Chaos Earrings

I began making this style of earring last winter on a whim, almost, and have become quite enamored of the style. I make the frames by soldering (yes!) a ring of wire (18 or 20 gauge) and then shape it into a teardrop shape. The bottom of the teardrop is then wrapped - chaotically, for me at least - with 26 gauge wire on which I've strung a variety of gemstones. Both ends of each piece of 26 ga. wire are balled with a torch. The top photo shows a pair made with faceted carnelian, red agate rounds, and faceted "pineapple" quartz. The most recent ones I made, shown below, were done specifically for a monthly challenge being run for members of the Minnesota etsy Street Team, in recognition of October as Breast Cancer Awareness month. This pair is packed with freshwater pearls, faceted rose quartz, and faceted pink sapphires. I really like how they turned out and am inspired to make a companion pendant and necklace. I should have time to work on that next week and will post photos when finished!

Both of these earrings, and others, should be posted in my etsy shop by the end of today (Wednesday)!

A Happy Customer!

When at the Wells Street Art Fair in Chicago last June, I had a special order to make this necklace. I was staying in Chicago for the week so was able to finish it and hand-deliver it to my customer within a few days. I just received this email from her:

"If you recall, you customized that gorgeous gold wire and bronze pearl choker, and delivered it (thanks!) to me at work. I would just like you to know that everyone LOVES it! I even had a vendor at the Gem Show ask about it. It has become one of my very favorite pieces in my quite large collection of jewelry, and there is almost nothing I cannot wear it with: jeans, dresses, t-shirts.

Thanks so very much for a wonderful piece...it gets worn more often than most things I own. Both the workmanship and your generosity in delivering it are very much appreciated."

I feel so gratified that I have a happy customer! Thank you!!

Copper and Silver Riveted Heart Pin

Last winter (!) I attended an online workshop with Robert Dancik on making cold connections -- wire and tube rivets, among other techniques. It was great and I was fired up to try something new. I also bought a jewelers saw (finally) and sheet silver and copper to add to my stash. I worked away on a heart shaped pin and then completely lost my momentum. So it languished for 8 months, needing ONLY two rivets to finish it. I even saw it every day! Still, it sat there. Until today! I finished the rivets and polished it up (well, I want the scratchy matte finish, actually) and here it is with all it's imperfections.

I had originally envisioned the center portion as being more of a regular weave, but was having a hard time engineering the attachment, so I just put a bunch of bends in a long length of silver wire with round nose pliers. I cut both heart shapes with my new saw and did not break a single blade, so I guess my years of experience with a carpenter's coping saw paid off! The rivets were meant to be flush on both sides, but I did not do a good job of drilling through the silver without reaming out the hole, making it too big for the 16 ga. wire, so I balled the wire for the silver side instead. I think I like it better. The weakest part of the entire piece, in my mind, is the latch mechanism. I did this last January and right now I don't know what I was thinking! Fortunately, this piece is mine and I don't mind how the back appears, I just know it looks good on a sweater!

A long absence....

....for no good reason. In my head, I have written many blog posts documenting my recent show experiences, booth redesign, jewelry experiments, and personal upheavals. Unfortunately, there is no way (yet) to directly transfer my thoughts to the web. If there were, you all would have gotten an earful this summer! So here is the condensed version: The Uptown Art Fair (Minneapolis, MN) went well and I had decent sales, but the crowds were definitely down from previous years. Uptown also saw my first thefts (two bracelets) of the year, which is pretty amazing since at this point last year I had had several items walk off. I spent almost all of my August working hard to increase my inventory for a four-day show that has a reputation for high sales numbers: the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain Park (Atlanta), Georgia. I could (and may still) devote a long blog post to this festival and my trip, but for now suffice to say that it was relatively disappointing, especially considering that I drove 1200 miles to get there. Before I went to YDF, I put a lot of time into revamping my booth display. Nothing major, but the changes I made I think have dramatically improved the appearance. Again, a separate post may be forthcoming. And as if August wasn't busy enough, the week before I left for Atlanta, my dog sustained a partial tear of her Achilles tendon and had to have surgery to repair it. So now I am back (have been for a week), don't have a lot to do, unfortunately, to get ready for my next show, and am spending a lot of time and energy on my dog. I have also allowed myself to play, a bit, with new techniques. Stay tuned for some photos!

Sleeping Beauty as a Viking

I decided to splurge last week and buy a strand of very nice Sleeping Beauty turquoise nuggets from MagpieGemstones, along with a few other goodies. I had a particular design in mind, combining the turquoise with some red coral I had on hand for a Viking knit piece with a Southwest look, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't bring myself to combine the two stones. That look may appeal to some, but it just doesn't look "right" to me, so at the last second (seriously, I had to "back-out" a stitch and remove one chip of coral), I substituted baroque white pearls, which I find a better accompaniment to turquoise. Here is the result:

And how about some earrings to go with that?

Show Report: Downtown Boulder Art Fair

The Downtown Boulder Art Fair, held on July 18 and 19, was my first time at an art show in Colorado. I didn't know a lot about this show when I applied, but it fit nicely into a tour of western states art shows that I tried to put together. Most of the other shows fell through (I got wait-listed for three of them), but having gotten into the Boulder show, I decided to keep it. I went to the Brookings Summer Art Fair (South Dakota) the weekend prior, then spent the intervening week in the Badlands and Black Hills (that will be another post coming soon!).

The set-up for the Boulder show wasn't until Saturday morning, but I picked up my artist information packet on Friday and scoped out the show site. About half of the booth sites are located on the picturesque Pearl Street pedestrian mall, where they are scattered in amongst the public sculptures, kiosks, and benches. A quarter of the booths are lined up in a more traditional fashion (back-to-back) on the east end of the mall, and the final quarter are located on the edge of a (closed) street on the west end. This end is purported to be hot and sunny (the few trees are rather small) and get much less foot traffic than the actual mall. I'm guessing that as a first-time exhibitor at this fair, that is why I might have been placed in this location. That's fine, because, guess what? The west end gets plenty of foot traffic! I had a good show, and my work was very well received. I even began to run out of a few designs.

After walking around the show on Sunday morning, I think I might actually prefer the west end. The pretty part of the Pearl Street mall might be TOO shady, making my work difficult to see. I'm also not sure I like the jumbled arrangement of booths on the mall. Plus, I had a nice breeze coming through my booth and several patrons commented on the lack of a breeze in the close quarters on the mall.

The show organizers (Downtown Boulder, Inc.) did a good job, bringing juice and scones by on Saturday morning, and stopping by with water during the day. The booth-sitting was handled by calling the director's cell phone, upon which she would dispatch a booth sitter. Very effective!

Show Report: Park Point Art Fair

This past weekend I attended the Park Point Art Fair in Duluth, Minnesota, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite shows to do.  Even though it is small (120 artists) this show is very nicely juried and the organizers really, really love their artists.  The show is held on Park Point, a small park at the far end of a barrier island on Lake Superior, and is organized by the Park Point Community Club, whose members are local residents.  It is far and away the easiest set-up and tear-down of any show on the planet.  Not only can you drive right up to your booth to unload, but you can actually park right behind your booth!  Heck, stay there all weekend if you want!  Set up is on Friday, with the show running 10-5 on both Saturday and Sunday (civilized hours!).  In addition, they feed the artists a nice picnic dinner on Saturday evening, and give out category and Best of Show awards.  A nice twist to the awards is that the Best of Show winner each year is offered a commission to design and make the awards for the category winners in the next year.  Last year's winner was David Royce, a glass artist whose color work is phenomenal.  The awards he made for this year's winners were stunning and drew a lot of attention.

This is my third year at this show, and I consider it to be somewhat of a working vacation.  I enjoy camping at Jay Cooke State Park and going up a day or two early to go hiking and to enjoy the park.  That being said, it is still an art show and I do care about how my work is received and overall sales.  My experience in the past two years, and the current economic climate suggested to me that I should lower my expectations for the show this year.  Imagine my surprise when my sales were twice what I expected.  Twice!  I was very gratified to have former customers stop in to say "hi" and to confirm how much they love their bracelets, purchased in years past.  I also had several people come through and look once, and then return for a major purchase.  It seem that although people are buying fewer items these days, they are still buying, but are being more thoughtful about which items they purchase.  I was flattered and humbled that several people chose to buy my work for their one purchase.  I truly do appreciate it!

Finally, I have to say something about the weather!  If you were in eastern Minnesota this past weekend, you already know what I'm going to talk about:  THE WIND!!!  Saturday began with rain, and then was just a bit chilly all day, but Sunday brought strong (warm) winds.  Strong.  The sustained winds were around 30 mph, with gusts routinely over 40 mph.  The highest recorded gust at the Duluth airport was 49 mph!  My sturdy Trimline canopy withstood the onslaught just fine, and I wasn't even staked into the ground!  My only weights were four 40 pound bags of salt, each strapped to the frame.  The wind was unnerving, and bowed the rear wall panel in, but the frame itself never lifted off the ground.  It only began inching along the ground in the last hour when the gusts were at their strongest.

I never really felt that my canopy was going to blow away, but the stress of the wind took it's toll on me none-the-less and I confess that I began removing my jewelry from display about 20 minutes early.  That was also about the time that some ugly looking black clouds appeared to the north.  As it turns out, many artists began dismantling their display around 4:30, so I was not alone in feeling that it was time to pack up.  Fortunately, the show organizers agreed that the wind was getting to be a bit too much!  It was wonderful how artists and show volunteers pitched in to help bring down canopies in the high winds.

I love this show, and am already planning on next year!!