Musings and mountains

I've always had a facination with mountains. Magestic, immovable, solid...just gazing at one gives me a sense of peace. It's no wonder cartoonists depict gurus sitting on top of them! It's not surprising I ended up living on a property that overlooks the well known landmark of Mt Chincogan in Mullumbimby which often ends up inspiring me to make landscape pendants in polymer and silver clay. This time I've used gold leaf and alcohol inks and covered with translucent clay. I made a batch of them which I still have to sand and polish but here is one finished. I will be teaching this technique in Sydney in November along with some other fun techniques. See my workshop page for more details if you want to learn how to make these too!

Speaking of inspiration, Amy Crawley is a mixed media artist I really admire. Her work often reflects something profound, some inner workings, something spiritually enlightening. She has a great blog I subscribe to and often throws in quotes that strike a cord with me.
Recently she asked for submissions from people for their favorite quote. Being a lover of good quotes, I submitted one too. Read about it here.

Nepalese clayers

Every now and then, something comes along that touches your heart and compels you to take action. If ever there was a plight worth supporting, it's this one. My friend Wendy Moore, an australian polymer clayer living in Nepal, has been teaching Nepalese women jewellery making skills and polymer claying skills to help them become empowered and self sufficient. They are survivors of violence, domestic and trafficing (selling girls into prostitution) and are looking at ways of generating an income for themselves and their families.
We are working on ways to get them more clay and supplies, the difficulty is that even if we amass an army of people happy to donate clay, the postal service is very unrelaible. If anyone can shed some light on successful ways to get clay through to Nepal, please write to me at madbeader@westnet.com.au
In the meantime, there is more info at the Aussie Polyclayers forum
for those interesting in trying to send small amounts of clay to keep them busy till we come up with more permanent and successful solutions...

Inro (wearable vessel)

Out of that mess (see messy table previous post) came this delightful little number. Moulded over an EMPTY cigarette lighter, screen printed and stamped with my very own hand made stamp using photopolymer plates.
This inro is a lot easier to make than the previous ones I've made. Like this. In fact, it took me less than three hours where as the other one took me around 8 hours! I've written a tutorial on this latest one for Australian Beading magazine's October issue...and since that's such a long way off, I'll remind you when it's out!

What's on your table?

Valerie Vaharoni asks in her blog what's on your table? I love her blog, well worth subscibing to. Anyhow, I'm one of the messy ones. I used to feel a bit embarrassed...till I saw that all the artists I like trash their tables as bad as I do. So it is with gratitude I come across pics like Valerie Vaharonis.
Here's a squizz of mine...

New look website

I have a fabulous excuse for so few blog postings last month...I have built myself a new website.

Check it out here.

Silver Clay Workshop in Mullumbimby

I'm holding a beginners silver clay workshop in Mullumbimby for the locals here. I'm also testing the value of talk back radio...am doing an interview on Bay FM on their Arts Canvass segment on Thursday 2nd April at around 10.15am. So tune in if you're interested...
Details of the workshop are:

Silver Clay Jewellery Workshop

in Mullumbimby

Perfect for the beginner or those wishing to breathe new life into their jewellery making, come explore the revolutionary new medium of silver metal clay used to create fine silver jewellery without the need for casting molten metal.

Saturday 25^th April, 10 to 4pm

Cost: $80 plus materials (dependant upon the size you’d like to make, approx $40)

66845576

Earrings are an example only. You may choose you own design…or make a pendant!

Slaying! Nope, not the dragon!

A wonderful clay buddy of mine from Albany WA once termed silver claying as 'slaying' and it stuck. I've been in slaying heaven for the last three days. I wanted to combine gems (which can't be fired) with silver clay so I fired a pre-made bezel cup into a hole (made with 'it' as the cutting tool) learned from Hadar Jacobsons first book 'The Handbook of Metal Clay". Great book and well worth the purchase. Pity I stuffed up the part where the stone falls nicely into place...it didn't, it went in on a slight angle and got stuck, I couldn't pull it out. So Ms Impatience decided 'oh stuff it' and pushed it as far as it could go, still on an ever so slight angle...which ofcourse made fitting the bezel snugly around it nice and neat an impossible task. Lesson learned. Next time I'll be placing dental floss underneath the stone till I know it's sitting right. Live n learn.
I've had success with applying gold to silver...adding paste (or better yet, acs overlay paste!) directly after it's cooled from firing, then two/three layers of gold paste or aura 22, drying before each next coat, torch fire and burnish gold while still hot...a tip I got from Jen at Metal Clay Australia
I also made Curt a kombi pendant...there's been a shift in our relationship and I felt the urge to make something precious for him. It HAD to be a kombi didn't it! He loves it.
All in all, a very satisfying few days. I'm so glad to be settled back in.
Off to another art trail exhibition/promotion at Hammer and Hand this evening...talking art and drinking red wine, both of which are right up there in the top ten of favourite things...