Friday, September 14, 2012

A Few New Pieces and Then Off To LA...

I have a couple of new cuffs and a pendant - and that will be it until I return to Hawaii.
Thursday I am off to LA for a 4 month job....we get a week off for Thanksgiving and 3 weeks off for Christmas and then will finish up in January.  I'll be taking my Keith Lobue's "Steel Beauty" dvd's with me - in case my art muse starts to pester me.....
I have so many things to finish up/ fix up/clean up   that i have procrastinated about doing and now time is running out fast!
Here are the cuffs.   Boring boring boring...I am so tired of then -and I still have about 8 unfinished ones on the bench!
this one is made with iridescent beetle wings
  I had been wanting to make a bird skull for a long time.  I tried to cast my own chicken head, but it was very fragile with a lot of hollows... when i tried to close up some of the holey parts ... it broke.....
... then  i went to cast the mold from the broken chicken skull -but the bones got stuck in the silicone.  Oh well...
...so this skull was hand sculpted with bronze clay - one of a kind - no mold!



Bronze Skull 1 1/4" long, Bronze bail, Bronze clasp.  Chain is Vintage patinaed brass, 24"
I haven't decided whether to put them in my etsy shop or just drop them off at the gallery.....

Let me know if you'll be in LA when I am - maybe we can meet up!

Friday, September 07, 2012

Hawaii Craftsmen Exhibit



A few weeks ago I entered my very first juried show, "Hawaii Craftsmen 45th Annual Statewide Juried Exhibition", with chosen pieces to be exhibited in Honolulu at the Honolulu Museum Art School Gallery. 3 of my pieces were chosen  - my bullet and barbed wire necklace and earrings,

 and my "clarity" eyeball pendant.  Today, on their facebook site, pictures were posted from the exhibit.  I had 5 (yes FIVE) pictures of my work posted......woohoo!
Click HERE to view the entire exhibit or scroll down, down, down to view my art (numbers 210,211,212,213,214)  or click  HERE
Exhibit runs thru September 20th.

Monday, July 23, 2012

NEW POST...finally.


I really am bad at blogging....i know i should post more often but i hate posting drivel about myself...i haven't done much creating - i am still cleaning /reorganizing my studio....and my muse is full of ideas - but not much motivation.  Lots of yard work to be done.....summer makes the palm fronds drop like fall leaves....
the fronds have to be loaded into my truck and taken to the dump for recycling....what a pain!...
and then we have to mow...all THIS....about every ten days....


the mango trees are full of mangos - should be ripe by august - too bad they are growing on branches 30 feet up....

I intended to post when i visited my dad and sister Lori in San Jose - My sister Gina came to visit too, with her family........
Me, Lori, and my Dad
My sisters, brother in law, nieces, nephew, grand niece, grand nephew, and my dad.

while there, my sister Gina and I (and her family, too!) visited the House on Bird Avenue, where we grew up.  My parents sold the house over 30 years ago....it was a huge 6,500 sq ft Spanish house on 2 acres.
The new owners subdivided it, built 5 houses in the back and opened them out to the street behind the house.  They also took our detached 3 car garage and relocated it (the city wouldn't let them tear it down), took out our 40 foot pool and tore down the 3 bedroom/family room addition my father had added to the house.  It was such a great house....lots of laughter and children and joy! 
This is how I remember it:
and this is what it is like now...

This is the front of the house.  The new owners put up the ugly black wrought iron fence  We  used to play "statues"on the low white fence.
all of these houses are built in what we called our "2nd back yard"...it was an acre behind the garage , with peach , almond, walnut, persimmon apricot trees....and dafodils.   My grandfather planted a huge garden here every spring.....potatoes, artichokes, tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, corn, beans.......
If you walk to the left around the new cul de sac, you come to this ...

this is what is left of the back of the house..........the white fence is new, it's where the garage used to be, (it was on the same plane  and you can see the spanish stucco house beyond the gate.  the single story spanish structure on the right of the house is where they moved the garage.  It used to be parallel to the house, and now it is at a 45 degree angle to it.
Here's a closer look

This is a pic of the back of the house and the garage as it is now, taken by looking over the fence.  To the right of the house is where the addition was, and behind the garage is where the pool used to be, and a huge deck, and a quince, cherry plum, loquat and mulberry and orange... trees.    The new owners cut them all down.  They did keep the 100 foot redwoods and pines.   
 VERY SAD.
moving on:
 i started a post about the "before" of my studio overhaul - but i was too embarrassed by the pics of the chaos.

EEEK!  what a mess!  (I am happy to report however, that my overhaul is almost complete....but not quite...)
While cleaning and sorting and reorganizing, I was UNpleasantly surprised to discover how many books of the SAME TITLE I had.  Sheesh..i didn't even know i had read them twice.
I have several new projects in various states of completion- and some cool new equipment....
a swanstrom disc cutter.....a collection of nail art metal discs for etching with nail polish....a spitfire micro torch...silver paste solder with built in flux....
but I haven't really been making any art projects.
I have, however, been drawing every evening with new Ahab Noodler fountain pens - my generous DH bought me six (yes, 6...so they can have different colored inks!)....

Here are some of my doodles....












Thursday, May 24, 2012

what i've been up to...

I have been doing a lot of etching lately, and the etchant is very hard to get here on the island.  Sometimes Radio Shack has it, and usually they do not! I had been looking into getting Sheri haab's etchant system, which operates on salt and a battery.  Lance looked into it and decided he could make me a reliable etching  unit that did not need harsh chemicals.  He got the idea from this:  http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Electro-Etch-a-Solid-Metal-Plaque/  I have read other electro etching descriptions that say salt does not result in good etches - that you should use copper sulfate crystals for copper , etc, - but i got excellent results on the steel and good results on copper too.
So the picture below is the first resulting set up. (Since then, he has permanently attached bolts that I can hook the electrodes to)
The set up is pretty simple.  You need a 12 volt battery with an anode connector and a diode connector..  Attach one connector to a wire that is then clipped to  a piece of steel .  Connect the opposite side to a wire which is then attached to the piece of steel or copper or brass you wish to etch.  You can't use staz-on or sharpies to create your design because the electified salt will eat it off.  You have to use deco paint markers, nail polish or some type of enamel paint.....vinyl sticky paper or tape works too....so this aspect is more difficult than using the radio shack etchant.
You put water in your container and then saturate it with salt.  I used about 1 1/2 cups salt (5 lb bag from costco for $5!) disolved in about an inch and a half of water in a rubbermaid 15x10 inch container. Lance used an adjustable current 12v battery charger for the power source.  once everything was connected I plugged in the battery.... 
VOILA!  tiny bubbles started coming off the metal electrode plate. (Small piece of metal on the right)
CU of bubbles coming off
Battery charger with red and black connectors... notice the red wires connected to the black and red clips.....the new version now has a black wire connected to the black connector and a red wire attached to the red connector - this way i won't mix them up and connect the wrong ends together......
I put the etchant outside and left the battery charger inside the shop door.  This kept the fumes out of the shop and off of me, but also kept the battery recharger safe from unexpected rain.
This was my first piece.....  stainless steel etched for 30 minutes...design was with nail polish smeared with a pin
Stainless steel that was painted both sides with primer, and then the design was created by scratching of the paint with an awl and an electric engraver
Below is the same cuff (it is HUGE - more for a very large wrist or an upper arm!)  I tumbled it which made the engraved part much smoother, and then Lance colored it with a heat patina...the colors are gorgeous.
I'm hoping all the iridescent colors stay, it being stainless steel and all....
This is a copper pipe marked into rings.  Then I engraved into those covered with primer, and I deco penned the rest.  I forgot to take a pic of them, but they turned out very nice - especially after being tumbled...
...and  this is a a teeny solid bronze troll i finally finished.  It has red swarovski crystal eyes.

 My latest cuff.  Etched (regular acid etching) with celtic designs, formfolded, then primitive bezels set with beetle wings.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKY!

he still loves cars...
 30 years ago today, at 5:36 am my baby boy was born.  Happy, Happy birthday Skylar!  Always smiling, easy going...NAUGHTY!....All grown up now and a talented  actor, singer, composer and artist.    You are a special joy and I am very honored and blessed to have been chosen by you to be your mom!


Saturday, May 12, 2012

ALMOST READY TO MOVE ON....

I finished a few more bracelets...  you are probably about as sick of seeing them as i am of making them....but I am determined to finish the ones I have started....and a few more i have promised to others...then i will be doing a MAJOR refurbishing of my shop.  I just can't stand it anymore....
meanwhile....
I have been experimenting with new ways to add color that will last.  Not so much on silver, but on the copper which darkens as it ages no matter what i coat it with.  This round I am coating the copper cuffs  with ice resin.
so time will tell!

this one started out as a spec commission cuff from a sterling silver spoon with brass snakes and a glass eyeball  (see above) - but the finished spoon was unbalanced and wouldn't stay straight on the wrist, so I cut the spoon handle off and mounted the eye and snakes on silver focal on a copper cuff.  I still have to make the spec commission cuff, and i will be using 2 spoon handles soldered to the spoon bowl so it will fit better.  The snakes and the eye mount will be made from bronze clay....
lots of deep etching
repurposed glass eyeball with snakes on sterling silver spoon bowl

The next one is formfolded, but not etched.  I'm calling it a volcano cuff, because the red folds made a lovely mountain.  I wanted flowing lava but everything i pretested looked tacky and too busy, so i decided to leave it plain.
Colored with vitreous enamel, ice resin
some of the enamel is iridescent
...and this is the finished etched and formfolded copper leaf with pearl cuff.  The pearl is actually peach colored- the pic looks off white for some reason.
 ...and one more sea horse copper cuff ......
Cuff and seahorse are both colored with vitreous enamel and mica...it makes a hard  and durable colored surface.
All of the new copper cuffs are bigger than the ones I made before- 7"- 8 " around...but I like them better looser.  
Today i filled some iridescent green and blue beetle wings with resin.  When set up, i will mount the wings in copper bezels and see how they look on a copper cuff.  No pics of that yet.  The copper cuff part is etched with celtic symbols.  It was made for a friend, and was to have a turquoise stone on it, but it turned out too wide for her...so i will be making  a new celtic copper cuff....
....and that will be the last one..............
whew!
I am soooo ready to move on!