Marvelous Monday

Sarah Lindsay is a jeweler who developed a unique process in creating her "dust" jewelry.  She mixes her color palettes from acrylic dust. The dust is then laminated by heat treating it into solid slices. It has an agate-like appeal and her color palettes are vivid yet very soft.  Hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday!

Horizontal Growth- a Business Strategy

A number of months back, I purchased the Swanstrom disc cutter.  I had made the decision to start making more jewelry and one of the things I wanted to create more of, using the disc cutter, were earrings with circular components made from metal.  I've shown a couple photos of these in the past.  But the business side of me thought maybe I should do something with this tool to help cover the cost of this investment.  Innocent enough, right? I already had my Etsy supply shop set up previously that was used to de-stash some supplies, so I thought I would put a few disc shapes in there for sale. I already had some sterling, copper and brass sheet in different gauges so I began making a few different sizes.  The sales started trickling in soon after. And once the shop was set up, having a product line that I could just re-list rather than individually creating a listing for each sure made my life simpler.  What I didn't plan on was how busy I would be during the months of October through December.   My intention was to create a little side business that would allow me to make my art jewelry at a leisurely pace - and not have to create one or two listings per day as they suggest in the Etsy world.  But what happened was I became immersed in this side business.

So where am I headed?  Having done this over the past 10 years or so, I have much stronger sense of what my strengths and weakness are as well as what I'm willing to do and what I'm not.  If you've been following my blog, through this transition of work activity, what's remained for the most part has been my Monday posts.  That's my passion. I love being inspired by and sharing the art jewelry that I come across during the week.  But I also want to be able to step back and create more of that.  I'd joined the Boston Metal Clay Guild in the fall of 2010 and I intend on using base metal clay in some of that (like the earrings below).

But I know that there is also a need for components in jewelry, especially something a little more artful.  So I purchased my dream machine - the Durston rolling mill.  I've been experimenting with textures and hope to soon add these not only to my jewelry, but also my supply shop.  (http://naftalisupply.etsy.com)

Here's a little sample of some of the textures I've done with the mill.  I haven't nearly had enough time to spend creating textures with it but I've always got an eye out for that special item from the hardware, fabric or craft store!

Through this busy transition, I plan on continuing with my Monday posts and my Out of the Studio posts because they seem to be what most of you want to see and hear.  So stay tuned for what's in the works for Naftali.

Marvelous Monday

There were just too many photos of Fiona Chapman's jewelry to share, that I wasn't able to pick a few.  Her work is influenced by plant life, the seashore and currently cells and microscopic life.  She's created such a beautiful collection of silver and resin jewelry that it's simply delightful.  Hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday!

When Innocent Sharing Becomes a Problem

Yesterday I received a message from someone on Facebook that a photo of her work was being pinned and repinned on Pinterest.  That's the way it's supposed to work, right?  The polymer clay artist had made a bead using my crackling tutorial and was selling it on Etsy - which is fine.  She kindly referenced my tutorial in her listing. Shortly after, someone pinned it on Pinterest. But what happened next surprised us both.  Someone left a comment on one of the pins with my instructions to the technique.  That's what began being repinned.  And you know Pinterest, it spreads.  Unfortunately, this person did not have my permission to do this.  And as the pins spread even more, it erroneously became HER tutorial! For those of us that make tutorials, we put a lot of time and effort into making them with the intention of selling them.  Unfortunately, those who repinned it including the instructions, didn't realize this was a copyright infringement.  After I requested to have the pins removed, they removed the instructions.  I was able to track it back to the woman responsible.  I sent her a facebook message and have yet to hear back.  I've done the best I could.  So, if you happen to see this original photo on Pinterest and you see instructions, know that they do not have my permission.

It doesn't matter if you're a member of Pinterest or not.  If your work is on the internet, people can and will pin your work.  Period.  But it got me thinking so I went to look at the tutorials that I had pinned on my board.  Fortunately for me, I haven't spent a lot of time on Pinterest so I only had a couple.  But I've noticed a lot of polymer clay tutorial type boards on Pinterest now and can't help but wonder if these are truly free information.  Maybe we should all be a little more careful before we hit that "repin" button.

Out of the Studio

Last month, Laurie Prophater had blogged about Earth as Art.  I loved many of the images I saw from her link and vowed to use one of the images as inspiration.  All the photos were pretty spectacular, and I'm sure if you follow Laurie's blog, you were probably inspired as well. I had been experimenting trying to make a pattern that would emulate stone, particularly a pattern you might find with jaspers.  The colors I used were found from the photo titled "Algerian Abstract".  You can read about it here.

I made these earrings using the pattern that evolved.  The disc components are copper clay pieces that have a subtle rainbow patina that you can't really see in the photo at this angle.  The colors change as the disc moves.

Marvelous Monday

"My inspiration stems from the incessant collecting of nature's fragments carried out since childhood into adulthood and my love of studying their details, colour and form. In particular I am attracted to organic forms, having highly functional underlying structures which provide strength and support or serve to encase and protect."

"After two years of experimentation at University and subsequent research I developed my own technique of creating strong yet delicate hollow forms. To do this I chose textiles a material that allowed me to achieve the qualities I wished to evoke which captures the essence of decaying structures in nature's seedpods and cases. It also allows me the freedom to create my forms on a larger scale with no added weight."


Although Adele Kime's work has a perceived fragility, it is in fact hard to the touch.  Hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday!

               

TGIF

Today I thought I would blog about Lisa Hawthorne.  I had blogged about her back in 2009 which you can see here.  Some of her newer work has a more tribal kind of feeling to it.  I especially love these two brooches.

                                                                      

And this necklace is such a strong piece.  

You can visit Lisa's website here.  Just goes to show you - once a fan, always a fan.  Hope you enjoy and have a fabulous Friday (sorry, couldn't resist).

Birds and Beings - A Little Escape

If you were wondering where I was at least yesterday, I unexpectedly went away for a few days to visit a friend on Florida's west coast.  It was planned very quickly and before I knew it, I was gone.  So - I plan on doing Monday's post on Friday.  A backwards kind of week.

But the weather in Florida was spectacular.  It couldn't have been any nicer.  One afternoon we went to a beach and had a visitor most of the afternoon.  I was amazed at how these blue herons move their long necks around . . . therefore, photos.

And while I'm on the topic of animals, Luca had to go to the country for a few days - to what I call Camp Bob.  Bob is an unusual sort of guy.  His hobby is collecting exotic animals.  He has the typical sheep, donkey, chickens, rooster but then you also find the peacock, yaks, emus and alpacas.  Bob also boards dogs.  The two never mix - but they check each other out as some are separated only by a fence.  Ever see an emu?  These birds are from Australia and the males make these drumming noises.

When I dropped Luca off, one of the alpacas was just a day old.  When I returned this picture was taken.  He's the little black guy.  In the distance, you can see one of the yaks.

Most of the alpacas here were pretty shy . . . except for one.  He was a curious sort of guy.  Their faces and noses are so soft. And they all have bangs.  The hair under their eyes and face is very short so it looks like they've been coiffed!  

Marvelous Monday

Australian artist Leslie Matthews is a contemporary jeweler and object maker who has been in this business for over 25 years.  Her metal of choice is sterling silver and she dramatically  finishes it with either a glowing white finish or a black patina - both with textures.  In her current work she combines these voluminous metal shapes with polyurethane resin in various matte colors resulting in a very striking portfolio.  I wasn't able to upload more of her current work but it can be seen here.  Be sure to click on the images at the top of the page.  Her pinks and blues are just dreamy.  I hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday.

Marvelous Monday

Her name is Betsy Bensen and she makes one of a kind, art jewelry.  I stumbled onto her Etsy shop and fell in love with her work.  Her stones and settings are fabulous but I also love her sweet photos . . . like this little lamb displaying this beautifully set pink rose quartz and keishi pearl.

Or this Nevada boulder turquoise atop the backside of this little bunny.  Not only do I admire her work, but her photographs really make it stand out.  What do you think?

There's something indescribable about her work that keeps me wanting to see more.  So, as you can imagine, I was very happy when I found she had 24 flickr pages to peruse.  Beautiful stones, beautiful settings, and great props for her photos - hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday!