https://www.facebook.com/TheAdventurousSilversmith
My Mac blew its power supply two weeks ago and so I have taken it in for repair but of course the guy who I take it to was away on vacation so there went one week. I should have it back in a few days but in the mean time you can go to my Facebook page and see what I am working on.
https://www.facebook.com/TheAdventurousSilversmith Wednesday, I went to the San Diego Fair for exhibitor appreciation night and first thing I did was go to the hall of Gems & Minerals to see how my piece fared. I was very nervous walking up to the case and so I approached it from an angle so I could not see anything until I looked at it face on.
THERE WAS A BLUE RIBBON WITH A #1 THERE. I WON THE CATEGORY - \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ I was so excited my hands were shaking. I wanted to jump up and down but all I kept saying was "I won, I won. Oh my god, I won". So after taking a look around at the other pieces in my category, and all the other winners too. I finally took a picture of my piece. Then later in the evening, i was able to see what my score was and even talk to the judge. I received a 95/100 points. Talk about being happy. I lost two points in workmanship (58/60) because I had issues with a solder joint when I mitered the corners. I knew the gap was there but it does reinforce that next time, I should do better. I lost two points on uniqueness/design (18/20). The design was very unique – he loved it but he had a issue with the squid head not being centered and the area just under the head was a little empty. I had thought that myself when I was making it and I thought I should have gone back an put even a little starfish in to occupy the area, but did not. I lost one point in Quality of Material (9/10). I did not ask why, but should have. This may also tie back to the solder joint as that does lower the quality of the piece. I had a 5/5 on presentation. The judge normally does not like rotating turn tables but he said that in the is case it was the perfect way to display the cuff. He also said the black velvet on the stand made it pop. So Erich and everyone who convinced me to change it was right! I had 5/5 on my Label. I spent 4 hours making that damn thing – looking for a good font, messing with the alignment and spacing, writing the description. I was one of the only people who had a nice font that was not hard to read and was not the plain old Arial or Times New Roman – nor was it a light font or too “script” making it hard to read. SO, with all of this the judge said that I am good a determining what needs to be “fixed” so next time I can/will do better. He also has done some C&R and thought my technique was very good considering I have only been doing it for 3 years (and not constantly) Before I left, I asked if we get our ribbons - real ribbons when we pick up our pieces when the fair closes. The answer was NO. They don't give ribbons anymore as there is no place to put them in the cases. WHAT? Wood gets real ribbons and they are quite big; the other competitions do; but for this competition they don't. I was quite disappointed at this news. Enjoy this picture with my "PAPER" ribbon. Slowly making progress... Put this fold formed Handkerchief Cup in the pickle so I can clean it up and put a patina on it. This a tray I started over 2 years ago. I am bringing the wall in more. Then I will trim the wall even and do some chasing & repousse. I received my new tools from Bill Dawson (link on the Tools & Equipment Resources page) The tools are a combination of the Nancy Megan Corwin set some of Bills Saturday I completed Intro to Blacksmithing at the Vista Forge. I can now join the CBA and sign up for Blacksmithing 1.
I have a picture of my 3 items - Blacksmith Tongs, Steak Turner, and BBQ Tongs and I will add it to this post but later in the week. Yesterday I had another session with Deb and sorry but no pictures as we got too busy and I did not take in process pictures, but I will try to post a picture or two of where I ended (again later). What I worked on is also on my ever shrinking and growing metals to-do list. I did make major progress not only on making my canisters (to hold my chasing & repousse tools) but in learning how to solder big volumes of copper. I have the top and bottom soldered on the two halves of the first canister. We also have all four rings decorative rings soldered on. There is a ring at each end of the two halves(lid and body of the canister) and we have the rings at the ends of each, where the two halves will meet and lock. We did not get to the locking mechanism (a peg and twisting ).I have to clean up the solder from all of this but I can take the first one with me to my class in 3 weeks. Then when I go to Debs in June, we will finish the locking mechanism. I also had the sheet and prepped to start another canister so we soldered the sheets (lid and body) into cylinders and have the top and bottom plates done as well. By June, I should have the 4 rings made and if possible soldered on each piece. FYI the first canister has the lid slightly larger in diameter than the base section and it slides over part of the base wall. The pegs will be soldered to the inside the lid walls , 180 degrees apart and just above the ring at the bottom of the lid. Then the slots (L shaped) for the pegs will be cut in the base wall above the top ring on the base. The lid will be aligned in the upright part of the L and slide downward until the lid ring meets the (upper) base ring. Then the lid will be turned so the pegs move into the horizontal section of the L. Because the lid is slightly larger in diameter than the base, it does not give a smooth transition along the body, It looks like a stacked pillar. This is why I started the second canister. The lid and the base ARE the same diameter and the rings where they meet will be flush when they meet with just a small groove between them. It will have the same peg locking mechanism but we will solder a short (height) ring inside the lid and the pegs will be inside the base but work the same way. When I post the pictures it might make more sense but I think this is a pretty good description. The to-do list started with 16 items and then grew to 22 items, then 23, 24, and it now up to 25 no, 26 items. BUT I have since crossed off SIX - no, SEVEN items. I think the list will not grow much in the next few weeks but continue to go down.
Items I have finished: 1) Weave Silver Bracelet 7) Shape Delryn Tools 11) Make rings from Enameled Domes 14) Find enamel/glass threads for enameling (they got lost on the work bench and are now put away 17) Finish copper Four Corners Dish 23) Enter the Calamari Cuff in the Jewelry division of the San Diego County Fair (run from June to July) 24) Order stand for Calamari Cuff display. Damn, I now have to add item #27... put together display for the fair including the display description/card. FYI #26 on the list is to turn my new Tagane blanks into tools. Here are some pictures, of course. This past week on Facebook I was looking at the pictures on Liza Nechamkin's page for her Nechamkin Silver Studios. One of the albums is titled "...hand forged custom tools". Being one of the first people to get her 25 piece from Otto Frei and now I also have her matting tool set, I am always interested in seeing more tools from her (and getting them too).
There were a few pictures of some tools that are not part of either of these sets so off to her actual website I went. On one page I did find further images of these tools - they are available for custom order - COOL. As I wandered around, not having been a visitor for a while I found the Testimonial page. And there, at the top of the page was quote/testimonial from Nancy Megan Corwin; and to my surprise as I read it I realized that she was talking about ME in the third person! OMG I even remember when it happened. NMC was back in San Diego for another workshop (my second with her) and I had recently received my set of Nechamkin tools and had taken them to the workshop with me. During the discussion about the different tools used during the process Megan mentioned that a new set was available commercially and of course I chimed in that I had the set with me. So out they came and we all looked at them. Over the next three days I proceeded to make a texture wheel based upon the wheel on the Nechamkin website and here is mine below. One night, during the workshop, I even left the tools with Megan so she could try them. Now, over a year later, I find a quote that mentions those events - way cool. If you scroll down to the second picture below, you can read that quote. I was wandering around the web today and just for the fun of it I Googled *Nancy Megan Corwin* just to see what images I could find.
I guess what, not only are there lots, I found a picture from when Megan was teaching at The Ranch back in March. There is a picture of her samples on a table; and GUESS WHAT, my bowl is in that picture!! When I took my second workshop with Megan, I brought, to show, the swirl bowl that I had made. She liked it so much she asked if she could have it. So, I gave her the bowl and she made me a nice large tool known as a pusher or fuller. I treasure that tool very much. But I also am proud that I have a piece in Nancy Megan Corwin's PERSONAL COLLECTION - WOW And I did see the bowl last month when I had my third workshop with Megan in San Diego. It is so nice to be reunited with something you made, if even for a little while - knowing that is being shown and treasured, *sigh* Any way, here is my bowl, in the picture! You can tel Back in February, Wendy of Hammermarks wrote a post about unfinished business. I then wrote a post about some of my projects that were not finished. In my comments to Wendy I mentioned my unfinished, almost 30 year old crewel (wool embroidery) project. I started this in 1974 when I was in High School. I bought the kit from a large needle craft store in NYC when I had gone into the city for a concert at Madison Square Garden. (Yes, I would go to NYC by myself as I was a very responsible young lady and my parents trusted me quite a bit!) So here is picture of that project - still on it's frame, partly done and starting to get moth eaten. Since that last post, I have finished one (new project) which is the Calamari Cuff and took my second blacksmithing class where we made a steak turner/hook. I have also started started at several others - So referring to the picture below, I will no list them out with some information. Starting on the far left, and going clockwise....
1) Quarter inch copper being forged along the edges. This will be a shallow dish eventually. This needs to be worked hot, so I have to do this at the forge. 2) Raised copper cup (behind the wire coil), this needs a bit of raising and then the rim closed in. I want to take this to the class with David Huang in May. 3) Copper Four-Corners dish. This needs planishing and a ring base soldered on. 4) Raised vessel with curved top and short upright rim. This requires some more forming of the curve and the upright rim to be formed. Then planishing and maybe a silver rim added. 5) Menopause Moment. (behind and to the right of #4). This was a vessel I started back in November of 2010. I smashed it and then left it alone. I have since trimmed off some of the top and have removed the dents. More raising and forming is also needed. 6) Another raised vessel. I did this one at Haystack last summer and I want to just clean up the shape a bit and then put a rim on it and add some patina. [You are now at the right edge of the table, so curving back around the front] 7) A pre-formed dish with some chasing and repousse. I started this back in 2010 as well. I am almost done with the repousse, then I need to planish the front and bit of chasing, add a rim and then patina. 8) The Star and Comet Bowl. I sunk this off center and have started the repousse. I have the stand for it done, but this is a few weekends worth of work. I am hoping to silver leaf the stars when it done and get a nice dark blue patina for the back ground. 9) A small Four Corners Dish - again planishing and a ring base needed. 10) A copper disk (3" diam) that is partly raised 11) A copper dish/tray (with paper inside) - this needs some more forming and then repousse and chasing. 12) Two copper domed disks with bezel set CZ stones (see close up below). I made these yesterday in an enameling class. The class had us then set these in a bezel up on a pendant; instead I am going make rings with the bezel cups and then set the domes in the cups for BIG BLING RINGS. I have made a promise to myself that I must finish a few of these before starting anything new yet I have hinged bracelet class coming up in April, along with a third blacksmithing class and Chasing & Repousse in May. Then I will not start anything new (do you beleive now? Wendy over at Hammermarks posted about unfinished projects.
Some of my friends in the quilting world call these UFO's which is short for Un-Finished Objects. And yes I have a few too. In the other post I did today I mentioned 2 vessels that are partway raised I am hoping to make progress on next week at Deb's. But wait, there is more...(pictures below) There is the fold formed bracelet The stamped copper tray I started C&R on almost 2 years ago, which was still in the pitch this morning. Then there is the star bowl, also in the pitch for over a year And that is not including the 4 or 5 stakes that have to be refinished (from ebay purchases) and another 6 or so hammers. And I have 3 weaving projects in various stages too. I have to admit that since returning from Haystack I was unmotivated to do any metal work. Part of it was I was still dealing with my heart issue. Then it just was momentum of not doing it and having started to weave again. I also realized that I was NOT imagining ideas in my head.
Work started to get stressful again or should I say still; it is just a matter of degrees. In the evening and during the weekend I did not want to think that hard and be so careful in what I did. Trust me, weaving is more forgiving than hammering metal; and when weaving down at the barn I was socializing and really getting my mind off of things while most of my metal work is solitary. I hadn't raised a hammer in over 6 months. I was even stressing over the thought of just walking away from it all --- and selling all my equipment off. Then on Friday night - after a very long week at work, while driving home suddenly into my head pops the idea of making some napkin rings in sterling silver. NAPKIN RINGS - wha? Where the frack did that come from!!! And in a flood of thoughts I was seeing synclastic and anaclastic shapes; some were just planished in an Arts & Crafts kinda way; others smooth; and some with Celtic knots done in Chasing & Repousse. So this morning I ordered a huge amount of silver and began working on a few designs to use. |
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