Summer Classes and Art Saves

This week I will be the featured artist on Art Saves by Jenny Doh. You can read a bit about why I love to create and visit a few of my favorite links. She has a great blog with lots of inspiring stories.

This summer has been flying by with lots of travel, classes and just hard work in general. We attended the Bead and Button Show in WI, here we are at the booth (Rachel Haab, Rachel Wright, myself and Michelle Haab-with baby Adeline on the way). We worked so hard, we often missed 2 out of 3 meals and lived on 4-6 hours of sleep all week but had fun meeting people and working together.

One of the classes I taught at the show combined metal clay, fine silver and images transferred to faux bone. It was A LOT to master in one class but I think the end results were stunning. This is a piece made by Erin Prais-Hintz. She transferred images to both sides and then set the piece in the metal clay so that the back is as pretty as the front.

Another hot technique we are teaching this summer is electroforming. I think I have more fun than the students. They bring interesting objects to form into copper to class. This piece was made at Art and Soul in VA by Judy Harris. She finished it with pearls and wore the finished piece as a pin. It is lovely and she also made matching earrings. I am hoping to teach this class again soon. We are really happy with the new electroform controller and the use of graphite paint for this technique. Electroforming and plating is surprisingly easy.

This week I am headed to the PMC conference in Purdue, and then off to Phoenix for Art Unraveled the following week to teach classes using copper clay, resin clay and fine silver clay.