Just a week ago I stumbled upon a juried exhibition here in San Diego, California at The Studio Door. The exhibition is titled
ENDANGERED, A celebration of artwork which showcases the beauty of endangered and threatened species or habitats.

I read the prospectus which was as follows:
ENDANGERED is an exhibition of visual art running from August 5 - 28, 2016 produced by The Studio Door.
A celebration of artwork which showcases the beauty of endangered and threatened species or habitats.  The exhibit will cultivate an appreciation and understanding of the diversity of art inspired by nature.  10% of the proceeds will be gifted to the San Diego Zoo.
CATEGORIES ACCEPTED 
Painting, drawing, photogaphy, printmaking, assemblage, collage, mixed media, fiber art, artist book, ceramics, stain glass and sculpture.  Oversized jewelry that can be defined as fine art is acceptable for this show.
This exhibition does not accept jewelry (as defined as craft), video, film, performance art, installation and works requiring an external electrical source. 

Submissions must be the artist’s original work.

I figured that if The Tenacious Tentacle just took First Place in the Art Jewelry category at the fair, when then my cuff was FINE ART and by golly, I was going to enter it. 

For my artist's statement I wrote the following:
The Tenacious Tentacle is a piece of art jewelry that is a cuff. When worn, it looks like the tentacle is wrapped around the wearers arm. On the cuff is also a Sea Star (starfish) and a sand dollar (which is a type of sea urchin). Though all three are not currently classified as an endangered species their environments are being threatened. All require clean sea water, none of these three have fresh water relatives. All three mostly live on the sea floor. With their sea habitats being threatened these amazing creatures are threatened too.

The cuff is made from sterling silver using the technique of chasing & repousse. This is an ancient technique where the metal is stretched using small tools and hammers to create volume, texture and detail. Initially the cuff is worked flat. After all the chasing & repousse, it is then bent into the cuff. After polishing the patina is applied, this allows the highlights and lowlights to be accented.

AND...
Just a few hours ago, I got an email stating that my piece had been accepted - unfortunately it is not going to be in the physical exhibition but it will be in the on-line exhibition and it will be in the published catalog. 

The fair opened Friday night and yet the results for the Jewelry competition were not posted until today.
Yes, I chewed all my nails on both my hands and feet off waiting!

And what are the results???

The Squash Blossom & Vine took 1st Place in the Chasing & Repousse category/class.
The Tenacious Tentacle Cuff took 1st Place in the Art Jewelry, Amateur category/class.

The links above will take you to a search page that will have links to all the blog posts about those two items.

For all the results use this link which will take you to the exhibition page and the links to the results pdf are at the bottom.

I would also like to point out that one of the students in my Squash Blossom cuff workshop, Sylvia, took 2nd Place in the Chasing & Repousse category for her Squash Blossom Cuff.  Congratulations Sylvia!!! 

Today was the day for me to take my entries to the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fair grounds.  The fair opens Friday, June 3rd and runs through Monday, July 4th.   Today and tomorrow are the days to bring in your entries for the competition in the Hall of Gems & Minerals; so today was the day I took in mine.

Since many of my friends and students also do jewelry, enameling and chasing & repousse we decided to meet at 11:00 and help each other set up and then go to lunch.  

I entered two cuffs. The Squash Blossom cuff in the Chasing & Repousse class and my Tenacious Tentacle cuff in the Art Jewelry class. 

It was during my Squash Blossom cuff class that I suggested that ALL the students (Diane, Eleanor, Stephanie, Sylvia, Laurie, Mary and Heather) should enter their cuffs too. It would give them experience being judged, learning what the judge liked and did not, and wouldn't it be funny if there were SEVEN cuffs in the Chasing & Repousse class that were all the "same".    In the end only Sylvia and Eleanor entered their cuffs so that means that there are three and sure enough, all three cuff's are next to each other in the display case. 

I wish I could see the judge's face when he see them but then again I will find out on exhibitors night when we go around with the judge himself and he tells you in more detail how he scored the entries.

Here are some pictures my pieces.

The judging is this coming week so if the post the results by opening day, I will know the results by next weekend. 

I am happy to announce that my cuff, The Tenacious Tentacle, has been sent to Littleton, Colorado to be a be part of the 1st International Chasing & Repousse Exhibition.  There were over 140 submissions and I am one of 32 artists who have been chosen to display their work.

Opening Reception:  June 5, 2015    5:00 - 9:00 PM 
EXHIBITION Dates:  June 5, 2015 through July 18, 2015
Location:  Outnumbered Gallery
                 5654 S Prince St Unit A
                 Littleton CO 80120
            
An added bonus is that, Il Maestro Fabrizio Acquafresca and Nancy Meli Walker (both Judges of the exhibition) will be present for the opening reception. They will also be demonstrating this fascinating metalsmithing technique during the reception. It is a pleasure to watch these extremely gifted and talented artists at work.

I am thrilled, honored and excited to be a part of this exhibition with so many metalsmiths I admire.

All of the artists' works are available for purchase.  If you live in the area, I strongly encourage you to visit and see the wide variety of arts created in this ancient technique.

Demonstrating at the Palomar show

 I spent most of yesterday and today finally cutting my display case liners for the Palomar Gem & Mineral club show. I am going to re-display my case from last summer's San Diego fair. Unfortunately,  the Palomar club cases are smaller than the SD fair display cases, so I had to make new liners.

What are liners - It is the inner fake wall that you cut from cardboard or a thin foam core (I use foam core) which is about 3/16" thick. This is then covered with some fabric (or not since it is all black or white) and on these liners you attach your exhibition information.  At the San Diego fair, I have seen people setup their case with no liners and it looks rather bare being just a plain white background.

After I cut the foam core board to size, I got a nice table cloth in a pale cream with a large linen like texture and cut it to the size of the 4 pieces - back, bottom, left and right walls. With the table cloth cut, I covered the fronts of the liner sections and taped all the edges on the back. 

Once this was all done, I can "set up the case" using stacks of books to support the liners from the outside and I can start pinning the text and picture panels from last year on the new case liners.  

Because the case is smaller, everything will be closer together and I may leave a few items out. The nice thing is that this show does not have awards, all the show cases are for visitor information only, thus if it looks cramped I really don't have to worry about it.   And considering I have everything printed and know what it should look like, it, setting it up now, is just making sure it looks OK, then it will be ready for the actual show at the end of the month.

Here is the case setup. I yet to have to make 2 risers for the items at the back.  Below this picture is a picture from last year's San Diego fair.