New Tools, New Techniques

With the October long weekend holiday and daylight saving adjustment, I have been working in a mind "fog" today, and kept wondering what I would write about in this blog this week... it was so obvious.

Last Friday I had the great privilege of attending a workshop conducted by visiting US master artist in Precious Metal Clay, Hadar Jacobson. Please see why I have been so excited about attending this workshop - please check out Hadar's website. The workshop covered many new techniques for me and challenged the way I have previously thought about approaching, executing and finishing a silver project. I learnt new finishing techniques using a handheld rotary tool and yesterday bought some new attachments for my dremel . My husband, Jim was really surprised when I got up early yesterday excited about going shopping at the local hardware store!

I made a small pair of hollow form earrings. In retrospect, I chose rather uninspiring shapes, but as this was the first time this year, I had even touched silver clay, I thought I should try to be a bit conservative. This was also the first time I had set a precious faceted gemstone into the silver, so I was really happy with the end result and have been happily wearing the earrings today.

It was also a great opportunity to meet up again with friends from the Contemporary Clay Instructors' Program a course which I completed at The Eclectic Studio in 2007-2008. It is also great to work with other "like minded" people - what a creative atmposphere!

Of course, I have now reignited my interest in working with clay. How many hours are there really in a day?

Comments

#SeptTextileLove Day 12

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day12 ‘Friendship’ … This is a story of friendship based on the love of textiles and fibre art . Gallerist and artist, Anne Kempton and I have been friends for 15 years , meeting when we had both retired from ‘ top’ jobs in a government department and a high school respectively. Neither of us were the retiring types - Anne was establishing the first commercial textile art gallery in Australia and I was looking for a creative direction. We discovered we were both driven by a sense of social justice and community and shared similar artistic aspirations . Since then, we have co- curated exhibitions, collaborated on many projects. supported community art and women’s causes, and grown in our individual artistic expression - Anne includes more stitching in her work and she has had a more painterly influence on mine . Moreover, this friendship is multifaceted, deep and personal and one I value and treasure . Thank you, Anne.

#SeptTextileLove26 Day11

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day11 ‘Language’ …when symbols in stitch say more than words … my wonderful Wednesday Makers group has undertaken a community peace project ‘Petals for Peace’ - stitched prayer flags depicting flowers , symbolic of peace. . We have stitched many ourselves and other stitchers from all over Australia have also been contributing as an impactful counter to the hate speech which seems to have pervaded our world currently - the powerful language of stitch.

#SeptTextileLove Day 13

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day13 ‘Rethink ’ … Rethinking a work is not unusual for me …sometimes because things just don’t work, but in one recent example , it was because I miscalculated‘ time and the deadline loomed . These small stitched pieces in my head were going to be an archipelago but time beat me before I could stitch the ocean to allow these islands to float.. They ended up in an exhibitions as ‘Meditations on Mercator’ depicting the size distortion of the Mercator cylindrical map projection ! What do you think of the ‘rethink’ ?

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Search This Blog