Blog Posting on a Plane

I love that I can leave blog posts to publish while I'm away. As this post becomes available, I'll be winging across the Atlantic to London, incommunicado. I hope that I'll be able to blog while I'm there, but you never know.

This is the bead I bought from Kristina Logan, front and back. I love that it is different on the two sides.



As much as I love the beads and jewelry I collect from my favorite artists, I enjoy inspecting their clever packaging almost as much.

This is Kristina's package on the outside.

She encloses the bead in a small plastic bag (not a zip-lock), tucks the end into the folded over edge of this printed paper, staples, then creases and tucks the other end in to enclose the bead. How elegant, simple, easy to travel with, and inexpensive is that?!?!

Dotting and Crossing My Eyes

Dots all day are enough to make one cross-eyed! I made a medium sized disc covered with dots, not perfectly round or evenly dotted, but definitely the best fine detail raking I've ever done. The photos above show Kristina making her giant disc bead. You can see the detailed raked dots around the side.


This photo is fun. It shows all the class beads made after Kristina's big disc bead demo, with her bead lying flat on the right side. Our class was talented!

The big bicone project seemed like a breeze to me, since that's a size and shape that I make routinely. I did use Kristina's method for building it, which is much different than mine, but then I diverged and played with stringer more, drawing spirals and leaves rather than Kristina's lines and ladders. That bead stayed in the kiln and needs to be collected, so I'll post it after I return from Europe.


The silver coring demonstration had a few little tidbits of information that will be useful in the future, although I'd rather use my Jim Moore press than do it by hand. I am looking forward to Kristina returning next year to do a metal work class, where we will bring our own beads and learn to set them as rings like these or other jewelry.


Here are Kristina's beads from yesterday, three on the left that we made in class and her big Fireflies demo bead.


These are my corresponding beads, including the one from the second morning. Comparing the two makes it obvious how detailed, precise and tiny the dots are on Kristina's beads. Good thing I'm not a dot bead person, or I'd feel the need to improve! As it is, I'm relieved to think I did that well. ;-)

You never know when one of those little differences will be the perfect solution for some future, so I really enjoyed adding to my bag of tricks.

I'm most excited about Kristina's admonition to me to go order a bunch of wax and carving tools to carve bird rings and other goodies, to then have cast in sterling or bronze. What a mind boggling idea!! Bird rings or cuffs, anyone?

Jealousy alert! I got to hold these class, oft published pieces in my hands and pore over the perfection. I hope some of that rubs off on me!

Dotty about Kristina Logan

Kristina Logan is the Queen of Dots. Her precision is legendary. The tales of dots as meditation precede her arrival. Her silver work combined with dotted glass is classic, viewed in the pages of fine craft magazines and in high end craft shows.


I am taking two days of class filled with dots. Yesterday we learned to make dots with fat rods rather than the stringers most teachers advocate. Even close to the mandrel, tiny dots off the tip of a full-sized rod were the assignment.

Another drill was forty quick spacer beads, with the goal a perfect bead on one stroke, no adjusting allowed. I managed two good ones, I think. Then we made large disc beads, covered with more dots.

Stacked dots, raked dots, transparent over opaque, raised dots, flush dots, masked dots. I feel completely dotty.

Etsy Treasury

My hummer pendant is in an Etsy Treasury of bird themed treasures, selected by Lisa Rippee of Cloud Eleven Design. The treasury is titled "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night: Beautiful art featuring birds." Check it out!

Treasury Link

New Photopolymer Plates

I've been experimenting again with photopolymer plates, doing a demo for my local metal clay group to show how I turn my hand-drawn black-and-white images into texture tools. To see the process, check back to my previous post with details.


One of the things I was experimenting with this time was line width. How fine can the detail be? The images I tried this time have my typical solid silhouettes, with a new background texture I've been sketching a lot lately. Here are excerpts of the latest drawings, showing the details.


So far, the PPP making has had mixed success. I varied the exposure, since it seemed I missed the fine detail the first few times. Then I changed brushes for the washout, thinking that my super soft scrub brush just didn't have fine enough bristles. A soft toothbrush, stippled up and down, worked better for cleaning out the fine lines. Unfortunately, by the time I had that all figured out, I'd lost the central veining in the leaves. Not to worry, the Texas sun is ready for further work.

BirdHaus Exhibition

My locket Soar is part of an online exhibition of avian themed art titled "BirdHaus."

Curated by Emily Watson and 2Roses, the collaborative team of Corliss Rose and John Lemieux Rose, to explore the many ways that artists use birds imagery in their work, the digital show includes ~35 works, from humorous to introspective, jewelry to wall art to lighting fixtures.

Work by the curators:


2Roses' Good Bird, Bad Bird is just too fun! Made of sterling silver, carved bone, glass and amethyst. Who wouldn't love a ring like this?


Emily Watson's Littlest Bird brooch, of wood, Argentium and sterling silver, and amethyst is sweet.

Two other pieces I really enjoyed:


Brandon Holschuh's Moss Ring with Watering Can -- awesome electroforming!!! I have an attraction to artists who do sculture as jewelry, with displays for work when not on the body. I was unfamiliar with this work, but am now a fan.


Miel-Margarita Paredes' Fledgling Toy, of pewter, copper and brass. I have a collection of toys of this nature in my Books of Attraction, and I occasionally think I should give some attention to making work with moving pieces.

BirdHaus is hosted on CraftHaus, an online social network similar to Facebook, except dedicated to contemporary art, design and fine craft.

Gardening in the Dead of Summer

Whose crazy idea was it to do a new garden installation in June??? I can't believe I put my poor landscaper through this, nor that he went for it. I guess that's the reality of the economy -- dripping wet and red in the face, he appreciates the work. We've had days near or above 100 ° for weeks now, and hard physical labor in the sun is beyond my capabilities.

The plants went in last Monday. I've watered by hand along with the multiple sprinkle tweaks, but still I have plants near death that probably are doomed. Not sissy plants either, as we put in mostly xeriscape varieties, nothing not recommended for hot Austin summers, mostly cacti and natives. The new beds getting late afternoon shade are fine, but the corner raised beds, where I've put in vegetables in the past, and may again in the fall, are just brutally exposed to full sun all day.


Still, I'm thrilled with the whole thing. Gone is the huge arbor that I put in when Joren was a tiny, extreme energy boy, as a substitute for a playscape (and to hide the playscape in the yard behind it, still there, alas). It cost the same as the boring commercial playscape, but it suited my aesthetic better, and still provided a fireman's pole, tire swing, trapeze bar and zip line over the years. But with ever dwindling attention from me and totally inadequate service from various yard firms hired to deal with it, our volunteer native mustang grape vines crept their relentless fingers around it and strangled the coral honeysuckle, shaded out the roses and herbs below, and stretched out for the overhanging live oak. It had to go. Rather than try to fight the invaders and keep some of the nice plants beneath, I decided to just start fresh and plant in a different style.


The last decade in Austin has brought more appreciation for heat survivors. As my husband's business partner said this weekend, after only six months in Austin he is just starting to appreciate the daunting toll of day after day of severe sun (and drought). We responded that no, he hasn't yet got the feel for it. That will come in August, when his body and mind will expect the heat to start to diminish, only to be dismayed that it continues on and on and on, into October at least.

So any plants that survive until the fall will no doubt be well suited to their environment. Going into the ground at the height of summer is the most stringent test.


The fountain was wired today. I just adore the contrast of the turquoise pottery against the stark gravel mulch. I'm in search of a rustic bench to install in the stone area between the two beds, where I can sit in the late afternoon shade and listen to the water burble and watch the birds and butterflies flit from flower to flower, sketchbook in hand.


Some of my favorite plants that I've never grown before are here. The Santa Rita prickly pear, with its incredible purple pads, has been a dream of mine for years now. The wonderful century agave, with black eyeliner edges and spines, was left in its box home, as I imagined the wood peeking out of the gold lantana and ox eye daisies when they've grown to surround it. I only hope it doesn't decide that this is its year to raise a 20 foot flower spike with its dying breath. Yellow bells (esperanza) is thriving, despite the heat, next to Mexican and purple feather grass.


The patio and established beds under the stand of live oaks are shady and happy, even in the heat, so I at least have a place to sit and ponder the fall replacement plantings. And when I can tolerate sitting in front of the torch, in the sunroom off the patio, with a window AC unit battling the torch and kiln resulting in inside temperatures pushing 100°, I'll have inspiration just outside the window.

Spoonflower

My fiber roots have not completely deserted me! I've been reading about a new fabric service on Kelli Perkin's blog that I just had to try out.

Spoonflower is a digital fabric printing service, where you can upload or design your own fabrics, then have them digitally printed onto either quilting or upholstery weight fabric for very reasonable price. I decided to try uploading an image of the front of my first painted cigar box to print onto a sample swatch.


The upholstery weight swatch was in my mailbox in just a few days. Unfortunately, I did not read thoroughly the discussion on color adjustments, so I was a bit dismayed to find a very yellow version of my pink painting. The photo shows them side by side, so you can see how "off" the color is.

I have since learned about LAB color in Photoshop, including out-of-gamut colors, and resubmitted the image to try again, this time on quilting weight cotton. I ordered a fat quarter with four copies of my image, with borders so I can cut them apart and make something with them.

I'm so excited about the possibilities of playing repeatedly with my images. As a person who has spent hours recently shopping for fabric to cover my bedroom chair and ottoman, where I work on my Books of Attraction and journals, I'm spinning with visions of my own fabric surrounding my artistic pursuits, for about the same price as the mass-produced cloth available in shops.