Creative Storm

Thursday was cold and wet. We were teased with Spring a couple of weeks ago, and since then the weather has been volatile at best. It makes that question I get from my 11 year old daughter every morning, “Is it long sleeve or short sleeve weather?”, hard to answer.  So… I have been escaping the cold weather by spending the last few days in the studio. I even enjoyed a warm fire (just kidding). I did keep my tiny torch busy for awhile soldering silver shapes. I made a collection of silver bezel frames, and I had fun texturing and patinating the metal.  Then I pulled out my clay and my inks and paints and really had fun.
The new pieces I have going right now are exciting for me.  I’ve still got a ways to go exploring this direction, but I am really happy with what I have done so far.  If I can steal some time, I’ll try to take a photo or two.

This creative storm has me ignoring all the things I need to do around here.  It’s so hard to stop to run a carpool when I’m caught up in a piece.  I’d love to just bury myself in silver and paint and polymer clay, but unfortunately I am going to have to take a break.  I won’t be around the blog much next week. It’s school vacation week and we’re going to be busy visiting colleges with my older daughter.

I’ve been following Judy Dunn’s pricing discussion. I don’t sell much, usually just some beads or pendants at the guild booth at the CT Bead Society’s September Bead Show. Production work seems beyond me most of the time. Even when I make a veneer I particularly like, it feels weird to see several pendants that are very similar on my work table. If I ever get serious about selling my work, I am going to have to get over that. Working with metal lately has had me fully absorbed, but it reminded me how little I know of metalsmithing. It’s relatively easy to gain a comfortable skill level in polymer clay, beading or even metal clay, but working with metal is much, much harder.