The holidays are around the corner!!!

The Holiday Artisans Shop at the LARAC Lapham Gallery is open for the holidays. If you are looking for a unique gift made by a local and regional artist, writer, or craftsperson make a point to stop by and see the wonderful things they have this season.

My polymer jewelry is one of many displays!

Step by step.

  This is a quick collage of a work in progress. Working from one of my photographs of an iris that bloomed this spring in my garden I sketched out the potential shape of the pendant and thought through some of the ideas for shaping the copper and how to finish the pendant insert.

  The copper fold form pendant was successful in size, shape and patina. As was the polymer that I molded and fired to build the pendant shape. However I'm unhappy with the color on the surface of the polymer and may sand it back to the white molded shape and begin again.

  I've pulled the wool needed to felt the final layer in the pendant. The wool will also be blended and felted to create several small beads to use in the freeform necklace. I was also happy to look through my bead stash and find several lampwork beads that will work beautifully in the color scheme I have in mind.

  We'll see where this takes me! Once the polymer suface color is set it's on to beading!!!

New Work from the Studio.

Over the summer I've been experimenting with fold forming copper to serve as a base shape for pendants and also free form bead work. This direction in my work is inspired by several classes I took earlier this summer. The copper has been through some trial and errors and I have quite a few more pages (and pages!!!) of sketches to work through as I move in this new style.

Left: Lime necklace; copper fold form pendant, polymer inlay with colored pencil & liquid polymer layers, czech glass beads, seed beads. Free form beadwork. Right: Detail of pendant.

Copper fold form shawl pin; copper fold form pin, polymer inlay with colored pencil & liquid polymer layers, czech glass bead, copper wire & pin back. Mohair handknit scarf.

Orange Disc set; polymer disc beads, lampwork focal bead, czech glass beads, seed beads. Free form beadwork.

Getting Inspired

Working in the studio while raising a now 5 year old and an almost 2 year old presents some interesting challenges. Most difficult is finding enough time to sit and work through some ideas that I've been pondering and sketching out.

Recently though I had a fabulous week of only art time. I travelled to Milwaukee, WI for the Bead & Button Exhibition. I took four days of jewelry classes; bead embroidery, soutache, embossing working with sterling silver and a metal smithing course. Another day was spent at the Milwaukee Art Museum being inspired by their permanent collection as well as their current Kandinsky exhibition and finally as the 'cherry on the top' for the trip I attended the bead sale and added quite a few lampwork glass beads, czech glass beads, ceramic and raku beads to my collection to incorporate into some of my designs.

This gift of time has set some things in motion in the studio. If all works out, I will be posting some works in progress soon that put some of the things I learned in the classes into practice.