Amy Winehouse = Janice from Friends?

I know, right :)

The Grammy's

Okay, I thought that Beyonce and Tina were going to be the highlight of the evening.

BUT, for me, it was totally Rhapsody in Blue with the dueling pianists. I NEVER get tired of listening to that song, I could listen to it all day every day. So, tonight, hearing it played to such perfection was a real treat.

Intermediate Jewelry: functional flatware

Well, here it is... my last project of the fall semester for my Intermediate Jewelry Studio.

Both of these pieces are made of Sterling Silver, a combination of sheet metal and forged pieces. At the very least, the part of the service that touches the food has to be silver to be functional... any other type of metal could possibly contaminate your food and make you sick. So, my pieces did not have to be entirely out of silver, but it was both a design choice and ambitious challenge that I made for myself. And I will say this... I was so incredibly nervous working with this much sterling. Combined, I think the materials for this project cost me close to $200. Oh, but it was so worth it... don't my pieces look swell? I made them as a set: an ice cream spade and a pie server.

My design concept came from looking at the gingerbread trim on Victorian houses, and I brought those elements into the pieces with all the piercing (where there are cutouts in the metal). One requirement of this assignment is that the pieces had to be at least 50% forged, meaning that the metal had to be shaped and moved with hammers. My handles are forged.

Now, I have to tell you that I did hot-forging on this project... meaning that I built myself a tiny kiln out of fire bricks and aimed a lit torch into the kiln to take it up to temperature. Using a kiln let me keep my metal hot as I was working it, periodically putting it into the kiln between hammer blows. Working with hot metal makes the metal easier to move and less likely to crack or break (as you pound and shape the metal with hammers, it becomes brittle, and if you don't anneal it or keep it hot, you risk cracking your piece in two). So, now you understand my anxiety... you spend all this money and all this time on a piece and one miscalculation, one second, one mistake could force you to start all over. I know a few people in my class who had to start again just because of this very problem.

I was lucky though: no cracks in my piece at all. I still consider that a miracle, I still don't know how that happened. Luck maybe. Or vigilance. One or the other, take your pick.

Although, I will say this... I am not a forger. My pieces do not really look forged, I could just as easily created my handles from sheet metal as from forged strip stock. My pieces do not really embody the change in thickness or movement that forging can accomplish. So, while my pieces are beautiful and I'm proud of them, they are perhaps not the best example of forging.

So, enjoy. I nearly gave myself a heart attack working on this project, but I'm glad I did it, I'm glad it's over, I'm glad that it turned out so nicely.

The Juicerator

Oh, you thought I was kidding with the name, didn't you. Well, the joke was on you then... because that is this machine's actual name. And let me tell you, aptly named it is.

It was one of Matt's Xmas presents... and he has been a juice-making fiend ever since: using up all the fruit in the house, "yelling" at people who eat "his" fruit instead of turning it into juice, etc. But let me tell you this, the juice is fabulous!

The Juicerator is kind of scary when you turn it on the first time because it sounds like a mini jet engine or a garbage disposal or something... BUT, all that noise is totally necessary because you can put whole apples in there and get awesome juice, pulp free! You have to peel the oranges before you put them in there, but they come out just as thoroughly and deliciously juiced. One night, Matt and I made this pineapple orange juice: to die for!

If you have the scratch (and the cabinet space), I think this is the next purchase that your kitchen needs :) Totally unnecessary, totally awesome, totally fun.

An Interesting Question:

You've recently come into some money... but alas, Fate is a fickle mistress, and the apocalypse is also at hand. You have a month to live.

On what would you spend your money?

Best Movie Moment Ever?

When Warden Norton throws a rock at Raquel Welch.

A New Word for Your Vocabulary

Pandering: n. (pān'dər'ing)
1 : the act or crime of recruiting prostitutes or of arranging a situation for another to practice prostitution
2 : the act or crime of selling or distributing visual or print media (as magazines) designed to appeal to the recipient's sexual interest
3 : To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses

Where I heard this word: I'm a little emberassed to admit this... but I heard it in that movie with Drew Berrymore and Hugh Grant, "Music and Lyrics." I had no freakin' idea what it meant so I thought that I would look it up and share my findings with the rest of you.

Usage: By allowing her to dance like that, I believe we're pandering.

Sonic and White Russians

Okay, two orders of business.

First, Sonic: America's Drive-thru. We finally have one :) It opened on Wednesday... Matt and I went there for dinner on Thurs. We had to wait in line for 15 minutes to get a bay... and the drive thru line practically wrapped around the entire building. Finally! Those Sonic commercials are relevant! I'm just tickled pink by the fact that I've been seeing those commercials for years and now there's a Sonic not 10 minutes from my house. Weird and wonderful.

AND, the second order of business: White Russians. Matt turned twenty-one about two weeks ago, and he arrived home from school Thursday afternoon. So, to celebrate (after we got home from dinner) he mixed himself a White Russian. I don't think words can accurately express how weird it was to watch my brother make himself a mixed drink in our kitchen. Definitely surreal. I think that's all I have to say.

Just... two weird experiences in the same day.

Done!

This semester's celebratory, Ben and Jerry's, ice-cream-for-dinner-flavor: Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. Yummy :)

Casting: heritage project

Well... this assignment was about family heritage.

However, I feel like this piece is less about my actual heritage and more about how I want to think about/remember my family. I made a heart box and filled it with little objects, each object representing a different family member, not necessarily that person's work, but how I think of him or her, what I've learned for that person, etc.

I really liked this project, both the project and what I made from the assignment, although I feel like this project got short changed in the time department. I was so focused on getting my Intermediate project done that I feel like this one has issues that I didn't have time to fix. Although, that said, I'm happy with what I made, just not the quality of it. There are a lot of things in this project that I think I think I'll revisit in later, both design elements and memories... I just wish I had had more time.

And that's all.

Printmaking: last three assignments

Alrighty, friends... this post combines my last three assignments in Printmaking I.

The top print is my second assigned intaglio print... based on an architectural arch and The Green Man. I shaped the plate with my jeweler's saw. I wanted it to be a little bit ambiguous... a little bit creepy... and a little bit fun :) I like it.

The second print is the first of my "Your Choice" prints... actually, both of my "Your Choice" prints are intaglio because I found out that I really liked intaglio printmaking... I liked the process and I liked that it suited my detail-oriented aesthetic. SO, that said this print is actually two plated combined into onto print. Again, I shaped them with my jeweler's saw... partly so that they two plated would fit together nicely, but also because I just wanted to work with shaped plates again. So, my print is of two animals (a tiger and a dragon) circling one another. Those two animals are traditionally associated with the Yin-Yang... but I took the overt Yin-Yang out of the picture to make the print a little more ambiguous and interesting.

I had a lot of trouble with this animal print because I was trying another technique along with it called schinko lie, which is where you overlay colored papers with glue to create more contrast. BUT, the shapes of the animals were so complex that after I cut out my schinko lie paper I couldn't get it to register correctly on my design. SO, what's you're looking at is like the seventh time that I printed that design, AND it is not schinko lie but relief rolled for those colors.

AND, finally, the last print is kind of inspired by my metal work... I was working on a metals piece that was inspired by the gingerbread trim on Victorian style houses. SO, I decided to make a "haunted" house print based on the same design elements. honestly, I think it is my favorite print that I made this semester. My professor thought that the moon in the corner was a little bit cliche... but I say that no haunted house is complete without an ominous moon hanging over it.

So, I had fun in that class... got to learn lots of fun and interesting things, play with acid and sharp tools... and over all, just play.

Chimera Sioree 2007

The Sioree this year was fab... just like last year, excellent food, live music, an art show, a poetry reading (of which I got to be a part of again this year).

But unlike last year, I knew more people... featured above is part of the Chimera Lit crew... me, Stacey, Doug, and Bekka. Really nice people. Anyway, after the party, we went to a bar and just did some hanging out. Sweet.

I wish I had more to tell you about the event... but what it really boils down to is this: I had a wonderful time and that's all she wrote.

Jewelry Casting: alternative material and soft wax

Okay friends, I admit, I am disastrously behind in posting. But just in case there is anyone still out there... here's the deal on my last casting project.

Our assignment was to make a piece using alternative materials and soft wax. It just so happens that I split this project into two pieces. The alternative materials could be anything from leaves, to seeds, to bugs, to toys, or food, etc etc etc.

Now, the natural objects had to be dried so that they would burn out in the kiln and leave a cavity for the molten metal. BUT, you CANNOT burn out anything that's plastic or synthetic because the burn off creates toxins in the air. So, to create my car pendant, I first had to create a plaster mold of the car and then cast the car in wax... then I could invest that wax for burn out in the kiln.

The bracelet is simply made of soft wax. I took sheet wax and then melted wax dribbles onto it. I kinda like it... in fact, I think I like it better than my car bracelet.

And as for the color. Well, that was easy enough... both of these projects were cast in bronze... So, I painted the bronze with Gesso, like the stuff that painters use to prepare a canvas, and then I used colored pencil to get the color... layers and layers of colored pencil. And that's that.

Enjoy.

First Snow = First Blizzard?

Well, Edinboro had its first snow-fall of the year today... it is really cold and miserable outside. It's funny because just a couple weeks ago one of my jewelry professors was talking about how the earliest she remembers it snowing is October 8th.

BUT, let me tell you this... the weather in Edinboro is never half-way, never mild. Fall only lasts about two weeks here, so it's either hot or cold, barely any in between. SO, of course our first snow fall would not be light and poetical. It's wet and slushy and there's a lot of it. The weather people are predicting 4-6 inches this evening and then potentially another 1-3 inches tomorrow.

All I really have to say is this: Hello, Winter!

You Know You're a College Student When...

You get crazy, insane excited that Tropicana makes a bottle of orange juice small enough to fit in you freakishly tiny refrigerator.

Yep, today I was suckin' down some orange juice, and loving it :)

Printmaking: Intaglio

Intaglio is a technique in printmaking in which lines are acid etched onto a zinc plate. It is different from woodcuts and linoleum printing in that it is not a relief print. In relief printing what is cut away from the block is what does not print. However, in intaglio, the lines that you etch are the lines that print. This is because the plate is put through a printing press that exerts great pressure over it... you use a special kind of paper that is soaked in a water bath before printing to make it pliable... and the pressure of the press pushes the paper down into the is line work that you've created, picking up the ink. This is the part of the process that is illustrated by the first picture of my hand print.

However, there is another facet the process that you can add to the plate which is called aqua-tinting... that's how I got that fabulous range of greys and blacks. In this process, you cover the plate in a very fine coating of resin particulate and then bake that particulate onto the plate. After that, you re-etch the plate and depending on how long the plate is left in the acid is how dark it gets, i.e. the longer a plate is left in the acid, the darker and richer the grey/black. You get the range by coating the plate in an acid resist called hardground or asphaltum. Where the plate is covered, the acid does not etch the plate and the grey stays lighter.

Now the reason that aqua-tinting is necessary to get those nice blacks is because there has to be something on the plate to hold the ink. Before printing, all the excess ink is wiped off the plate, so if there is no texture to hold the ink, the ink will simply be wiped off and you'll get a fuzzy grey/white instead of black. Aqua-tinting is the means to create the texture. When the rosin is baked into the plate, it creates microscopic peaks and valleys, parts of the plate that are covered and parts of the plate that are not. And when the plate is put into the acid, the parts that are not covered by the rosin is eaten away by the acid, leaving tiny pocks to hold the ink.

This is by far and away my favorite technique that I've learned in printmaking so far because it allows for a lot more detail and precision and, in my opinion, expression. Instead of using awkward tools to carve something away, you basically draw on the metal with a stylus... the line quality is nicer and simply more controllable. I really liked my self-portrait, but I think this is my favorite print so far.

Intermediate Jewelry: Chasing and Repousse

All righty, here's another of my jewelry projects from my Intermediate Jewelry Studio... This was a "double" assignment: 1. use the technique of chasing and repousse, 2. make an item that's meant for body adornment. I chose to make a necklace, but my teacher worried that it was going to be too "easy", too "simple". So, hence the addition of the earrings. And actually, ironically enough, I think that I like the earrings better, although the necklace is quite stunning.

Also, for this project, I handmade the clasp and the earring findings. Everything is sterling silver.

And as for the techniques... the are actually two separate techniques that are very often used in conjunction with one another. Chasing is basically a way to add ornate line work to the front of a piece. There is a range of tools, usually "liners" that as their name implies, are used to create in-sized lines on the metal. You would first decide what you wanted your design to be, draw that design onto you metal, the putting a liner to that design, you would hit the liner with a chasing hammer, moving the tool along the line and creating the design. Now, repousse is very similar (both chasing and repousse share and require similar tools and hammers), except roupousse is done from both the front and the back of a piece, and repousse is not used simply to create line but volume. Rounded tools are used from the back of a piece to push it forward and give it 3D form.

Over all, I really enjoyed this technique. I would definitely use it again.

Printmaking: first two assignments

Here are my first two assignments from printmaking: one linoleum print and one wood cut. Both of these pictures are of my proofs (my Professor still has my editions), so the finals look a little more polished, a little more saturated.

The black/white print is the woodcut. It was my first assignment, and it was required that it was a self-portrait. I like it. It was not really so easy to make, the wood was difficult to carve... but I'm happy with the product.

And the linoleum print is of lightening strikes... I was a lot more concerned with playing with color than carving in this one, although I will say that the linoleum was much easier to carve than the wood. I like this print less... although I had more fun making this one than I did the woodcut.

Overall, though, I have to say that I'm really enjoying the class... good times.

The Weirdest Thing

Okay, so at the moment, I'm (re)reading Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Love it! But that's not the weird part...

First, a digression: there is a movie based on this book aptly titled Ella Enchanted starring Anne Hathaway. AND, there's a part in the movie where Anne Hathaway sings "Somebody to Love."

All right, the digression is over. NOW, for some reason, because I'm reading the book, I can't seem to get that song out of my head, which is strange because besides having the title, the basic premise, and the character names in common, the book and the movie are not very similar.

I must confess that although I like the book better, I do like both the book and the movie. But it doesn't matter that the two are so different, I just can't stop hearing the song. When I wake up in the morning, I sing it to myself; on my way to class, while I'm working, while I'm reading, while I'm getting ready for bed, while I'm falling asleep, I hum it to myself. I just keep hearing it.

Is that crazy or what? I swear, living in my head is the weirdest thing sometimes.

Casting: lost-wax rings

Alrighty kids, here are the rings that I made in my jewelry casting class from a technique called lost-wax casting. Meaning this: I first carved these rings out of wax, exact in every detail. Then, said rings were invested in a metal flask... the rings were attached to a flask using wax wire, then I mixed casting investment (special kind of plaster) and poured it into the flask around the ring. Oh, and I should mention that a casting flask is not like a whiskey flask... a casting flask is basically a hollow tube of steel.

So, the rings were invested... THEN, you put the flask into a kiln over night... the kiln goes up to 900* for about six hours... then up to 1200* for another 6 hours or so. During this time, the wax melts out of the flask leaving a ring-shaped impression in the now hardened investment. The flask must be cast while it is still hot... so, using tongs, the flask is taken from the kiln and put directly into a centerfuge where the metal is melted and cast.

Viola! Rings! Okay, not exactly... there's still filing and polishing involved. But that is the process in a nutshell.

The first ring was just kind of a swirly type ring with open spaces... I just kind of just playing/experimenting with that one. But the second ring... I'm very pleased with the second ring. I call it my "Prayer Ring." The outside is my version of a feather, a Native American symbol for prayers and wishes; also, one would make offers of feathers (and food and beads, etc) to the spirits to help these wishes come true. AND on the inside of the band, I carved more symbols... Things that I want for myself. I'm going to wear this second ring as much as I can.

Overall, this is definitely a process that I would turn to again.