Monday, February 9, 2009

Imaginative Captures

Last week Celie and I took Andy Cooperman’s class at the North Country Studio Conference in Bennington, VT. It was so much fun! It’s very exciting to be around a bunch of people who just love to make stuff. The class was called “Imaginative Captures” and it was all about setting stones in different ways – couldn’t be more up my alley! Andy gave us each an eye to make a piece with. During the demo the zipper on my jeans kept opening and I kept messing with it and... the light bulb went off. I used the actual zipper pull from my jeans and fashioned the zipper part from sterling wire. I roller printed the copper sheet with fabric from my apron (actually the fabric that it's photographed on) and heat patina-ed it. It's riveted together with sterling rivets.

Below is the other piece I made in the workshop. We learned how to 'spin set' a faceted gem in a tube. I soldered that tube onto brass sheet that I sawed a shape out of (it looked like a turtle!) The river rock already had a hole in it, I set it in place by pushing the prongs around it.
The class was very inspiring and I look forward to applying some of these techniques to PMC.

3 comments:

Mei Tan said...

Hi! I stumble upon your blog and found your beautiful jewelry. I like the zipper piece. Very original, awesome!
I am more into wire jewelry :)

Ruth said...

Love the eye!

wanderer said...

Hi, I have spent the last 5 years developing a process for putting texture into metal with the rolling mill. I have mastered the technique of using lasers to cut out the designs/templates. Now I am ready to present this to the public in a website all about rolling mills. I would like to make this a well rounded website so not only do I want to offer these custom templates, I am also going to have links to rolling mill companies. If you go to my facebook page (Rolling Mill Resource) you will see an example of the process I have developed (it is the main picture for the page). What I need from you is for you to comment on your experiences with rolling mills and if you have any jewelry examples you can also post them and a link to your website. Any and all information is helpful. Thanks Tracey!