Nicotiana Earrings

Some more foldforming.

These are tiny flower earrings. They come with a miniature glass vase for you to display after you're done wearing them. They're too cute to store away inside a jewelry box. ;)

Available for purchase at my Etsy shop.

New Foldformed Jewelry Pieces

A few foldformed pieces I have been working these couple of days.

I have to say, I'm very, very happy with these. I love this technique.

I will be adding more pieces next few days. In the meantime you can find these little sculptures for the ears here.

Foldforming

I ordered this book "Foldforming" by Charles Lewton-Brain through Amazon.com. It arrived pretty quickly, considering the distance. And just as quickly, I read it halfway, and immediately tried my hand at it.

I didn't have a suitable hammer in my jewelry toolbox, so I had to search my husband's shop. I found a hammer which was too big for this technique and tiny pieces I was experimenting, but since it was the only one I had at hand I went ahead and tried it. After I folded and hammered with much difficulty, I annealed and stared at the pieces of copper with a little disappointment at my lack of visible results. After the pieces were cool enough to handle, I started opening them, and to my amazement, revealed very unpredictable and beautiful shapes.

Here are my first attempts at foldforming. I think I am in love...



I didn't know this, but foldforming is a revolutionary and groundbreaking technique just recently "invented" by the author of this book. It is a "conceptual, physical, and intuitive approach to metalsmithing that is informed by the natural characteristics of metals." He acknowledges many people for its development, including his German teacher: Klaus Ullrich. I like how he describes this teacher taught him that "the marks of process are compositional design choices. Every Hammer or file mark is a design decision as well as part of a process." "In the case of fusing, for instance, this turns the mistake, "I melted it" into the discovery, "What a lovely surface.""

This approach to working with metals, or any medium for that matter, is what attracts me to this technique. I value unpredictability (I like surprises), and am not a perfectionist (far from it). This means I like to play with chance. I also value marks of time, wear, patinas of time, etc.

I've already incorporated these pieces into wearable jewelry. I'll post some photos this week.

I'm "IT"!

I've been tagged by Danielle Embry, who is a fellow Artist, metalsmith, jewelry designer and educator residing in Tucson, Arizona.

This game consists on each person tagged writing seven random facts about themselves.

Here I go:

1. The only thing I press/iron are plastic bags.

2. I have been with the same boy/man since the age of 13 (he was 14).

3. As a child I wanted to be a horse.

4. I used to believe I could fly if I tried hard enough.

5. I love collections, but find it hard to collect myself because I'm not a very consistent person. I do have a lot of stuff I attempted to collect at some point. I guess 5 keys does not count as a collection?

6. I tend to loose stuff and then find it in the most unusual places. for example: my coffee mug (not quite finished drinking) inside a closet, a cell phone inside the clothes dryer (after going through the wash cycle), a ring inside a pot of soup, and a shoe inside the sleeve of a sweater.

7. I believe there are 1 footed aliens out there who steal 1 sock out of each pair of socks. Otherwise I can't explain where those socks are going. I think this is a sign I should start an unmatched sock collection.

And these are my "Tagees"

Coleen Baran
Catherine Chandler
Alisa Miller
Amy Tavern
Jimena Rios
Danielle Miller
Lunaticart



THE RULES AND REGS:
*Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
* Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
* Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their name as well as links to their blog.
* Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.