07.23.18 Inspired by Austin...

Photo credit: Dallas Morning News

...Ellsworth Kelly's Austin, that is.

When my daughter was home earlier this year, we visited the installation of Ellsworth Kelly's chapel at the Blanton Museum on the University of Texas campus.  It was awesome and inspiring.





The chapel is permanent, but the exhibit of his works on paper and canvas closed at the end of April.  I'm so glad we saw it, because it was filled with bright color, including studies for the glass he would use in the building.

The windows in the chapel are incredible. The colors are intense, beautiful and throw light on to the floor of the building as the sun comes through.

I was especially drawn to the one with the "tumbling squares", which is what he calls the ones set at varying angles. I liked that while being off kilter, they are very precisely arranged.

My daughter went back to school, and I went back to the studio...but I kept thinking about those jewel toned windows...so I decided I would try making a batch of earrings that reflected the design of the chapel.


I thought "what if I made singles?", tumbling square and long bar earrings that could be purchased individually to mix and match in the way each window is a little bit different from the one next to it.



I filled a kiln shelf and waited to see how the pieces would look after they were fired...and remember those "striker" glasses I wrote about...that's what the pale lavender and yellow ones are (they came out of the kiln pink and bright yellow).

I was thrilled!  The baubles look - just as I had hoped -  like little stained glass windows!

So I made dozens of earwires, sent photos to the manager of the Blanton museum shop and crossed my fingers.  I had an initial positive response, then things slowed down because...summer...but I am hopeful that they will eventually find their way into the jewelry case.

Also, because summer, I'm taking a break for the month of August.  If I have an update on the Blanton shop, I'll let you know when I get back.

Until next time.

07.09.18 Down the tube...ok, not really. Kinetic Jewelry, Part 3

On the last day of class, De wanted me to think about things that move in multiple directions...and told me to look online at more examples of kinetic jewelry. 

After a couple of rounds of me asking "what about this" and being met with a response of "nope, too simple", I decided to start doodling as I looked...

...what I came up with was a pair of earrings with tube set stones that spin on a wire, inside a ring that hangs on the same wire.  I got a nod - it was an acceptably complex project.

First, I had to decide how big I wanted the circles to be, then I had to calculate the sizes for the pieces of tube.  The horizontal tube needed to be long enough to set the stones, and short enough that it still turned inside the ring.

The vertical pieces had to fit between the top and bottom of the ring so that the wire could thread all the way through (essentially a very long tube rivet) and hold the pieces together.

The horizontal tubes had to be marked and drilled so that the smaller, vertical tubes could be soldered into place, creating the setting for the stones inside the circle.  Then the circles needed to be drilled so that the rivet wire could be fed through them (De did that for me.)

After that, it was frankly, a pretty straightforward process to assemble them - although there was still a fair amount of work to do...like setting the stones in the tubes before threading the wire through them.

I hadn't expected to revisit tube setting stones (another 201 skill) but I'm really glad I did...and like so many of the other techniques that seemed difficult the first time, I was surprised at the ease with which I could do them now.

I chose 4mm blue and white CZs - one in each earring - and used a vice to hold the tubes in place while I drilled them and set the stones.

I decided to use my first day back in the studio after class to try my hand at using my new skills without the benefit of having De around.  I had a good day - tube setting a small opal on a riveted bail - with the stone covering the front rivet.

I don't expect to add riveted bails or tube settings to all my work going forward, but it's fun and very satisfying to know that if I want to, I certainly can.



Until next time.

06.25.18 A Bug's Life - Kinetic Jewelry, Part 2

I had already decided that the class, and everything I made over the weekend, was going to count as my birthday presents.  Finishing the two planned projects on the first day didn't change that, it just meant that I was going to have bonus pieces of jewelry!  The challenge was - what do I want to do next?

I like all the stones that I buy - and I have accumulated a pretty substantial collection (as in, if I weren't to buy anymore I could work for quite a while before I ran out) - of those, there are few (well, ok more than a few) that I have absolutely no intention of selling once they become jewelry.  

I chose two relatively small stones - a sterling opal and an ammonite - and decided that I wanted to work on riveted bails.  But, before I did anything else, I had to cut out the backs of the pendants.  

Photo credit: Pixar

The ammonite was easy. When the fossil shell is cabbed by a lapidary artist, the patterns look like oak leaves, so I chose an acorn - because at our house we like to say "the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree".  

The opal was a little more difficult, until I remembered Heimlich, the bright green caterpillar from A Bug's Life - and decided that not only would a do a rivet, but I would give the pendant wings!

The hinged bail I had done on the first day turned out beautifully - but to do it requires that the top of the setting be flat (or that the metalsmith is more skilled than me).  With a rivet, you get a really similar look, but it's more forgiving because it only requires one piece of tubing, rather than lining up three pieces for a hinge.

The hinged bail was done entirely with telescoping tubing (placing a smaller tube inside the hinge to hold the pieces together).  The hinge mechanism was created from three pieces of larger tube held in place by a single piece of smaller tubing that fits inside.  The rivet is created by flaring the ends of the smaller tube so that can't slip out.

Riveted bails can be attached either with telescoping tubing or with wire through the piece that is soldered to the setting for the stone.  I decided to do one of each.

The acorn pendant was simple.  A small piece of tube soldered to the top of the bezel, and a wire with balled ends to hold it on.

The two part rivet - with both tubing and wire - was more involved, but not really that much more complicated, especially after making a hinge.

After fabricating the bezel and wings for Heimlich (yes, I'm going to call the pendant by its name) I used a small piece of tubing to connect the three pieces.  Then, I connected the bail through the tube - so that the pendant, wings and bail can all move independently.

The rest of the day involved things I do all the time - filing, polishing, setting the stone and finishing.  At the end of day two, I had four new pieces of jewelry...and was on notice from De that I had to step out of  my comfort zone and push myself on the last day of class.

Until next time - when I'll finish my story.

06.11.08 Let's Move - Kinetic Jewelry, Part 1

Photo credit: Hannah Wilson, CSJA

Although I'm always learning and improving my skills when I'm working in the studio, it had been quite a while since I taken a class. I was thrilled when I saw that De Pastel (my instructor for 201 - intermediate fabrication) would be teaching over a weekend right around my birthday!

We touched on kinetics at the end of 201, doing simple rivets and a hinge, and the riveted hollow form earrings from that class are among my favorites and I wear them often...but I hadn't touched tubing since, and I was excited about the opportunity to re-learn and improve on these techniques.

De sent us an email asking for ideas and the projects we had in mind.  She wrote "there are so many kinetic options in our field, this will allow me to hone the class on specific techniques you all want to learn and give you all the most information for your time in class."

I had two things I knew I wanted to do...the first was to remake a pair of turquoise earrings with the same riveted earwires as the hollow forms, and the second was to do another hinge (I was never happy with the one on 201 pendant - mostly because even though it looked fine, I got too much solder on it so the bail didn't move).

I love the stones in these earrings - but they were an early attempt at bezel setting, and because of their depth they never hung properly from the jump ring at the back.  So I pried them out of the silver and started over.

Two years on from the first attempt (at both the earrings and working with tubing) it's safe to say that I am a much better - and faster - metalsmith.  By lunchtime (halfway through the first day) and I had rebuilt the earrings, and now they looked like I wanted them to!

I was on to the next project - a hinged bail, a lot like the one I had done previously, but hopefully with a better result.  My recollection was that this was a really difficult task - and I expected that the pendant I had designed for this project would take up most of the remaining two and a half days.


I had given this particular piece a lot of thought.  Because the stone was rectangular, like a door, and the bail would be hinged (also, like a door), I wanted to create a pendant that looked like a mezuzah (the prayer scrolls mounted on the door frames of Jewish homes).

I started with the setting for the stone.  Rather than my typical bezel, I wanted to do a type of tab setting known as "score and fold" - which is exactly what it sounds like.  I had done the piercing (the Hebrew letter Shin) a few days before class, so I was able to move directly into forming the metal to hold the stone.

Just as it had been with the earrings, cutting the tubing and getting it soldered to the setting wasn't nearly as daunting as I had anticipated...

so, there I was at the end of the first day, with both of my planned projects finished.   It was a good feeling - but it meant I had to take my tired brain home and come up with something to do next!

Until next time (when I'll tell you more about the weekend).

05.28.18 When my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio...

Photo credit: NBC/SNL

actually, it's probably me who is smiling, because the Rio I am referring to is Rio Grande Jewelry Supply...and if I'm on their website, it means I'm buying more supplies!

Remember how Stefon (City Correspondent for SNL) said "this place has EVERYTHING"...





Well, they really do - and these days my average order with them is several hundred dollars of silver wire, sheet, chain - pretty much everything I need to make my pendants and earrings.  Not just metal - they are a one stop for all things jewelry.

I got so excited the last time a box arrived, I posted it as an Instagram story - and the Rio shared it!!



I also love their customer service...

my favorite pair of pliers has replaceable nylon jaws.  I use them all the time, and I love them because they don't leave marks on the metal.  After a while, the jaws got thin, and the screws were starting to poke through, so I ordered a replacements.  When the new nylon pieces arrived, I took the screws out of the old ones and tried to put the new ones in place...except...they were the wrong size.




I thought perhaps I had ordered incorrectly - so I called Rio, and after a bit of back and forth it turned out that while the part number had stayed the same, the pliers (and the replacement jaws) were actually different from the ones I had ordered a year before.


For some companies, that probably would have been the end of it - but instead - one of their parts managers said he would investigate and in the mean time, sent me a new pair of pliers, no charge.

Their folks are great in person, too. I had the opportunity to meet a few of them when they came to Austin to visit Creative Side to talk with the staff and members (like me) about our journey as makers.

When you watch the video, you will see why I love being in the studio with these amazing, creative people.  If you look carefully, you will also see the frog pendant in progress!

We live in tumultuous, stressful times, but thanks to Rio, I can keep calm and solder on.

Until next time.

05.14.18 Love is love.

Last time I gave you a sneak peek at my fused glass rainbow earrings...now here's the rest of the story.

After doing the square plate in class, the next project was to learn to cut a circle (using a lens cutter) and make a round plate or bowl.  One of the examples our instructor showed us used reeded glass - which has tiny ridges like corrugated cardboard.

Reeded glass
Photo credit: Bullseye Glass

When you set two pieces together at 90 degree angles and fuse them - you trap tiny air bubbles in a grid.

Immediately - I knew exactly what I wanted to do for that project...and then for earrings! I wanted to use the reeded glass and colored stringers (tiny glass rods - turns out the 1mm variety fit perfectly in valleys of the reeded glass) to create a clear plate with rainbow stripes and bubbles...and THEN I wanted to do it on a smaller scale for earrings.


The plate turned out beautifully, and I was so pleased - I was ready to give earrings a try!

Our last class was essentially an open studio, where we could fill a kiln shelf with pieces of our choosing, so I decided to devote my time and shelf space to a whole bunch of earring dangles.

I made some short ones and some longer ones.  Some skinny ones and some wider ones...all in an effort to figure out what would work best.

The short and skinny ones failed at a pretty high rate, only half of them were usable.  The best ones were about half an inch wide and just over an inch long, so that was what I did for my first production batch.

I added a couple of other experimental designs - one with horizontal stripes in my college colors, and another with vertical stripes - just to see how they would turn out.

The answer is - great - they all turned out beautifully!

I had several pre-orders based on pictures I'd posted of the prototypes, so I filled all those, they went to friends who had seen them and said, "oh, those are so happy" (which they are) so I am calling them my Happy Rainbow Earrings.

Then I put up a listing for the rest in my Etsy shop.

It didn't take too long to have my first sale...and the buyer asked if they could be sent as a gift? I said of course.

We exchanged messages, and she explained to me that they were for the mother of her son's soon to be husband - and my heart just about exploded with happiness.

I posted this story on my Facebook page, and I also learned a new word - machatonim - which is the Yiddish term for the parents of the people your children marry.  My mother used to say we are all mishpacha - family - and wasn't really concerned with who was an aunt, a cousin, or if you were once or twice removed...but I never heard her use this term.  It's my new favorite word.

I've always loved stripes and rainbows and all that they might symbolize. I didn't set out to make a statement with these earrings...but nothing could make me happier than knowing they were sent as a gift of love and friendship between two moms, two families, whose sons will soon be married.

I hope this story fills your heart as it did mine, and that you, too, find happiness in rainbows.

Until next time.

04.30.18 Bullseye

After a detour for wildflowers and Passover, I'm back to glass...

Glass for my Mondrian plate

The glass we having been using in my fusing classes comes from a company called Bullseye, based in Portland, Oregon.  They are not the only makers of glass that can be used for fusing - but it is one of their specialties.

Not surprisingly - you can't fuse just any old glass - and even when it is made for firing and fusing, it's not all compatible.  Even glass from the same company isn't always a match - so it's important to understand some of the science behind the glass.


All fusible glass has a coefficient of expansion (COE) - which refers to the rate the glass expands (and contracts) when it is heated (or cooled).  The two most common types of glass are COE 90 and COE 96. You can't mix them - so you work with one or the other. We have been working with COE 90.  I have some COE 96 shards that the Salado Glassworks folks gave me - but I'm saving them for another time.

In order for glass to be successfully fused (in a kiln) there is a very specific schedule for heating and cooling the pieces so that they will bond without breaking.  Heating or cooling too quickly can stress the glass, and ruin all the hard work that went into creating a piece...and the bigger the finished piece, the more careful you have to be with the timing.

Photo credit: Bullseye

COE isn't the only thing you have to think about when pairing glass pieces for fusing...because what you see when you look at a sheet of glass isn't always what you get.

Photo credit: Bullseye

Just as many stones get their colors from chemical compounds, so does a lot of colored glass.  For example both turquoise and chrysocolla get their distinctive blue shades from copper.  Well, lots of blue-green glass does, too.

Pink and purple glass get much of their color from lead, and reds, yellows, oranges and some greens contain sulfur or selenium.

So, it's really important to check to see if the sheets of glass you are using are reactive - because if they are, and you aren't careful - you are likely to end up with something very different that what you planned.



For some glass, heat has no impact on the color - what you see when you pull it off the shelf is what you will get when it comes out of the kiln. Other pieces - called strikers - will change color, and the hue and depth of the change will vary based on how much heat is applied.

Some of my classmates are very spontaneous - mixing and matching, experimenting and taking their chances - which is great, but it's not me. I've been spending a fair amount of time before each class looking at the Bullseye catalog and making a plan for each piece. This should not come as surprise to anyone who knows me - or has been reading the blog for a while. I am a planner to my core.

One of the first things I'm planning with respect to my jewelry is fused glass bars for earrings.  Here's a sneak peek at my first experimental pair (pre-fusing).

Until next time.