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| Faux bone & brick ring |
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| Fold formed copper & agate cuff bracelet |
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| Steel wire trapped sea glass pendant |
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| Enameled heart pendants |
Just back from Milwaukee where I attended the Bead & Button show. WOW! So much good information from some of the countries best teachers.
I started with Robert Dancik’s faux bone class and it was AMAZING. You can carve it, shave it, cut it and ink it. My ring looks Frank Lloyd Wright meets primative stone. The embedded a worn piece of brick was found in Seattle while at Artfest. It’s a truly unique nontoxic pvc product. For someone so organic, I find myself in love with pvc now ;] The 9 hours we spent with him were fun. He started the class with a singing bowl, filled it with fun & knowledge, and ended it with compliments. What an interesting guy he is.
Next on to Kim St Jean’s class where we hammered the crap out of metal! How fun. Fold forming, texturing and annealing was on the menu that night.
And then there was steel wire wrapping with Brenda Schweder. LOVED THIS CLASS! Since I Work with so many found objects, Brenda trap and capture techniques are something I’ll use forever, as I can literally suspend anything (here I trapped a piece of sea glass also found in Seattle).
Last but not least was Melissa Manley’s enameling class. Ahh, the possibilities with enamel…(and the palette of colors) What a beautiful soul Melissa is. I liked her from the start and ended up chatting with her over lunch. Maybe I’ll see you in the NW one day.
New friendships were formed and I ran into my favorite teacher, Susan Lenart Kazmer, always a pleasure. With so much new inspiration, there will be lots of new pieces flying off my workbench in the next few weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted.
Peace, Jomama
