Wine Country Tessellated Necklace and Bracelet

The Wine Country necklace is finished. It proved a challenge since I wanted the kaleidoscope beads to not rotate and therefore made two channels for stringing. The round beads only have one hole, so the challenge was to find appropriate accent beads that would gradually channel into the one hole beads. A close-up view is below:

click on images to see larger versions

The clasp is also handmade, from coated brass wire:

The co-ordinating bracelet will be auctioned off in the ARCAC fund-raiser tonight and is pictured below:

Please feel free to leave comments or questions below. 

Perfection = Predictable = Boring! The Artist's Mark

It feels great to be back in the saddle!

pattern assembled from scraps cut from the kaleidoscope cane

I've touched on this before. We create art because we have something to say, something that can best be said visually, not verbally. The viewer of our art completes the creative act by responding to the art. One thing that can derail this interaction is boredom (there are other things which I'll talk about another time).

For many, anything predictable is quickly glossed over. The brain likes to be engaged, and when it can predict the outcome or the continuing pattern or the next step it yawns and moves on.

Why is it, then, that many artists struggle so hard to make their work perfect?!

In any work of art it is the unpredictable colour, the unfinished line, the hint of something partially erased, that intrigues and makes the viewer stay a little longer, savoring incongruity.

In polymer clay, perfection can be achieved and repeated ad nauseum by a well-built machine. Why would we want to turn out art that looks like it was made by a machine?

The mark of the artist is unique to that artist and distinguishes a piece as hand-crafted, unique, special. That's why I've named my new studio The Artist's Mark. It's to remind me to remember to let my individuality be an integral part of my work, and to leave it visible so no one can mistake it for 1 of 100,000 produced in a factory.

I'll be demonstrating Kaleidoscope Caning at an art event at ARCAC this Saturday evening. There is very little exposure to polymer clay out here on the east coast of Canada, and I hope to stir up some interest. I've developed a palette for this cane that I call Wine Country. It is rich and elegant with a deep metallic colour that I call Madeira Wine colour, a soft, pale neutralized green called Celadon, a deep woodsy dark green called Deep Woods Moss, a soft white called Ivory, Black and a soft yellow called Sunshine.

If you would like the formulas for the all the colors in the Wine Country palette, leave a comment at the end of this post and I'll make it available at no charge, either via email or in the blog if there are enough requests.

Here are the beads that will be assembled into a necklace and bracelet to auction off at the event on Saturday.

extruded cane slices on co-ordinated spacer beads

beads ready for backing, then second curing and finishing

canes ready to tessellate

Hollow focal bead for the necklace, slightly irregular, definitely hand-crafted!

I'll post a picture of the necklace and bracelet when assembled.

The Sand Sweeper - Completed

The Sand Sweeper, version #1

The Sand Sweeper, version #2

As an abstract artist, one thing I sometimes struggle with is getting too literal. This unfolding saga has exacerbated this problem, especially if I name a piece before it is completed. I then agonize over making the piece fit the title. With this one I had partially built the vessel and hung a "tassel" from the keel, including the "brush" and the quartz crystal, and this had led to the name.

Now, how to complete it! I got stuck until I got frustrated and angry (ok, I got mad!!) and that's when I'm able to throw caution to the wind and just play "what if?"

I find I tend to set problems for myself, simply because I get a lot of satisfaction from solving problems. In this piece I had created a very strong asymmetry. With jewelry one has to establish not just visual balance but also physical balance - you don't want this thing swinging around as you walk and hanging on an angle, especially since I had restrained the asymmetry with very symmetrical links going up to the neck. The kinetic (yes, it spins) polymer clay "wheel" sitting at the stern of the vessel increased the "weight" on the left side, but continued the visual line up from the tassel, so it "felt" good there. 

I needed considerable physical weight to balance the right, also I needed something relatively dark and not too small to balance the visual weight. I chose a large fossilized shark's tooth, discovered on a beach in Ponte Vedra, Florida, during one of many times my family exiled me to the beach to dispel my depressive episodes (I have over 6,000 shark's teeth! Maybe that says a lot about my state of mind at that time! See, I need the beach - it keeps me sane!)

The effect was that of an anchor, but it created a problem - it visually takes your eye down rather than up to the face, and that's not good in jewelry.

Furthermore, the piece hung too low for such a relatively large focal point, so I enlisted the eye of a fellow artist (my younger daughter - I knew all the difficulties of raising children would pay off someday!) and the decision was made that the piece had to hang higher, which meant the two mokume gane beads had to go. 

The shark's tooth "anchor" was exchanged for a heavy, dark glass bead bracketed by two heavy copper endcaps to bring the eye up on the right.

The three white seaworm casings  with swarovski crystals at the tips are very kinetic and also move along the black wire, creating a strong, light focal area as well as eye-catching movement. They also add a feeling of fragility to an otherwise substantial piece.

Detailed images follow:

 

Gamla : The Saga Continues

Back home, house is listed for sale, you could definitely say my trip to the beach was eventful! We're moving - to the ocean. I guess you can only keep a Norwegian away from salt water, seaweed, wind, sand and smoked mackerel for so long before she starts to shrivel and become nasty!!! So, the excellent adventure continues. It probably explains the sea-related sagas that have taken up room and board in my head.

The Troll from the Tre Bukkene Bruse Book Bracelet 

thatch-roofed house

the complete bracelet with the oldest Billy Goat Gruff

The bridge under which the troll lives

the book

More characters have appeared and I'll introduce them as they develop.

Gamla (The Olden One): More feared than the Krakken, more terrifying than Surt, the Fire Giant, Gamla sits in her rocking chair, wizened and shrunken. A mountain of pillows add nothing to her diminutive size and the heavy blankets do little to keep the cold from chilling her bones. No one is sure of just how deep her knowledge of the olden ways goes, or of how far reaching her inner sight. None call her kin, yet none dare to send her away.

Gamla stretched out a gnarled hand, gripping my arm with surprising strength. Her skin like thin parchment stretched over a bony frame with veins dancing beneath the surface like swollen worms pulsing with life. Her years stretched thin: her body a frail 4 stone, her will - iron! Fierce determination gleamed in her eye. She had lost none of her passion. "You must tell the story, Anne-Brit!" she rasped. "It cannot end with me, for then there will be no escaping the fjaerning! " Gamla coughed and wiped some spittle from her lip, "Someone must keep watching" she hissed. "Call The Gatherer." Closing her eyes she seemed to shrink into the blankets, dismissing Anne-Brit with a deep sigh.

Liv tugged urgently at her mother's skirt. Anne-Brit was white as the lace on her blouse. "Mama, what was she talking about?" she asked, fearful as much for the look on her mother's face as for the words she had just heard. "I don't know, child...... I don't know." Her mother's voice was low. "Is she a troll?" Liv's words drew a quick glance from her mother. "Don't be rude, child." she admonished. Liv couldn't stop, "But she looks just like a troll with that one big eye glaring at me like that," she muttered.

to be continued.......

The Sand Sweeper

As is so often the case these days, I'm obsessed. This time it's The Sand Sweeper. Perhaps it's this time in my life that has me dreaming and imagining - no, I guess I've been doing that since the day I could put together two coherent thoughts. The storyteller has been awakened. The one who thought she could only say it visually, through her paintings, is now streaming words. These vignettes seem to end in cliff-hanging anticipation and I realize, finally, that it is because they are related. They are all fragments of a larger picture, an epic Edda/Rune/Skald that has been percolating for quite a while. I look forward to each segment revealing itself, and then, to the angst of bringing them all together.

Here is the beginning of the next character - The Sand Sweeper:

The Sand Sweeper walks the beach in the grey of the early morning, as the spray from the roiling surf shrouds the driftwood in glittering capes of moisture. She studies the sand, looking for disturbances in the patterns traced by the sea nymphs. These she sweeps urgently back into the relentless waves, doing her part to ensure that the balance between sea and land is maintained, that Gjettling won't be disturbed.

"I saw her this morning, Mama!"
"Who did you see, child?"
"The Sand Sweeper! I saw her but she didn't know I was watching."
"How do you know she didn't see you, child?"
"Because she was making strange motions with her hands and singing and then she started sweeping very hard". Liv's voice dropped to a whisper, "and, besides, I was hiding" she breathed. Mama smiled, "Maybe your were dreaming. The sunsprites often play games with young children in the afternoon, when the gentle breeze helps lull then to sleep."
"No Mama, it was real! I know it was her! She looked just the way you told me when you read me the poems from the Northern Skalds. She was tall with long, silver hair. Wisps of foam clung to the strands and crystals were twined in between, crystals that made song!"
Her mother turned sharply towards Liv, "what do you mean: the crystals made song?"
Startled, Liv looked at her mother, "I don't know how to explain it, Mama. There was a beautiful sound in my head and I knew it came from the crystals and I knew the melody and I knew the words and I was singing the song - I just knew it...... somehow."
Anne-Brit's breath caught in her throat. "She saw you," she whispered. "She knew you were watching!"
Grabbing her daughter's arms and pulling her close, Anne-Brit demanded, "This is important, Liv. Tell me everything you remember."
Liv's beautiful, hazel eyes grew large with fear as she looked at her mother..........

Unfinished

Burlesque Blend - More Color Variations

In preparation for the final workshop this coming weekend, here are a few more color variations. These are less dramatic, but very elegant. When exploring a particular technique, keeping certain design elements similar, really helps you to see the impact of the elements that you are experimenting with. In this case, the shape of the bead and the shape of the "path" are similar and this makes it easier to concentrate on color.

Pretty in Pink

More Burlesque Blend pieces as I prepare to teach these upcoming workshops (yes, I'm anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive!) The interesting thing about this particular colour combination is how beautiful it looks on all types of skin. Pasty-white or deeply-tanned, this just glows.

The design in this piece works well for me. The asymmetry of the pattern in the focal piece keeps the necklace from becoming boringly symmetrical; the large amount of pink in the two pieces flanking either side of the focal element draw the eye away from the middle and up towards the face; the next two flanking pieces, with the diagonal patterning moving diagonally down and out stop the eye from leaving and pulls it back to the central elements.

The finishing details often get neglected because one gets so focused on the clay technique. In this case, although the pink is very cool, suggesting silver would be a good accompaniment, the metallic sparkle in the 3 central pieces is more muted and casts a bit of a gold tint, which knocks back the colour intensity in the polymer and also allows me to choose spacer crystals that are metallic gold-tone with a hint of pink interference. These crystals are flanked on each side by an oblong, faceted black crystal and this combination really enhances the sparkling feel of this piece.

To finish off the necklace, round black agates are used instead of crystals, keeping the focus in the main polymer area and providing a very comfortable feel on the neck. Notice, though, that it is not just a bland, monotonous strand of beads. These agates are broken up periodically with a pink/gold interference tube seed bead, again adding interest, but not detracting from the main attraction.





I'm working out more colour combinations for variety for the students. It's not logistically feasible to structure a workshop so every student can choose every element, but colour is very personal, and where possible, I like to provide that choice while maintaining limits on size, shape, pattern, etc., as seen here:

Mokume Gane

I just finished my babysitting gig and I must admit - 3 young boys (my grandsons) wear you out!!! I had 2 girls and they were emotionally draining, but boys - let's just say I need about a week's bedrest!

My last post detailed the cane I made from the scrap left over from my first attempts at mokume gane, 18 years ago. The slices from the mokume gane stack that I demoed turned out so well I made some beads from them. As you can see, even this primitive form of mokume gane yields some nice results.

The key with mokume gane is CONTRAST. That's a very important design principle. To me it's one of the most important. If I show you a sheet of white paper what would you see? Probably not much. However, if I put two black dots and a larger black triangle between and below them, you could see that it obviously is a picture of a polar bear in a snowstorm :-)

The point is that the white defines the black and the black defines (or "informs" as some purists put it) the white. There are many design elements that can be manipulated to provide contrast: shape (organic vs geometric), line (thick vs thin), texture (smooth vs rough), colour (hue, saturation (pure vs dull), temperature (warm vs cool), value (light vs dark), just to mention a few.

Over the next few weeks I'll be discussing my experimentation with mokume gane and give a few tips on my way of doing this amazing technique.

Old Canes Never Die...

.... unless they are cured! But here's the reality of clay - it can start to cure at 90 degrees Fahrenheit (Kato starts to cure at 115 degrees F)! So those of you living in warm climates - beware!

I've seen a fair bit on blogs and pinterest lately about warming up old clay. The suggestions have been to put the clay in a ziplock bag and drop it into a bowl of hot water, or to put it on a heating pad. These ideas are only of use if you carefully monitor the temperatures involved, otherwise you may be shortening the shelf-life of your clay.

Polymer clay doesn't really dry out as there is no water in there to evaporate. The chemicals that comprise polymer clay may separate a bit with time, but mixing these properly yields a product good as new.

The best way to store clay is in a cool, dark place. Light, even artificial light, affects clay because UV radiation breaks down polymer over time.

Warming clay up against your body is a good idea because, although your internal temperature is around 98.6 F, your surface skin temperature is usually around 10 degrees lower. This bead was just made with clay that is 18 years old!

I've decided to use up all my old clay canes and other experiments. With the pendants I'm currently making,
like the Wind Whisperer, I want some rustic, ancient, woody/bone/resin type beads, and I saw this cane buried under a pile of old experiments. I had made my first mokume gane and didn't understand the role translucent played in highlighting metal leaf in this process so the result wasn't totally satisfactory since much of my silver leaf disappeared, hidden by the opaque bone layer. I then took all the scraps and stacked them and rolled a log, sliced it lengthwise into long, 1/4 rounds, flipped and reassembled them to experiment with the Natasha bead technique. the result was this cane.

I only have 4 inches left, and, although I'm taking thin slices and covering scrap clay to make the beads, I'm a post-war baby and start to panic when I think I'm running out of something I find useful, so the following is to show you my process for reproducing this look (since I didn't keep lab books for my clay experiments when I first started out!)

I used Premo white, beige, ecru and burnt umber. I used silver leaf (aluminum, not sterling)

I had mixed up an ivory using ecru, white and burnt umber but I've since changed to cad yellow, white and burnt umber so I'm using the new formula for ivory. I then mixed up some of this ivory with more burnt umber and beige to make the mid-brown, more translucent piece shown here.

The sheets were rolled out on the thickest setting and cut the same size and shape and the silver leaf adhered to the medium brown piece.

These were stacked from dark to light. You'll notice that they are not perfect rectangles. I prefer to do mokume gane this way since I pinch and stretch and compress the stack till it takes the shape of a rectangle. In doing this I am distorting the layers slightly and I find this enhances the variation of the colour patterns when I slice thin sheets off.

Flatten this sandwich out till it fits through the thickest setting on the pasta machine. Roll through. Cut in three, stack, roll through again, cut in three, stack, press onto a tile or glass surface so it adheres well and then even up the edges a bit.

 Spray the surface with water as a release agent and use various implements to distort the surface. When using straws  or metal tubes to cut small circles, I spray water up into the tube to help keep the clay from sticking and getting pulled out of the stack. I use a rocking/circular motion as I gently press down and also as I slowly remove the texturizing tool. This helps keep the clay in the stack.
Use a paper towel to remove as much water as you can, flipping the tile over to drain any water out to the surface so you can absorb it. You don't want water trapped in the clay.

Press the stack together and roll your acrylic rod to compress the stack a bit to adhere the cut pieces so they don't fall completely apart when you slice.

For slicing I use the Thomas Scientific blade(shown in the post "Demo Part 1: The Ossifibulous Bracelet"), a new one. I clean the blade with a baby wipe between each slice. If you have difficulty controlling the blade, raise the stack up onto a scrap stack BEFORE you begin making the patterns in the stack (so you don't lose the tight grip the clay has on the surface). Take your time slicing. It is easier to feel the angle of the blade and make minor adjustments if you are going slowly. The movement that works best for me is a slicing movement slightly on the diagonal as I am drawing the blade towards me. That way you are cutting, rather than pushing the clay.

Check out both sides of the slice to see which one you like the best. I place my slices on wax paper so I can lift the paper afterwards, look at the patterns from underneath and decide which slices I want to flip over.

This tiny stack and slow slicing yielded 8 full and 2 3/4size usable slices - that's great!










This was a nice side benefit of reconstructing the old scrap cane, but now it's time to stack the scrap left over, including any solid pieces of ivory. I stack it all, stretch, adding thinned out ivory to separate the darker layers, then roll this stack into a log. Cut the log lengthwise, then cut each long half in half lengthwise again so you have four longish quarter rounds. Flip these over and assemble as per a Natasha bead (if you don't know or can't find instructions for the Natasha technique, leave a comment and I'll show it on the blog)

The original bead made 18 years ago from the original mokume gane scrap (I like to keep one bead for reference and future development)









The new bead.