When one of your close friends hosts a trunk show

Last month one of my good friends hosted a trunk show of my jewelry at her beautiful home.  And I can't thank her enough, she went all out with food and drinks and it was a blast! I definitely would like to do more trunk shows if they are as fun as the one Kristie Esposito King holds.  It was my first trunk show at a friends house and I feel so blessed to my friends that came in support and most importantly, shopped!

Kristie is one of my most stylish and generous friends, she's just all out amaza-ballz! We met several years ago when she modeled for the Auerlian Nights Fashion show and since then we make it a point to see each other and talk fashion and jewelry. 

So here are the great photos, that of course Ms. Aileen Devlin took at the event.  

Kristie looking fabulous as usual! Photo by Aileen Devlin.

Callie, aka "Kate Moss kitty" cause she so damn beautiful!
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

My oldest and dearest friend Cate drove all the way from Charlotte! Photo by Aileen Devlin.

All the pretty jewels on wooden cones. Photo by Aileen Devlin.

Some new pieces, like that giant druzy bracelet. Photo by Aileen Devlin.

My amazing assistant, Ashton NeibelPhoto by Aileen Devlin.

Well displayed and photographed by Aileen Devlin.

We had way too much food but it was all delicious.  Cate made lavender infused cupcakes!
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

I don't know why Caroline Hedgepeth has a serious face but I know she had fun!
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

I'm sure you recognize this gorgeous face, model and beautiful person Ashleigh Bowden.
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

It was such a wonderful day filled with amazing people!
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

Kristie and I laughing about something silly (and check out her husbands ridiculous skateboard collection!)
Photo by Aileen Devlin.

As always, thank you for reading and stay lovely!
xoxo
Lisette
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I'll be a teacher again!

I'm super excited to announce that I'll be teaching an introduction to metals class this coming fall and winter at Emerge - Pitt County Council for the Arts in Uptown Greenville.  If you're interested you can register here.

You may recall that several months ago I subbed for Joanne Lang's intro metals class at Emerge and I really loved it.  Teaching enlightened me to how much education I have and that it teaches me to be better at what I do.  I'm also challenged to freshen up on my own skills and jewelry vocabulary.  Often times when I'm in the studio, I get comfortable in one technique or skill and end up 'losing' some of that previous knowledge that I had learned in school.  So teaching gives me the opportunity to retrieve that knowledge and pass it along.

Now here's my plug, if you live in the Greenville area, sign up! It'll be fun and a great way to learn something new, meet new people and stimulate the creative part of your brain - it's good for your soul!

I'll be teaching the Fall class which will begin on Tuesday, September 8th from 6-8:30pm thru October 20th.
And the Winter class beginning Tuesday, October 27th from 6-8:30pm thru December 8th.

Me, in the early days of school, raising a copper vessel.

Thanks for reading!
Stay lovely,
Lisette
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The eye has to move

As I'd mentioned in my post about layering jewelry, I've always been a bit of a fashionista.  When I say that I mean more that I've always loved fashion and design.

In elementary school I can vividly recall watching the early 90's shows like Fashion File and MTV's House of Style and loving the way they dissected new fashion designers and how to combine outfits.  I also recall writing an essay on how I wanted to be a fashion designer and provided several drawings in color of my creations.  I still have that essay and cherish that my teacher said 'maybe one day I'll be wearing Lisette Fee designs'....perhaps it was an omen?

With that said, I'm excited to write a post about personal style and how to cultivate your own personal style. I believe fiercely that personal style speaks volumes without having to say a word.

Me, finally with purple hair! 

It's in my Pisces nature that I'm all over the place when it comes to personal taste (food, clothing, music, movies - you name it!).  So I love  mixing it up, one day I'll be grungy the next day punk and the day after that vintage old school.  You can see the difference in the above two photos.  I believe the key to owning your personal style is to be unapologetic.  Case in point, my love for the color purple is well known, so I finally had my hair colored purple and I loved it - but that didn't mean I dressed in head (literally) to toe purple.

Wearing a vintage dress I got in Atlanta, and all vintage gold jewelry from my Mom's stash

So here are some basics on developing your personal style. 

• Embrace what makes you unique, whether it's your red hair, wide smile or deep blue eyes.  Play them up! Case in point, I still get a bit worried that I smile too much.  I've been reminded though that I have a great smile - so why not smile more often!
• Use your best color to your advantage.  If red or blue looks good against your skin, wear it more often.  I've found that turquoise matches my olive skin beautifully. 
• Match your style to your personality.  If you're a quiet person, go with monochrome pieces, like a vest in black or camel.  Or if you love punk music or the entire movement, wear black tanks or animal print. This is not a rule by any means - you can dress in any style daily.
• Mimick or shadow one of your idols/mentors/shero.  One of my all time favorite stylish woman/designer is Diane Von Furstenburg.  She exudes glamour and class. I pay attention to how she accessorizes and styles her outfits.

With my cousins, Mom and Abuelita in Panama.  All of these ladies have influenced me in style and design.

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A jeweler in her natural habitat

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Becky Parker, a photographer based out of Durham, NC.  My friend Tara Locklear (ya'll know her by now!) had been referring Becky to me for ages and we finally had a chance to meet, here are some beautiful shots Becky took of me in my studio and standing next to my jewelry cases.  

It's not often I get captured working in the studio or presenting my jewelry, it's a great way to show you and my customers what I look like and how I am fabricating pieces.  

In the main gallery at Art Avenue.

I'm really loving this black and white image.  

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Black and gold

It's been such a busy but in a good way, weekend. 

I've gotten much accomplished and am feeling confident and proud of the work I've put into the first fashion show I've ever produced.  

Here is a product of it, the video for the fashion show and jewelry in motion exhibition.  Hope you love it as much as I do!

Aurelian Nights Fashion Show: Jewelery in Motion from Brian Korff on Vimeo.
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I'm at Penland!

So here it is another beautiful and glorious summer at Penland.  We're only four days in and I'm just loving it!  I'm learning alot and having fun at the same time.  I'm assisting my good friend Amir Friedman.  He is teaching a kinetics adornment class which covers so much yet it's essential to learn in jewelry and metalsmithing.

this will be brief as I'm also working on several projects and commissions all at once! Below are 'sketches' in wire of springs and forming them in endless ways.

I'll continue to post more over the several days and weeks so stay tuned and thanks for visiting!

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Refining Gold

Refining gold, or cuprification (I think that's how it's spelled), was probably the most exciting part of the session I took with Jana Brevick.  I felt like a scientist and it was also somewhat powerful to learn this fascinating part of refining metal.

Here is a basic run down of how we performed our refining:  

Julia Heineccius, the studio assistant for the class also did a refining.  First you must weigh how much gold you want to refine and then multiply that number times 5 to get the weight of how much copper you need to add to the gold you already have. 

Once you have the clean copper weighed out you must melt it with your scrap gold.  Then clean and dry your scrap gold/copper alloy and put it in a large beaker.  

Then put the beaker under a very well ventilated area in a separate room, DO NOT do this at home, it is so dangerous.  I put on a face shield, plastic apron and long rubber gloves.  

I then added a decent amount of nitric acid to the gold copper alloy and watched the science happen - it was fun but amazing too.  You let the gold/copper alloy sit in the nitric acid solution for about an hour or two, then do the process again with clean (unused) nitric acid.  After two or three times the gold/copper casting becomes a sludge type of material.  

You then clean the sludge with water and let it air dry - once it is air dry you are ready to melt out the nasty sludge to reveal pure gold!!! See below for the step by step photos. 

The 10 kt gold I first 'refined' (aka cleaned).  Was my Aunts watch band.

My lil' baggie of gold, was about 8.62grams and my copper 41 grams.

Then I melt the 10 kt gold I had with the 41 grams of clean copper.

Excited faces (Julia, Keramit and Jana), we were giddy over doing this!

The two ventilation systems, this is a MUST, when you are refining gold.  The fumes are highly toxic.

Pretending to guzzle the nitric acid.  Don't you love my long black gloves?

This is what happens when you add the nitric acid to the gold/copper alloy. 

And this is what the 'gold' aka sludge looks like when you pour out the used acid.

Refining Gold from Eilisain on Vimeo.

And here we have my semi pure gold (23 kt). 

And there you have it my friends, how to refine gold.

There are still more Penland posts so stay tuned.
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Charm sale!

Next Wednesday and Thursday from 9am-5pm the ECU metals guild is hosting our 2nd Annual Charm Sale. Last year it was a great success and this year we want to continue that success, 1/2 of the proceeds from the sale will go to the metals guild and the ECU symposium. The Guild has some major plans to fund scholarships, field trips and visiting artists.

We've been working hard on getting the word out about the sale, and if you're in the area next week, I highly suggest you visit, purchase and lust after the amazing charms (some by our professors too, Ken Bova and Bob Ebendorf) on sale.

Oh and uh...Charms will be price $5 and up!!!
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Coppersmiths of Santa Clara del Cobre

One of the highlights of my trip to Mexico was visiting Santa Clara del Cobre, a small town just outside of Patzcuaro in the state of Michoacan. The town centers around the coppersmiths that create beautiful and magnificent copper bowls and all sorts of other objects.

What is most impressive about these smiths is that they use the most basic, bare-bones tools and yet they create such impeccable and almost flawless objects.

Some of the basic tools the coppersmiths use.

One of our new friends showing us how he uses the spinning lathe
to create little pear and apple vessels.

A hardworking copper smith



Spinning copper on a lathe.

One of the shops with many beautifully chased jars.
It takes roughly 2 days from the copper block to polishing a jar.
That is quite impressive!

whoever made this jar has some killer skills!

When Laritza Garcia and I arrived in Santa Clara we wandered around and visited several of the shops and studios where the coppersmiths display their work, the town is somewhat similar to Taxco in that there are shops on every block that feature copper work. But lucky us, we came across the most generous and humble shop owners, Juan Jose and Rosi that own Cobre el Porton. Lari and I went directly to the back of the shop where two coppersmiths were working on a bowl and they gave us a demo on how they take block of copper and slowly hammer it out into a disk and then a bowl - I was very, very impressed...because here in the states, we just order a copper disk from Rio but not these guys!

A copper disk after a round of forging.

See that steam rising up - that's how HOT it gets

Here's a video Lari shot of the coppersmiths bangin' away...pretty awesome!

So to finish the story, as Lari and I were walking out of El Porton, we were greeted by Juan Jose, the owner of El Porton, and he told us how the coppersmiths of Santa Clara did not learn the trade from visiting Spaniards (back long ago) but that it is a passed on tradition that originated in Santa Clara. Our conversation led us to tell Juan about our school and studies - next thing you know we're having dinner with his wife and daughter. We made life long friends that day. It was such an amazing trip and education on artists from another country.

Hope you enjoyed this post.
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Vote for the Trifecta Trunk Show Crafthaus grant project

We are so close but we still need more votes to win - please take the time to quickly and easily vote for our project, #10 on the list.

Crafthaus is offering a grant for a project that promotes art jewelry and educates the public about what we do. So our plan is to do another trunk show in Brooklyn and we've submitted a proposal to Crafthaus for the grant.

If you have already voted, thank you SO much. But if you haven't - you can still help us by voting today!

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VOTE for the Trifecta Project Grant on Crafthaus

The Trifecta Trunk show has big plans to hit Brooklyn next year but we need your help!

Crafthaus is offering a grant for a project that promotes art jewelry and educates the public about what we do. So our plan is to do another trunk show in Brooklyn and we've submitted a proposal to Crafthaus for the grant.

It only takes 2 seconds of your time to vote. Please vote today for the Trifecta Trunk show!

Thank you!!!
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The Trifecta Reigns supreme

The Grand Trifecta: Tara Locklear, Sarah West, Lisette Fee

Our awesome gift bags.
We are such a great team, Sarah bought the tissue paper and bags and
Tara and Sarah did the labels!

Dorky jewelry gals, myself, Sarah West,
Sarah Watkins (owner of Caramel boutique) and
Tara Locklear in front of our display table.

A lil' display table of our jewelry at Caramel boutique

Two of my favorite people in D.C.,
my bestie Eva Henninger (on my left) and Summer Simpson (on my right).

Folks taking in the awesomeness of the Trifecta Trunk show
at Marvin's (hip and too-cool bar/restaurant)

Models getting excited and dressed up in
Philissa's clothing line, Thembe Fashions.

Thembe Fashions sassy dress and
Sarah West Designs record jewelry.

Another fabulous dress (I really want one!) by Thembe Fashions
of Philissa Williams. And of course, concrete necklace by Tara Locklear.

Beautiful and very funny Jilian sporting my
deer antler necklace and ring for the fashion show.

Jillian looking quite radiant and beautiful in Thembe Fashions
and Eilisain Jewelry.

I don't know where to begin about this past weekend's Trifecta Trunk show with Sarah West and Tara Locklear. I had so much fun, worked my ass off and learned so much about putting on a trunk show. Sarah and Tara and I are learning so much and I feel so lucky to work with them on this show and on future shows. We work very well together, being very efficient and organized.

So many of my friends and family came out in support and it meant the world to me. Not only that but strangers and fellow artists came to the shows to see our latest work and have fun! And last but not least, all the free publicity from fellow artists and designers. It feels wonderful - I had the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face all day at Marvin's!

The fashion show at Marvin's organized by the very multi-talented Philissa Williams of Thembe Fashions was so bangin' and HAWT! Philissa is an independent and self taught fashion designer whom Tara serendibitously met through a friend of a friend. Philissa arranged for the fashion show and complimentary bloody mary drinks at Marvin's to showcase our jewelry.

The fashion show was so exciting to me because it fulfilled a childhood fantasy of mine - I always wanted to be a fashion designer, so this was just perfect. Not only that, the music, by DJ Sludge was off the hook. It was the perfect way to end the weekend.

So now I want to thank all who came to the show, that posted the show on your blog and news outlets!! THANK YOU!

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