Time Flies

I can't believe it's already almost October!  So many things that seemed so far away have come and gone:  Our busy season at the museum, my metal clay adventure/vacation (at which I learned that four days isn't nearly enough time to spend working on clay with friends) and the beginning of school (I can't believe my youngest is a senior this year), among them.

I have been working furiously to get some pieces made and sent to Archipelago after my biggest month of sales there (yay).  Much of it is on my bench waiting to be finished but I do have a few small things left to fire.

Before time gets away from me again, I wanted to list what is coming up for me this fall as far as shows and classes go.  At the beginning of this year, because of my new job, I decided to only do two shows.  The first was the Fourth of July and it was very successful.  

The other will be the Gifted Hand Show on Friday, November 9 (11:00 to 7:00) and Saturday, November 10 (9:00 to 4:00) at the Ramada Inn in Ellsworth.  This is always an awesome show.  Christina Heiniger does a wonderful job of assembling a wide variety of very gifted artisans and I am honored to be among them again this year.  If you have never been, it is definitely worth a look and a great place to do Christmas shopping.

I have three metal clay classes scheduled this fall through RSU 24 Adult Ed.  They will all be held at my studio at 130 Oak Street, Suite 1, Ellsworth.



Beginner's PMC:  Saturday, October 13, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Class Fee:  $50; Suppies Fee:  $50 payable to me at the first class

You will learn about the different types of PMC as well as the basics of working with it by making a necklace and earring set.  Bring a bag lunch.




PMC Peekaboo Pendant:  Saturday, November 17, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Class Fee:  $50; Supplies Fee:  $50 payable to me at the first class

This is an intermediate level class and some PMC experience class is necessary.  You will make a hollow lentil shaped bead with a "peekaboo" hole in which a small stone or bead shows through.  This is a piece made in several steps, which are demonstrated and explained.  You will learn about other hollow forms as well and the skills learned in this class can be used for many types of projects.  The pendant pictured is the first Peekaboo pendant I made, while I was at Haystack.  I still wear it and it never fails to get compliments.  Bring a bag lunch.

PMC:  Beyond the Basics, Saturdays, December 1 and 8, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Class Fee:  $100; Supplies Fee:  $60, payable to me at the first class

For those who have worked in PMC and would like to expand their skills, this class will cover making your own textures (mold making, photopolymer plates and scratch foam), setting fireable stones and 3D construction.  This will be a very fast moving class and basic metal clay skills are necessary.  Students should bring a bag lunch.


 
The RSU is offering these classes at incredible prices.  To sign up for these classes, contact RSU 24 Adult Ed by clicking this link or by calling 667-6499.  Feel free to contact me at info@willowandme.com for more information about them.

Coming up very soon (unless time gets away from me again) will be photos of my most recent work and some new items in my Etsy shop.

I'm in Metal Clay Artist Magazine!

I just got my digital copy of Metal Clay Artist Magazine and I'm in it!  I had been told by a fellow Metal Clay Head that I was, but it's nice to actually see it.

My Luna Moth Pendant is on Page 32 in the Gallery Section, which is devoted to some of the people who entered pieces into the magazine's Metal Clay Plus contest.  I am honored to have made the cut to have my picture in the magazine (there were about 200 entries, I guess) and to be alongside some very well-known and talented artists. 

I was in the magazine once before with my Peekaboo Pendant about this time last year.  It was in the second anniversary edition of the magazine and the Luna Moth is in the third anniversary edition.  Plus, both of them were made at workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. 

Unfortunately, there are no metal workshops at Haystack this year, but I am excited to be getting together during that same week with three other Haystack friends.  We are going to work on clay at the home and studio of one of the lovely ladies I met my first year (and again last year) near Toronto.  I am so excited and hope that I will be as inspired as I was at Haystack.  I will be traveling with a good friend I also met in my first year, Erin.  With my new job, I have had less time to work on clay so I doubly pleased to have a few days to do nothing but.

The Luna Moth Pendant in the magazine was made at last year's workshop with Patrik Kusek.  He is an awesome and inspiring teacher and I learned so much from him.  Some of it was little "Why didn't I think of that?" things and I think I told him I loved him more than once.  I felt a bit like a groupie with him and Lisa Cain.

We did a lot of work with found objects and I wrote a blog post about it with photos of my pieces. 

Reverse of the Luna Moth Pendant

The Dreaded Threaded Vessel Challenge

Once every three months, my Etsy Metal Clay Heads team holds a challenge.  I haven't entered many of them, for various reasons, but decided to this time around.   The challenges have two parts:  a style part and a technical part.  This challenge called for some sort of a vessel with a threaded top with a 1920s-1930s look.

I've done threaded pieces before with success, so I thought this would be a great challenge for me to do.  As practice for working towards the Metal Clay Master's Registry, I made a threaded vessel a couple of years ago, and I was quite happy with it.

So I figured the challenge wouldn't be too hard, but I wasn't counting on the unpredictability of bronze clay.   I didn't want to make a round piece and drew out a texture on scratch foam for the sides that had an Art Deco feel.  I planned on a four-sided piece.

But, I also didn't plan on how difficult it would be to construct a four sided piece around a round thread.  I wanted the threads to be set on the inside of the bottle and have the stopper screw down into it, which is the exact opposite of what most bottles are, I realized after looking at many.

The first piece looked pretty good before I fired it but I fired it on its side and it warped.  I also fired the stopper separate from the bottle, which was the same technique I used for the silver vessel.  Unfortunately, once the bottle warped, there was no way I could get the stopper in and it was too hard to bend it back into shape.

So back to the drawing board I went, this time with a bit of knowledge under my belt.  This time I chose copper clay instead of bronze.  I've had better luck with it.  I constructed the piece a bit differently as well.  It's still four-sided with the same design, but I added upside down triangles to fill in the gaps instead of untextured clay.  I also took the bottom tips of the design to decorate the top. Lastly, I fired the stopper in place this time, after having coated it with paper clay powder.

In the first firing, the bottle sintered and the top seemed okay, but when I went to unscrew it, it simply came off and left the threaded part inside the bottle.  Keeping my fingers crossed, I re-attached the top to the part that was still in the bottle with some thick slip and refired.  This time it worked and the top stayed together when I removed it.  It still didn't feel fully sintered in the middle (I made it hollow) so I fired just the top one more time.

I'm pleased to say it worked and I finally have a piece that is fully sintered and doesn't look too bad.  It's just under an inch an a half tall and about a half-inch wide.

You can find a few more pictures of it, as well as pictures of it before it was fired here.

Even taking the pictures was a challenge.  I must have taken well over 300 pictures and managed to winnow them down to less than a dozen that were clear enough to use.  And the bottle looks much more like bronze than copper in the pictures but nothing I have tried seems to get the color true.  I guess there is a reason why they are called challenges.