Silversmithing and horseshoe nails....

Well, yesterday I finally decided to do something about my urge to take a silversmithing class. I've been wanting to learn how to work with silver for probably 3 years now, but haven't done anything about it.

I've googled "silver+class+Colorado" and the results have been rather dismal. There is one guy who teaches in Ft. Collins, and I think his classes would be beneficial, but he hasn't returned my email, and it's been over a week. I have issues with people who can't reply to an email, particularly when they're trying to run a business or sign people up for classes. The other one that came up was some old guy teaching soldering with a torch from Ace Hardware. Not that cheap tools are a bad thing, mind you. But on his website, he sells "classes" in CD format. They're more than just CDs because you can contact him at any time with questions. Uh huh. But hey, at least he returns emails.

So this guy is going to be teaching in Estes Park this month. His only class in Colorado. $300 for 2 class days. Eh, that's not horrible, I guess, but by the time you figure lodging and meals, I'm looking at $600 for 2 days. Now that's kind of ridiculous I'm thinking. I decided to try William Holland instead. They offer silver classes, room, and board for $310 a week. For a full week of class! Can't beat that! I figure with the drive to Georgia, I'd still be looking at around $1000 for a full 2 weeks of class. That sounds much better in my book! I applied to William Holland yesterday.

They get back to me today, with, of course, the classes that I want are completely full. Wouldn't you know it? I either have to forgo William Holland and do the expensive class in Estes, or take the chance that I might still have some $$ left in late August and early September (when I was thinking I'd have to be taking an assignment...) and try William Holland then. Decisions, decisions...

In the meantime, I've been asked to donate a couple of pieces to a charity auction here in NE Colorado. It's to benefit "Freedom to Cowboy Up Therapeutic Riding Center which is opening this Saturday. It is run by a horse riding instructor and 2 Occupational Therapy Assistants, one of whom has been a paraplegic for 19 years. I figured it would be a good cause, and possibly good exposure. I've decided to do some pendants on horseshoe nails. I kind of thought that would be fitting for the cause. =) It just hit me when I was jabbering to Donna on fb about skeleton key beads and puntying them instead of using a special mandrel to hold them. It was almost like turrets, I was posting and then all of a sudden "HORSESHOE NAILS!" Gotta love that!

So, I'm off to my studio to play with the newly modified bellflower presses and horseshoe nails, and to think about how badly I want to take a silver class and where I see myself in the next couple of months. Those are the thoughts from my studio today...silversmithing and horseshoe nails.

Bellflower presses!!

They're finally here! After months of waiting (I ordered them February 15, to be exact!) they finally arrived in my hot little hands yesterday afternoon! Ooooh, they're so pretty! =)

This envy first started when a friend of mine had mentioned on fb that she had such a press. I had no idea what it was, and did some research on LampworkEtc. to find out more about them. Of course, she and Donna had a playdate (without me! *snifff*sniff*) so Donna could become hooked on this little press, too. And I was hooked just by hearing about their adventures!

In the waiting time, I sought out wire I wanted to use when I finally got the chance to play with them. Donna suggested hi-temp 22 or 24 gauge wire. I think I have some of that out in my fusing toolbox, and will have to look. I had previously bought some steel wire, not sure of the gauge, but it's pretty small, maybe 22 or 24 gauge. I want to try that. Originally I had gotten it to do similar things as these flowers, before I knew the presses had existed. I was searching antique websites and found lots of little ornaments on wire stems (leaves, holly berries, etc, etc). Then Holly mentioned something about black wire, and then hunt was on. I went to my local hardware store, and after a few eyebrows being raised ("No, I don't know what "real" people use it for, but I'm going to use it to make flowers!"), I was finally led to a small section of wire where they had but one size of the black annealed steel wire. 19 gauge. Well, that has to be the right stuff, so here I go. I bought some. And some 20 gauge copper wire just for kicks.

Once I got the presses home, I did a test fit for the wire... Aww, crap! The 20 gauge copper fit in 2 of the presses, but not very smoothly. The slots that were cut in the cup of the presses need some refurbishing, if you will. But these are Carlo Dona presses! What the heck am I doing modifying such works of art!?! Well. The answer is simple. I need them to fit my needs. They're not going to do me any good if I can't do what I want to be able to do with them. So modify it is! So I go out to the studio and hunt for my dremel.

Of course, I'm scared! I've never used the cut off wheel on my dremel before, and have certainly never tried to hack out brass *anything* before! But, I took it slow, and eased my way into it. And I think I will be okay, the tool will be okay, and life will indeed go on! In the meantime, I can say that I successfully cleaned the burs out of the slots, and will widen them just a hair so the 19 gauge wire will be able to fit.

I was warned about the possibility of incompatibility cracks with the metal in the glass if I used such a large gauge of wire. I'm hoping it's because she batch anneals her flowers instead of putting them directly in the kiln. Also, I have larger press than the one she uses, so that will increase the glass to metal ratio and increase their chances of survival. I will have to play and see what works for me. I'm sure hoping the 19 gauge will be okay, because that's the only size I could of the black wire, and I really like the look!

As for other wire...my little brother surprised me the other day by bringing home a spool of stainless steel wire, about 20 gauge. I had mentioned that I wanted some to use for button shanks (the other steel wire I had just looked too small for me and for what I wanted to do). So one day at work, he went to the Snap-On dealer and ordered a spool of this wire. It took him over a month to get it, but he was able to get it! I was pretty excited, and very shocked that Joey would even think about ordering something for me. He can be a good one, every now and again.

Off to modify the rest of my presses and possibly get the kiln fired up for the day. No worries, I now have a/c so life will be good.

Failure is in the eye of the beholder...

There was some recent discussion on Facebook about fugly beads and what to do with them. So, today I decided to talk a little about what I do with my fuglies and why I decide to keep them. I even keep ones that broke (except the little spacers) or got stuck on mandrels.

To answer the question, yes, I do make fugly beads. =) Not intentionally, of course. They're usually when I get in a hurry and don't take the time to get them all the way centered. Or when I'm trying a new technique and just don't quite have the hand/eye coordination to pull it off without practice. Sometimes it's a color combination that just doesn't work (but it looked good on paper....haha. More about color chemistry to come, maybe in a tutorial, as soon as I whip it into shape!)

I have plenty of potted plants in my house. And at the moment, 2 aquariums. I suppose I could toss those fuglies in any one of those containers (tonight, you sleep with the fishes...). I don't, though, because each one of those fuglies provides an opportunity for me to learn something.

Take, for instance, the ring shown in the picture. It's a clear glass, fumed with gold, and the color is amazing. Gorgeous pink with gold luster. It was perfection. I created a little glass bezel and set a lab created ruby in the center. I had never had a ring band so even. This ring was to DIE for! And then, as it came out of the kiln, I noted very large incompatibility cracks around the ruby. It crumbled to oblivion when I took it off the mandrel. I was so bummed! (Still am!) But I kept the pieces to remind me not only how good clear glass looks fumed with gold, but as a challenge, because one day I will beat those little rubies into submission and I will be able to use them in glass without them breaking! As I noted on Facebook, I have about a 20% success rate with them right now, and that's just not good enough when you're spending that kind of time on a larger piece. The lesson: figure out WHY it cracked, and then work on making sure I can successfully pull off that particular piece.

I keep a notebook (okay, okay, notebooks now) of bead ideas. If I see something that I like by way of pattern or color combination, I will jot it down. I always carry a notebook with me (or my cel phone so I can get a picture). More often than not, I will jump right in to making the bead I have envisioned from the notebook, rather than making small practice beads. I think it's the instant gratification thing? I have no idea. It really wouldn't be that hard to make a tiny bead with the colors just to see if they'll play well with one another, and stuff them in a kiln blanket so that I can see them later in the day. Perhaps as I get longer with my torch sessions (and maybe I will now, thanks to Dean who so graciously put in a window a/c unit in my studio yesterday!) I will adopt this practice, but until then, I go full bore and make that bead. And sometimes it's doesn't quite work the way I had envisioned. Lesson: keeping things that weren't quite what you envisioned can allow you to think about what didn't work and think more about what you can tweak to make it better.

My practice pieces always go into a group of "these are ones that I did in a class or as the first time I did something" group, but I always show them to people so they can get a sense of what I can do. Hey, if I did it once, I can do it again. But better. My fugliest bead EVER (in my opinion) is one I tried the Chaos technique on. You beady people know what I'm talking about--embedding the copper mesh. Well. Of course, my glass didn't squoosh like it was supposed to. And the Triton, though it reduced beautifully, isn't applied with the greatest care. The dots are lopsided and uneven. It's just a fugly bead. Not to mention the base color that looks a little like smokey pink which I have to say, doesn't do anything for me. But 9 out of 10 (Richard LaLonde suggested that be the name of the bead) people who look at my beads pick that one up and exclaim it to be the most beautiful thing they've ever seen! It makes me want to harf every time! Lesson: As long as it's a structurally sound bead, include it! What you think is a reject may be adopted quicker than you think. Failure is in the eye of the beholder.

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Beads from the contest with Donna.

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