I am not big on New Year resolutions as I feel that is sets us to feel like a failure, when the next year comes around,  because life, the universe, and everything else has conspired to keep us from those promises. 

Instead, I set some goals knowing that some will be met and others will not but with some planning we are just a bit closer to accomplishing them. 

But before I talk about what I want to do this year, I will review 2015 which as of today, is last year. 

• I was accepted into the first juried exhibition I ever entered.
• I had more sales than ever before and even received a commission for THREE of my sea urchins
• I had another article published in Art Jewelry magazine. 
• I took first place at in the Chasing & Repousse category at the San Diego County Fair
• I taught two more workshops
• I also took a few more workshop on hollowware and chasing & repousse.

Which I think was a rather good year, don't you? 

So what's up for 2016?

• I hope to spend this year focusing on making hollowware 
• Decorating said hollowware
• Teach a few more workshops
• Sell more of my work
• Enter and get accepted into another juried exhibition
• Publish another article
• Sell some speciality tools and a fixture I am working to have made

It won't be too different from last year because of the day job but getting those tools and the fixture(s) made to sell will be the biggie for me.  So stay tuned for more.

Back in January, I made a musical tin for my friend Lisa, who is not only an awesome DBA (database administrator) but a musician too. If you did not read the blog post, I have to tell you the following so you are up to speed on this next part. I made the tin so it could hold her guitar auto-tuner and then we found it that the tin was a bit too small and so it would turn on and drain the battery in the tuner.  I knew I had to make a new tin for her and her tuner.

Then, in April, I then "borrowed it" so it could be photographed for an article that will appear in the November issue of Art Jewelry magazine and they have had it since then.  

Since Lisa's birthday is this weekend, I decided to make her that new tin and do my entry for the Facebook Chasing & Repousse group challenge #4 - FISH at the same time.  

I decided that I would do a pun based upon the REO Speedwagon album "You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish"  and put a Blue Fin TUNA on the tin and this time I would dome the lid of the Altoid tin so the TUNER not TUNA would fit inside.

Two weekends ago, I started. I removed the paint from the lid and domed it. I then located some line art of a Blue Fin Tuna and scaled it to fit on the lid.  Then I put the lid in the pitch bowl and lined it. After the lining, I flipped the lid in the pitch bowl so I could to the repousse and form the fish.

This past Friday, I did the repousse and then flipped the lid again and put it back into the pitch bowl so I could to the final chasing and detail work. On Saturday I finished the chasing, pulled the lid from the pitch and cleaned the extra pitch from the inside and outside of the lid. Sunday I was able to apply the solvent dye patina to create a sea blue background and get the coloring on the Tuna correct. 

While all of this was going on, I was posting images of the tin lid to Facebook and tagging Lisa with the comments about ....Tuna Fish. 

We then made arrangements to go to dinner, for her birthday, yesterday after work. We of course went for Sushi (get the fishie theme going on here?).  At Lisa's I showed her the tin and she just loved it - and she still did not know it was her present. I asked her to get her TUNER, not a fish, so we could see if it fit without turning it on; and it did!!! That is when I told her that she now had a TUNA fish for her tuner - and the evil deed was done. Lisa then got the pun and her present all at the same time.

and oh, by the way the musical tin was waiting for me when I got home YESTERDAY. 

Yesterday, I found in my messages area of Facebook, a message from a young woman. She lives in Cornwall and is at the university there studying Silversmithing and Jewellery. She was asking me to fill out a questionnaire for one of her classes.   My response was OF COURSE I WOULD.  

I did think it was cool that she was asking me. I don't know who else was asked but hey, if someone from the other side of the pond wants to ask me questions about I started, who am I to argue. Plus I find it interesting that part of a class has the students asking other silversmiths or any artist some questions to how others got started. 

I won't share my responses, I think you can figure them out yourself - especially if your read this blog. But I thought you would like to see the questions asked. 

FdA Silversmithing and Jewellery  - Work based Learning module.
Questions for the Craftsman 
Education

• How do you start? what was your education?
• How did your education fit you for a career in the industry?

• What was missing?

• Do you still do any courses?

Starting up

• How did you start?

• What kind of finance did you have? 
• Did you receive any help? (grants etc)

Working Practice

• What kind of workshop do you have?
• What specialist equipment do you use? 

• Do you recommend a certain piece of equipment? 
• What does your typical working day involve? 

Their work

• What (if any) special techniques do you employ?
• Do you subcontract out any technical work? (casting, stone setting, plating) 

• How do you catalogue your work?
• How do you photograph your work?

• What kind of personal advertising do you have?(leaflets, post cards, web presence)

Selling

• How have you worked out the costs for pricing your work?
• How do you sell your work?
• Do you work to commission?

• If so how do you conduct the commission process?
• Do you exhibit?
• Where do you exhibit?
• How did you get into the gallery, craft fair etc

Advice

• What advice do you have for someone starting out.

This morning, I found an email in my inbox via the "Contact the Silversmith" form. 

The email was from Sharon J.  and she wrote the following:

I so appreciate you sharing so much info on this blog. I know how much time this takes. With you working and doing workshops, doing your jewelry, photoing your jewelry, doing the website & blog site, etc....busy girl!! At any rate, I certainly love your work and appreciate the info! I'm a begginning/intermediate silversmith, bead embroiderer, cabber, who wants to do everything right now, all the time!


I was quite surprised to say the least.


I know many people do follow but to know that I might be helping and inspiring is just icing on the cake or patina on the project!


So to show Sharon my appreciation, here is a link to her FB page - go have a look she does some nice beading.

It has been a busy week at the code smithing (day) job and so not much has been happening in the studio for the past week or two but next week, some new things will be started.

In the mean time I thought I would fill you in on some other items

The Sea Urchin II (large) has been delivered and paid for by Barb and I have been given an order for TWO more - both another small and another large. I have to have them completed by October/November as they will be Christmas presents for Barb's family.  I have to get the metal annealed and in the pitch bowls in early September.

For four of the 5 Saturdays in August I will be teaching an all levels Chasing & Repousse class. I currently have 4 students signed up and there is room for two more. If you are interested contact via this link and I can give you the information.  This workshop will be held at the Palomar Gem & Mineral club in Escondido, California.

I have been working on the design for my next new project will be a bowl for my cousin who is getting married. I won't say much more cause I don't want to spoil the surprise in the off chance he reads this.  So if he does, he will only find out i am making something and not what it is.

When I say "A LOT OF HAMMERS" - it is in both senses of the word. last week I scored a lot of 20 vintage silversmith hammers. In actuality there are only 8 types of hammers but for each type there are anywhere from 1 to 4 of each type totaling 20 hammers in all. They need a little bit of work and I will only keep a few for myself, the rest will be sold so keep your eyes open for some postings in my store but to tease you hear are some pictures of them before I clean them and reset the handles.

And what is that? you are asking??

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you might have noticed that I have not been writing about my metal work for a few weeks and so now I will tell you why.

Many of you do know that I have a day job - I am Senior Software Engineer and I am currently working on a big project for the United States Navy. Back in February, one of the other software engineers (and I use that term loosely) left the project leaving 3 full time developer/engineers, a full time Oracle DBA and a full time technical lead who is also a DBA and software engineer but being the technical lead he only does part time DBA work and very little coding.  When said person left, we divided the module he had been responsible for between all of us. I took 5, the other full time developers also took 4 or 5. Then the full time DBA  and the tech lead each took one as well. 

I then looked at the code in the modules I had taken responsibility for - and what a horrible mess. He had not used the framework that had been built and was being used by everyone else, did not follow the UI standards and oh so much more which I won't rant on about for at least two hours of reading.  And lets just say that the client had already complained that the UI in the modules was different.

For me (and everyone else) to maintain this code was going to be a nightmare.  I felt that the only way to maintain it and to make the UI conform to the standards was to rewrite it.  Which is what I have been doing for the past month - not just during my slack time during the week but on weekends as well.  Along the way I have found many bugs that he introduced and have been since corrected as well.  I have kept track of the time and so far it has been over 160 hours to rewrite all 5 modules. They are now on the testing server and I expect a few bugs and other tweaks will found that I will have to fix before the modules can be released to production in May or June. 

The other developers have not started their rewrites but they now know the pain, suffering and TIME they will experience. 

For me - I can now return to my metal work and not have this hanging over my head.   There has been one advantage to this break is that I  have a new stack of ideas... 

This showed up in the "Contact The Silversmith" form in my website.
Isn't it interesting that for $3,500 I get to set up a booth and schmooze with "celebrities".  If my knowledge of these things is correct, if a celebrity likes your stuff, they would like to get it for FREEEEE. Oh, and notice the wording "..will be asked to endorse.." there is no obligation on their part to do so and I would assume the might only do it in exchange for that gift you gave them.  If you add up the cost of the booth and the cost to make the stuff you have in the booth, and then to give it to them, this can be a pretty pricey deal. 

BUT then again, if there are pictures of your stuff,  and you with them (oooh, how exciting!) it can pay off, yet I wonder if it really does.   Hey, this is a write-off isn't it?? 

Some how this reminds me of the Publishers Clearing House ads - "You may be a winner!". 

Over the turkey day weekend and beyond I took that road trip to Texas which I kinda mentioned here. And one of those days, two actually, I was able to do some antique hunting. I was not looking for anything special but I do like to wander and comment that stuff from my childhood is not antique but "vintage". 

Here are some items I picked up. 

A art nouveau style tray from Belgium. I don't think it even qualifies as vintage because it looks like something from the 1960. The label on the back has an address and using Google Maps and street view, there are shops there but nothing that looks like it would sell a pewter tray. 

Next I found this great wood mallet. I don't think I will use it but damn, it is big and impressive looking 

And lastly the best find was a another art nouveau item. This is a vase and it is stamped Kayserzinn 4168.

Here is some info on the manufacturing house: 
In 1862 the Dusseldorf based Kayser family, already in the tin industry, opened a new foundry in the Bockum district of Krefeld. The firm reached its maximum size in 1899 with a workforce of 400. 

The Krefeld foundry run by Jean Kayser was devoted to mass production, whereby the designs originated from the Cologne studio of Englebert Kayser.  At the world exhibitions in Paris (1900), Turin (1902), Dusseldorf and St.Louis (1904), the company enjoyed great success with its "Kayserzinn" or "Kayser pewter", a special lead-free alloy of tin and silver distinguished by its lasting gleam - success which it owed to its outstanding designers: Karl Geyer (1858-1912), Hermann Fauser(1874-1947), Karl Berghof(1881-1967) and others, but their main designer and artistic director was Hugo LEVEN (1874-1956), a name to be compared with that of Liberty's main pewter designer, Archibald KNOX. 

The decors they designed were inspired by both floral French Art Nouveau and by linear Jugendstil.  It was the Kayser company's aim, through its use of the methods of mass production, to make artistically designed, contemporary Jugenstil objects of daily use (such as candlesticks, ashtrays, lamps, beakers, vases, tea and coffee sets) accessible to a broad selection of the public. The artistic significance of Kayserzinn died with the death of Engelbert Kayser in 1911.  

Kayserzinn objects in pewter are numbered from the (fictitious) number "4000" onwards and marked with the word "Kayserzinn". All objects were marked this way, either in a circular or oval frame, or horizontally. The model number "4000" was introduced in 1894-5 and the last, number "4999" was produced in 1925. 

So I guess, based upon this information that this vase was made in the early 1900's. I have looked for more into on the model number but have not found a picture YET. I did find a book on their work and that is now on order.

As with any art form, there are things that one must have.

Thus, over the past few weeks I have been purchasing tools and equipment which will aide me in making hollow forms.  I certainly have the tools and equipment for chasing and repousse work but having not done any raising in almost 3 years my collecting of the needed stuff has fallen woefully behind. 

We all know that I have hammers and stakes for this but as I learned from Liza, there are things I don't have and need.  

So what have I bought:

• Wood mallets for making wood raising hammers, in various sizes
• Wood stock for making wood stakes
• Contour Gauge
• Scribe Gauge
• Digital Calipers
• Inside Calipers
• Scribing Compass
• Brass Circles 
• Copper Circles
• Multi-Purpose Vise (the kind that has two sets of jaws, one straight and one for pipes AND allows you to rotate the jaws)

All of which arrived last week in several boxes and cluttered the floor. This has now been put away.

Then next piece of work is a technical drawing for the tumbler. Liza says I don't needing since I have the inside template we cut while I was at her studio. From that I could cut the wood stake. 

Would any good engineer who wants to follow the 'process' do that?? I say no and I certainly can't.  

So technical drawing it is. 

From the drawing, I can cut the templates (the different diameters and the profile) for making a wood stake. IF all of that is correct, which will be verified after I raise another tumbler, I can then give the drawing to a machinist (read that as Kevin Potter) to make steel stakes.  

I have the drafting paper, pencils, french curves, T-square and other drafting tools. But IF i need another copy of the drawing or want to send it in an email, I would have to scan it. So, I am taking this opportunity to learn a simple CAD (computer aided design) program which will give me a digital drawing.  

I am evaluating a few different programs that run on my Mac - cost, ease of use, yet enough features to make my life easy, stability (one keeps closing on me!), user documentation, and file formats in case I want to export to a drawing program or send the actual file to someone else that uses CAD besides creating a PDF.  

I think that next weekend I will be able to cut my templates and start cutting the wood stake.