early on that don’t actually come into full use until much later in the construction. Wire control becomes very important.

One of the things Level II focuses on is settings:  half of the projects deal with some form of stone setting.

I think this is by far the most complex of the projects I’ll be teaching.  Hopefully by the time we get to this point in the course, the students will have enough confidence to tackle it.  If not, it’s easily adapted to something simpler.  I’ll let them decide how energetic they want to be.

This tutorial will be available for purchase and download off my website after I get back from Haliburton.  I’ll post the link when it’s up, along with more photos.

I’m running a bit behind with my YOJ postings, but I have been keeping up with doing the pieces.  My focus has been on preparing for my class, which starts 9 days from today!  This netted pendant is one of the projects for the class.

The good news is that I will get all of the tutorials done.  The bad news is that I have no idea if my wire is going to arrive in time!

Getting the supplies for these classes has really tested my patience. Back when I worked in the mining industry, the gentleman I worked for always reminded me to prepare for Murphy’s Law.  I’ve been reminded of that over and over in the last few weeks…

I do my best to support Canadian companies, partly because I believe in buying locally, but also because that way I don’t have to deal with the extra hassle of shipping, customs, duties and fluctuating exchange rates.

But some suppliers really make it a pain in the ass to deal with them.

Case in point:  John Bead, a trade-only wholesaler and beader’s heaven.  They would be an ideal Canadian supplier if they actually had the things I needed IN STOCK!!!  Three weeks ago I went to JB – my first visit in years – and I was reminded why I don’t bother to shop there unless I absolutely have to.  The warehouse is a frustrating jumble of aisles and bins.  Just finding things is the first challenge.  Then the flat nose pliers I wanted were out of stock.  I had to settle for a cheaper, lighter weight version.  The round nose pliers – every style – were out of stock.  The only pliers they did have in stock were their own house brand – at $20 a pop.  They didn’t have enough spools of 26 gauge copper wire, so I had to buy half of them in brass.  No 1.5 mm antique copper chain in stock.  Barely any 2 mm copper beads in stock.  This is a wholesaler, remember, with several thousand sq. feet of showroom space…

*If* they had had the pliers, I would have been well over their minimum purchase requirement.  As it was, I ended up having to visit their Swarovski room and buy a bunch of Swarovski crystals I didn’t really want or need to make up the difference.  And even there, the stock on some of the common colours was patheticly low!

So, if you’re in Canada, looking for wholesale Miyuki, Swarovski or Preciosa, John Bead is a go-to supplier if you can meet their minimum.  As for me, I think next year I’ll deal with the shipping costs, and customs charges, and just order from Rio Grande…

And increase the cost of the kit…I’m dealing with a very tight budget here, so that makes sourcing reasonably priced supplies problematic.

Thankfully, I found another supplier for the round nose pliers – Habsons Jeweller Supplies in Vancouver.  They had the quantity I needed in stock, and they had them packed and shipped the day after I ordered them.  This is the second time they’ve come through for me on a hard-to-find item.  Last year I bought a half dozen wooden ring mandrels from them – impossible to find elsewhere in Canada, but they had them.  I love these guys.  Great customer service.  Actually, maybe I’ll order from them first next year…

Next was the still-ongoing misadventure with the copper wire.

There are NO suppliers of shaped copper wire in Canada.  So, ordering from the US is required.

I placed my order in mid-June, with expected delivery in 10 business days.  The time came and went, and when I followed up this last week, I found out the supplier missed something on the paperwork.  The package had been returned and had sat in their warehouse for a week before being sent out again.  So now I’m sitting here hoping the package will arrive in the next few days.  If it’s not here by Tuesday, I have to re-order the whole lot (US$900+), and have it sent up here by express overnight courier.  Cost of the courier:  US$102.  *gloom*  And I have to re-source the cabochons because I cleaned them out of their 22×30 mm with my last order.   And then I’ll have two complete sets of the wire I need for the classes once the other order finally does arrive.  The owner is doing her best to be helpful, even taking time out of her vacation to deal with this for me.

In the meantime, I’m beavering away, working on tutorials, putting together what I can of the kits, and trying not to stress out…

A little over a year ago, Perri Jackson sent me Strange Attractor, a stunning wire bead she’d made as a thank you gift for helping her with a tutorial.  Looking at it, I wondered how the structural coiling technique she used could be adapted to something other than a bead.  Something like a locket maybe… It got me puzzling…

An opportunity to experiment came in the form of a call for entry from Rails End Gallery.  Every year the gallery hosts a show featuring work by the faculty of the Haliburton School of the Arts.  This year, the theme is “Vessel”.

Originally, I had wanted to make the vessel to house this heart, but screwed up – err… made a Design Choice that ended up creating a much larger container than intended. The original design would have hung horizontally, with the chain running through the centre.  With this one, the design lends itself better to a vertical orientation.

This week when I was talking to Perri, I mentioned that I was working on a locket-type piece for the show.  She asked what it looked like.  “Sort of like a Shivalingam,” I said.

So… the piece is heading out the door today to get sent up to Haliburton.  There is, of course, the obligatory Artist Statement that goes with it:

In Hinduism, the lingam is a symbol of Shiva. Worn in a similar fashion as a Christian cross, the intent is to draw the blessings of the Higher Power to the wearer. Using structural coiling and weaving techniques developed by Perri Jackson, I decided to interpret this symbol as a pomander worn over the solar plexus. It allows the wearer to carry a prayer or fresh flowers within: a reminder to always recognize the Source of all life’s gifts.

VESSEL: HSTA Faculty Exhibition
Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre
23 York Street
Haliburton, Ontario, K0M 1S0
June 30 – July 30, 2009
www. railsendgallery.com

More photos: