Dream's Unicycle

Flying high on the trapeze with no net below
Challenging the stars with balls of flame
Knives sharper than claws
Paws that show no mercy
Sometimes dreams turn into nightmares,
What started as Dream now looks like Death.



Comic con was this past weekend, & I think Neil Gaiman's Sandman kind of rubbed off on me! The wires for the juggling stars seems to form the outline of a skull with a bow ...what do you think?

Deconstructing the "magic"

2009 Metal Clay World Conference: Week in Review

Last week was the Metal Clay World Conference in Chicago. Jackie Truty, Tom, & Katie Baum of Art Clay World USA organized an awesome conference experience & I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to listen to so many artists share their knowledge! Meeting & making friends from all over the country & world in a hotel that was like a huge beehive? Sweeet!!

Monday & Tuesday: Caged glass beads with Cindy Pankopf

First off, helping Cindy with her class & running around after hours was just uber loads of fun!!

Finished projects in all their fired, yet unbrushed glory, success!! No pic of the beads before they went into the kiln as the glass reacts with the silver clay & an etched ivory & copper green bead lost its frosted look & beacame brown & turquoise. Or an ivory bead with red frit turned brown & blue, just awesome!

Of course, a class pic
(Thanks Emma!)
:)

Wednesday: Sears tower & Charm Swap

Ok, the Sears tower is now the Willis tower???! Taking pics on the glass bottomed Skydeck was fun with gals from the Art Clay UK Guild members. :)

Goodness some people made 100+ charms for this swap! Prosmise I'll be more prepared next time!

Thursday - Saturday: Conference speakers
There was not much sleep this week & I wish I could have gone to everyone's presentation, but after hearing each talk, I just wanted to hole up with my clay & play!

Keynote Speaker: Alan Revere http://www.revereacademy.com/

His talk on jewelry & giving to others is pretty much summed up here: www.adornamerica.com

During his talk, he passed out gold & silver colored foil & challenged everyone to create a ring. Then to go with the giving to others starts here & now, he gave a bracelet with the MCWC logo to someone in the audience & we swapped foil rings with our neighbors.


Clasps: Carol Babineau http://www.artclaystudio.com/
So much eye candy, & so playful! Besides seeing the technicalities of how some of the clasps work, the way she designed her clasps to be a focal that doesn't look like a clasp is amazing!

Masks & Faces: Lis-el Crowley http://www.artandsoulct.com/
For me, demos speak a thousand words because sometimes the key is in the details of the way a certain tool angle or the way a small lump of clay becomes the missing detail. I missed the open table session with her, but I totally need to get some polymer clay to experiment with her way of making molds for faces, quite intruiguing!

Snake Charming & Coils: Cindy Pankopf www.cindypankopf.com
Making coils & snakes is probably considered a basic technique for clay people, though the way Cindy incorporates them into almost everything, is fascinating. Her tips/tricks & sound effect loaded explainations really do de-mystify coil making lol. (yeah, I was scared of making them until recently!)

Tomozuke technique: Ryota Mitsuhashi
As the "Rebel without a kiln," I appreciate the offers from others to fire my pieces (& yes, I'll be taking you up on that!) but anything I can do without a kiln intrigues me!

So "tomo" is to pair & "zuke" is to attach. Fusing brass & copper to fired silver clay pieces, yess...my Rio order can't arrive soon enough!

Teaching: Maria Martinez
People tell me I should teach..but I'm scared! Maria broke the orgainization & process down into manageable bites & I found her anecdotes inspiring :)

Negative caning: Holly Gage http://hollygage.com/
Ok, I REALLY REALLY want to try adapting her caning technique with torch friendly combustibles! Like I bought tortillas this week to try this out! :P

& there's the baby titanium pieces..

Photographing your Art: Jen Lowe
http://jen-lowe-designs.blogspot.com/
I enjoy checking out the crafty stuff on Jen's blog, & wondered about how she got such nice looking pics! 2 thumbs up for the tip of steadying your camera hand by wrapping a string around the camera & holding the other end with your foot to steady & pulling the camera away from the ground for a steadier shot.

Silver screw: Ryota Mitsuhashi
OMG, the tool answer I've been looking for is "screw tap" to make threads for screws!

Water Etching: Lyle Rayfield
I keep reading about the technique & am curious to check it out. Wonder if wax resist would work as a patina mask too...

Complex Hollow Forms: Gwen Bernecker http://www.twoolivesstudio.com/
I found Gwen's process for making hollow forms interesting as I haven't made many. Demystified the way to make a template for walls when you already have the floor & ceiling of a piece.

Bench Tricks for MC: Lorrene Davis http://www.lorrenedavisdesigns.com/
I'm so glad I went to this talk! This maybe an utter "Duh!" thing, but making the tools work for you & not the other way around...well, duh! & the blade bending technique she was showing at her open table session? I am SO going to play with that!

There's all the new "toys" I've come home with...yay!

With love to all my new muses & old, thanks for the inspiration!
~ Michelle

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!

Midnight musing

Ok, took a bit of a break from the flower ring & tried putting together this little unicycle dude that's been bouncing around my desk. Well, mostly figuring out the cycle part, as the unicyclist has been chilling on my desk for a while.

One side of the wheel says "dream" & is decorated with silver flakes.

The other side has a pattern with the silver flakes.

The unicyclist is a paste person with a fine silver skeleton (armature) & he's still nekked, but I haven't quite figured out how I want to dress him.

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!

Do you doodle?

Poor old sketchbook stuffed full of notes & doodles waiting for their turn to hop out & try to make it in the 3D world.

So it's been a bit quiet on the blog-front, but doesn't mean my sketchbook hasn't been getting a workout! I admit I'm a planner & draw to try to work technicalities out on paper before reaching for clay, wire, or pliers. I'm also trying to get into the habit of taking notes while working on projects to make it easier to create/recreate variations of something & organize my tangential thoughts.

Last night I just needed paper to write some notes on for a project & found only the back cover of my sketchbook was left, whoops! As I'd picked up a replacement earlier (I like the size & how it has spiral binding) this sketchbook sadly has a rather flimsy cover. The plan was to quickly reinforce it with scrapbooking paper & go back to my clay. As with many of my "simple" sounding ideas, this one became a doozie!

Cover with ribbon tie closure - Oh So Girly, I don't know whether to cringe or giggle at the excessively pink & fluffy-ness!

The front cover is a pocket & has a "If lost please return" tag.

Why is the back always considered the dark side?

Happy Birthday Sketchbook!
A couple hours of paper, ink, & glue - crazy makeover is complete & waiting for more doodles to be added!