CLASSES AND NEW STUFF

Acid Etched Copper And Bronze.

Acid Etched Copper and Faux Bone Pendants from class. From the top clockwise is mine, Alice's, Pam's, Bonnie's, and Julie's.

Some bronze pieces of mine waiting to be assembled.

Forged Copper and Bronze Cuff

My blogging has been spotty of late, actually non-existant. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better. Lots of stuff going on. Classes are happening and things are being made. I had a very nice all day class at Bead Haven recently involving acid etching, riveting and Faux Bone. If you haven't tried Faux Bone, give it a go. It's fun stuff. It's the invention of Robert Dancik (an artist and teacher himself). It's plastic (I know, but it's very cool, trust me!) PVC actually. I remember being in a class of his once and I believe he said that it's a type of PVC that is used for making containers for caustic chemicals (yikes! fumes!), which makes it pretty indestructible. It's also really easy to work with and it mimics other materials, like bone and ivory very well. We had fun working with it. I've been luck enough to have had a class with both Robert and a class with Richard Salley where we worked with it, and it's a material that I hope to work more with in the future.

We've been having classes at Bead Haven with bronze clay and acid etching too. We'll be doing more of that and lots of other things too as fall unfolds so please come in and join us. I've been working on bunches of new things myself. I have a show this Saturday at Brucemore, a National Trust property (more on this later) so I've been working hard to get lots of new things ready for that. I'll have lots of mixed metal bracelets and bangles, etched and riveted pendants, gemstone and leather wrapped bracelets, and some bezel set silver rings and pendants. Man, are my hands tired!