Ocean Creatures

In the 1990's, I had a job where occasionally I'd look out the window to the Boston harbor, and see the cormorants. They'd lift their wings to the air the sun to the environment around them. I may not have been alone in feeling a sadness in that picturesque view. Creatures like those birds have no choice but to exist in the polluted waters, the polluted air. They derive no benefit from all those massive chemicals washing downstream towards them. They must only survive, and spread their wings.

Even before the catastrophe that is now the Gulf of Mexico, (but was already a catastrophe in making as there was a 70 mile wide dead zone created by chemical runoff,) I thought of a very frought design* indicating my tension and sadness about the environment, specifically the Ocean. There is something so intimate about diving or swimming in an ocean to survive. I tried, but could not make any design so loaded with feeling work. I hope at sometime to be able to. I'll call those pieces "Killing the Ocean." The below piece, called "Small Hope" is the only thing I could get going on. It's more designy, and is less about hope than a letting go of total despair. It is the only thing I could do. Hence the name. Not that the design itself says "hope."

I won't be able to get this piece finished in time for the May challenge. The center tentacle area is to be cast in bronze, along with the circle beside it. The 2 side pieces will be in silver.



*This design is for the May challenge on the Metalsmith's thread. It was for an Ocean creature, highly polished. Not sure the tentacle piece will get highly polished, but maybe!

Spring Cleaning

Well, kinda Spring cleaning! Wiping the dust off the blog anyway. Thought I'd post an inspirational video clip, and a photo of a ring I finished last week.

hahahahahaha! Doesn't that look like fun?

The top part is something I carved that never really made it on its own. I just combined it with a band I'd fabricated.

Have a merry May everybody. ;)

Things Not Known

Well. I was given an award by a very nice individual, Almost Precious. This has happened before... but I tend to be struck dumb by the occasion. This time I suspect the lassitude of my brain waves match the occasion and I feel a centrifugal force of expression. The challenge was to talk about 10 things not known about myself. I'm thinking 4.

One was a tree I climbed in first grade. My mother told me not to climb this tree, but it was a perfect tree to climb. It wasn't my fault the limb broke and I fell to the driveway below, breaking a toe. I wouldn't've climbed it if it hadn't been good.

I rode a Suzuki 550 to Sturgis one year, not knowing about the Harley rally happening there. Accidents happen.

Red is my favorite color. But so is green. And orange. Purple black grey white and yellow. I also love pink and turquoise. To me, favorite colors are a list, discussion, debate and relist. I think there is a reason that colors are assigned to politics. If I believed in past lives, I hope I mixed colors for Caravaggio.

And the 4th is for flying. As a kid my most vivid dreams were of flying. One time I remember seeing my mother walk down the hallway from the crack at the top of my partly open door, during a "dream." My poor Suzuki 550 left me one brain fog morning as I flew up over the end of a car. The landing was tough, but the moment of shocking freedom memorable. The glimmer of hope I have for the future is the possibility of jet packs.

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,"

hahahaha... well that is known. I love poetry, though sometimes in recent years I have to recreate the personal environment for poetry. It is always worth the experience. Cheers.

*I'll have to think about the passing on of this award! Though I am curious what Suldog might say bad about me.... lol.

Mechanical Beauty

I got into light metals when making masks. The masks I made at the time were paper mache, and I spent an inordinate amount of time on the surface. I used modeling paste with the paper to build them, acrylic gel stuff to seal the back, but left the surface natural (For most of them. Some of the older ones were painted. Most all of the masks are gone.) To get a smooth surface, I had to sand and repair with added modeling paste and sand and repair over and over again. The pay off for all that effort wasn't much. But it got me thinking, that I really had to change mediums. (lol.) So I took a light metals class.

That light metals class was a blast. I loved the metal. During that time I wanted to do some metal mechanical masks. And with one I wanted to make a figure... That mask has stayed in my brain. Perhaps it's better there. It lead me to learn figurative sculpture, to the east coast, and now onto jewelry somehow. Several clips I've seen recently have reminded me of the intriguing beauty of mechanical creations. The first clip is an incredible one of Theo Jansen's Sandbeests.


And this next clip if a fun one of a simple mechanical brooch. It doesn't say where this is from, so sorry, I can't credit it.

Rose Rake Challenge

Here's some pics of my Rose Rake Challenge piece from the Chatty Metalsmiths thread on Etsy. It has a small cobaltian calcite druzy stone. Obviously it isn't set yet! Neither is the ring oxidized to bring out the forms. The 2 sides of the ring are competing forms, with the leaf-like side having holes and the rake side with straighter lines. The druzy sits in an odd shaped cup between the 2. I had thought to do the rake side with square wire, but it didn't turn out that way! Hope you at least get an idea of the piece. Druzy is impractical for rings, but I enjoyed playing with something different.


Here are some of the other responses to the Rose/Rake challenge.

Addendum: here's the finished ring as I posted to the challenge page earlier this week:

Biz Cards

Thank you very much, those of you who have visited. I am not apathetic about blogging, my blog or others'. I'd say more accurately I'm de-energized on life, at the moment. I'm finishing one job, beginning another, and have a mountain of projects I MUST DO NOW TO STAY SANE in my workroom. I also am in desperate need of business cards. I think I knocked off at least the card goal tonight. I've gotten rather tired of apologizing as I hand out my business card. "My card might look kind of silly, but check out my work..." I've ended up with a card that may not be less silly, but. Well. At least it's drawn and painted silliness. And that is the most serious kind. ;)

The card is reference to the avatar I use for my blog. And is from a previously posted drawing of mine. A troll, under a bridge, holding a flower and making the peace sign. (The colors are more vivid than this pic.)

One small project I finished is my Itty Bitty Cool Tree earrings. What I did was cut out the center of the Cool Tree Ring I'd carved, and made it into earrings.

Cliff Notes

*Note the cliff note. Hahahahaha!*

This is what I most strongly saw in a piece of jade bought from BeadersBoutique. I may revise. The stone is a pretty translucent new jade stone. It might do better with form, than relief. But I love the idea of Icarus staring at the ocean before he takes off. Somehow I identify with it. ;)

edit: I think I'll stick with a simple torso for my first carving! lol. I decided the above scene might be just a *tad* complex.