It all comes back to water

I'm a true Pisces sign, I love the water, I can be a bit emotional at times and all the other qualities that go with being a water sign.  With that said, throughout the past several years the theme of water and ocean resurface in my collections.  As you may have noticed with the Ondine collection, it's based on a nymph. 

Well, I was going back through old photos of my first collection when I moved into my studio at Art Avenue, this was back in the spring of 2012.  I loved this collection as I used old coral from my trip to Panama and it was a challenge in how to put these pieces together.  Also I'd never used brass, it's a beautiful golden color but no fun to solder!

Aragonite stones with brass and sterling silver, 2012. 

Aragonite, copper and sterling silver. 2012

Black coral electroformed and spray painted, brass. 2012

Black coral, electroformed and spray painted, sterling silver and brass. 2012

Sometimes going through old photos like these get's my creative juices flowing and also reminds me of the variety of pieces I've made.  As much as I love working with the talons, I enjoy breaking away and trying a different approach.  Most of these pieces have sold and aren't listed on my website or on Etsy.

I hope you enjoyed viewing them and as always thank you for reading!
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Obsessive in a good way

Susan has such an easy manner of explaining her methods and techniques.  Though her jewelry style is one I'd typically wear, I truly admire and wonder how she does such intricate work.  She is a bit obsessive with the repeated design but it works for her.

Hope you enjoy this great (but dated) video.
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Cat Eyes

An homage to my fur babies, Squints and Stevie, I present my Cat Eye brooch.  Lately, over the past three years since finding Stevie, I've become cat crazy.  I love my cats and anything with cats on it...yes I'm sure one day I'll be an old cat lady. 

I made this brooch over the summer in an independent study course with Bob Ebendorf.  I was so excited about making this brooch because I got to use several techniques I love - enamel decals, powder coating and stone setting.  However it was challenging and definitely out of my comfort zone.

I will openly admit, I'm not the best at layering pieces nor blind rivets but I think that's the beauty of it, tackling new approaches and techniques.

Can you guess what kind of paint the black is?? I'm not telling...

Oh and I decided to submit this brooch to the ECU Metals Symposium Tongue in Cheek Exhibition. Only 4 more days to apply...

2012, Cat Eye Brooch, front. Squints is the cat on the left
and Stevie is the cat on the right, though not caramel colored.

Cat Eye brooch, back.  I used a tin that had a cute kitty on it!

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Enamelist Society Student Exhibition

I'm so honored to be a part of the Enamelist Societies Student Exhibition.

The pieces featured in the online exhibition are quite impressive and beautiful.  I especially love Dru Patrick's wall piece, you can view the rest of the entries and winners in the link above.

My Heart on Fire brooch, below, was accepted into the exhibition. 

Heart on Fire,
Copper, sterling silver, powder coating, enamel, decal.

Thank you for stoppin' by.
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Featured Artist/Jeweler: Amir Friedman

When you're at Penland you meet so many talented artists and people and it's so stimulating and invigorating to the artistic soul.  In my class was one such artist and jeweler, Amir Friedman, he was one of the scholarship students from Israel.  Amir was also in Jana Brevick's Melt class and we got along so great.  I learned alot from him.  

Amir is one of those artists that never rests!  And you can see it in the work he makes, meticulous and very detailed.  Amir brought along his display case of his rings; I was so enamored with them, specifically the one below that I'm wearing...we are currently working on a deal for me to get it.  I couldn't stop trying it on.    

Amir loves to cast and play with tools, and he's innovative in how he casts.  He actually casted a ring embedded black crystal quartz!  Visit his website to see it and more of his pieces.  

Oh and psst...we may be teaching a class together at Penland next year...I'll be his studio assistant if all works out.  

Detail view of Amir's ring.  He specifically left the imprint of the CAD design. 

Amir's beautiful ring collection.  I want a case like that!

Craftophilia Show book. 

Continuation of the cover design, very clever.

My ring! I don't have it yet but he plans on sending me one.

Here it is again, I'm a bit obsessed with it...

Close up of a ring in resin.

His rings in resin orbs.  LOVE this concept.  Kinda reminds me of the orbs David Bowie twirls in Labryinth.

And watch this very cool video of Amir's 'Can it' machine: 


Thanks for visiting and reading!

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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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Penland: Melt Class Post 2

Last week Jana showed us how to pour ingots and then make alloys of copper and fine silver.  As you know, I am a bit of a fan of melting metal and I truly enjoyed being a 'mad scientist' and creating my range of 7 alloy (some did samples from 9 parts pure silver/1 part copper and to the other end of the spectrum 1 part silver and 9 parts copper).

It's been very interesting watching the process of how the metal responds to forming, drawing out to wire etc.  What I've noticed is that the alloys at the higher end of the spectrum are more malleable and the ones in the middle, say 30/70 and 40/60 are more brittle.

This week we're finishing some pieces we made in class and also experimenting with gold alloys - which is so very exciting.  That'll be my next post and I'll share with you some stories about my classmates.

below are photos of Jana in action.

Thank you for reading!

Jana melting her metals (in kooky outfit - Jana's style)

The red hot ingot.

Pouring a sheet of pure silver ingot.

Jana showing us how to repair flashings from the ingot.

 

And Jana's wedding ring.  Lori Talcot made it for her...I'm a bit obsessed with it!

Silver and Copper alloys ranging from 10 % silver/90% copper to 90% silver/10% copper.

Some of our alloyed samples drawn into wire or flattened.

Iron and gold alloy...not sure what can be done with this, it's too hard!

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sophisticated alien

My bench buddy, Jeffery Chen and his pink finger nailed alien sculpture. We had a good chuckle at the irony of using nail polish as a resist...so why not paint the nails?!

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I'm chasing

...yes, me being a nerd...

Chasing a heart on fire for a new brooch!

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Colored water drops

Purple water drops is the way I'm describing my electroformed pieces. I used Montana gold purple spray paint to add color and a lil' fun to them.

Now on sale for only $30 in my Eilisain Etsy Shop!

Displayed on my signature embossed paper.

Finally getting some color in my work!
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What stays in the electroformer?

A strange creature with a thick spiny body!

I left a piece in the bath for 4 days and this is what came out, uh oh...but it's good, a happy accident.

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Lady of Life and Death

I'm so pleased to post photos of a new brooch I completed for an upcoming exhibition at Equinox Gallery, where my good friend and ECU metals MFA alumni, Laura Wood works at.

Lady of Life and Death brooch, 2011

Chased and repoussed coppper, powder coated copper,

spray paint, plexiglass, hand drawing of Catrina.

(Images not to be reproduced without consent of artist).

Lady of Life and Death brooch, 2011 - sideview.

Up close shot

Back of brooch, the roughness of the back

is in correspondence with death and decay of

what La Catrina represents.

Lady of Life and Death brooch was inspired by my trip to Mexico and the devotion and amusement of Mexicans for the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe and La Catrina (a symbol of death during the celebration of Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead).

Traveling through Mexico there is a church on almost every corner and the Virgin Mary charm or prayer hanging from almost every cab dashboard. When I researched references for my brooch I came upon a quote by Octavio Paz (Mexican thinker, writer and Nobel prize recipient) that had a lasting impression on me "When Mexicans no longer believe in anything, they will hold fast to their belief in two things: the National Lottery and the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this I think they will do well. For both have been known to work, even for those of us who believe in nothing."

I'll be shipping my brooch off soon - here is a brief description of the exhibition and idea behind it:

“The inspiration for La Noche del Broche came from an idea of having one night to commemorate the brooch and its art form in a festive atmosphere where Spanish Music and Dancers would collaborate to create an atmosphere of Celebration!!! Models would be colorful and adorned with brooches celebrating the human spirit. This exhibition is an opportunity for artists to honor and celebrate the art form of the brooch. For this vision to be appropriately achieved, we would need a large collective of brooches each one expressing the multiplicity and individuality of the creative essence. Equinox Gallery serves as a meeting place to showcase Jewelry and metalwork in San Antonio. Our Mission is to exhibit and educate the community by providing a Platform for the diversity in the field of Metalsmithing.” -Alejandro Sifuentes

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Bench test

In my Casting II class Tim gave us a bench test with specific requests, giving the band texture, a bevel, sizing it down and now gypsy setting four 2mm cz stones. I actually enjoyed it but def found myself getting frustrated and challenged to meet the specs.

Drilling the pilot hole with a #50 drill bit.

*You want to drill the pilot hole 10 percent smaller than the stone

This is per Tim's demo.

Did I mention I also have a brooch due today - better get to the studio!

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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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