Blind Faith and the Prodigal Bat

Blind Faith
Star sapphire and laboradorite cabochons set in fine silver with gold accents. The bat's eyes are cubic zirconia.

Batty the bat may be legally blind, but there's a light in him that he can't hide. His "blind" faith keeps him going as explores the unknown with a mischievous grin of his face.

It started out as a competition entry, just to really try and "go for it." The stones themselves are breathtaking. The Challenge was to understand how different types of clay work, and I really wanted build a moving piece. Somewhere along the way, I started relating to Batty the Bat. Or more likely, he started to reflect me.


"There's something that burns within you that attracts people to you, that will take you far."


A friend told me this a couple months ago, along with a couple other observations, and I haven't really been able to let that go. Maybe because I'm more open to listening, putting some faith in myself, and more willing to acknowledge the faith others have in me now then before.


The Prodigal part of the story? Some how Batty & partially completed frame disappeared in the depths of my room for a month. Only my critters would rebel and come back, but I'm glad he did!

Torching where no torch has gone before!

Ok, maybe not really but seeing how complex of a piece I can torch fire is an interesting challenge & I'm totally tickled (chuffed?) that this piece held together!

It was fired before MCWC & I took it with me, but since then it has had a bit of a face lift with some polishing "wheelie bobbers" to give the flower a satin finish to contrast the band & decorative spikes.


The flower was made & fired as 1 piece with cz already set in place; the shank as 1 piece, the flower & shank joined, then a couple more times to patch some small cracks .


As the ring wraps around 2 fingers & is on the poky side if you're on the receiving end, it's girly brass knuckles!

Fire = Gratification & Focus

Today I'm going to go with 1 small win. Very small.

The flower focal for the ring is fired.

Yeah, that's it.

At least the flower won't have any accidents sitting on my desk! ><

The coiled swirls for the shanks has proven to be a bit more challenging than expected. Or at gravity's effect on them, as they tend to slide of the mandrel. Between the open design of swirls for the shank & the rather top heavy focal, I guess it was a good thing that they broke before the flower could be attached. Assembling the whole piece then firing would be ideal, though this ring is larger than the neuron ring & making sure the piece is heated evenly for full scintering would be a challenge with a torch.

Could this have been finished hours ago? Yeah, most likely. Thinking about this project over & over is causing more second guessing about the design, which at the moment is a frustrating challenge, but not impossible!

There's always tomorrow to try again.

Challenge pieces for July

Ah, that title sounds so much more productive than it really is! "Challenge pieces" = the pieces for my challenge project. It is almost July, & once again not much seems to have come from my sketchbook. But, the purpose of having a journal is to record the journey, up or down, right?

The challenge theme for for July's Art Clay Society meeting is "Holes." Most of the pieces for the ring are there pic, they just aren't put together yet (gotta love gravity!).


Playing with the fat coiled filigree look of the Neuron ring's shank, I'd like this one to wrap around 2 fingers like a W with the flower in the center. Each finger's shank is being constructed individually, & hopefully I'll be able to mold the coil ends to curve around the base of the flower.

One thing that has distracted me from sitting down to work on the 2nd finger's shank & assembling everything is the urge to scrap the whole project as a silly waste of clay because this sucka is gonna be huuge!

Neuron neurosis: Sketch to Completion

Funny the Metal Clay gallery on Yahoo Groups has a sketch to completion themed challenge this month as that is the whole point of my blog-venture, well here goes: Neuron-ic as the Next Guy.

This doodle has been bidding it's time in the sketchbook since my birthday in February, & the amethyst cab was one of my gifts. The design for the ring is based on a neuron twining itself around 2 fingers. The ring turned out close to my original sketch, though it evolved a bit to accommodate for functionality & structural support.


I first started building the ring shank with 1 thick coil laid out over a S shaped pattern. After it dried, the tentacle & bezel setting "cup" perched on one side & decorative coils tacked onto the others with syringe. (I do <3 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Humpty Dumpty proportions, & never got put back together the same again. (The nice way of summarizing a couple hr long ordeal!) A messy blessing in disguise, as the final ring band with 3 layers of thinner coils is lighter & more proportional looking than the original band.
As I don't have a kiln, the secret to building larger & more abstract things seems to be Overlay paste & repeated torch firings. Fire small pieces, cement them together with overlay paste, dry/sand/fire, & repeat. So the 3 swirls on the dendrite tail (swirly end) were formed & fired together, before being pasted to the previously fired setting (yay for salvage!). One thing I found about overlay paste is that it doesn't particularly appreciate sand paper or files. Smoothing blemishes with a rotary tool after firing still remains to be seen, but I'm psyched everything is holding together nicely!

The final challenge for this ring was to set the amethyst in the bezel setting, which I haven't tried before but it didn't seem that difficult. The stone was easy enough to get into the setting, & though it isn't technically the right tool, I used the scoop/burnisher to push the bezel walls in. It is the tiniest bit loose still, but the stone doesn't seem like it will fall out. I tried putting the ring in the tumbler with stainless steel shot to hopefully work harden the ring & bezel, though the bezel seems unaffected. Probably the shot was too big to get into the little nooks & crannies.

So here's one that's hopped off my sketchbook. Going from theory & asking for advice to actually doing has resulted in some "oh duh" moments, & even better - more ideas, including 1 with the original attempted ring shank, hmmm.....