Mondays with Marly - Taxes and Beginnings

By NEW guest blogger Marly

Marly and Angie own Studio 28 in Waterloo, Ontario Canada.

I’m sitting at the table amidst piles of last year’s receipts coaxing my shy and often timid left brain to step up and make sense of the numbers, tables, percentages, and schedules that make up my income tax return. As I look over a receipt from one of myToronto suppliers, my right brain merrily skips into my head and says, “Remember on that particular trip to Toronto you also went to Massey Hall to hear the Canadian Songwriters Tribute to Neil Young.”  “Oh yes!” I enthusiastically respond, “What a great
concert!” Which inspires me to go over to my computer and click on iTunes...a bit of music in the background to help me get through this tax thing would be perfect! Oh and while I’m here at the computer, I might as well check my email. Ah yes, an email from my dear friend Ruth inviting me to be a guest writer on her blog. What a great opportunity! How exciting!  But wait, now I need to write something!  How does one begin? Looking back at the pile of receipts on the table, I decide that, indeed, this is the perfect time to think about my first guest blog entry.

So let’s go back to spring of 2008. Angie, my good friend and business partner, and I have dabbled in metal clay for a few years, but its when we spend three days with Celie Fago in her lovely Vermont studio, learning about the tear away technique, doming and keum boo, that our excitement about this incredible medium really takes off! 

Lentils Made at Celie’s in Vermont

During our time with her, we are introduced to bronze clay which Celie has been testing for Bill Struve and Rio.  We also learn that she will be teaching the first introductorycourse in bronze clay at the PMC conference that summer. Mmmm.....another exciting opportunity presents itself. Angie is lucky enough to make it in Celie’s bronze clay course which fills up within days of its posting. It is in this course that Angie has the very very good fortune of sitting beside a lovely British woman named Ruth Baillie.  Both of us continue to enjoy her company during the course of the conference, discussing seminars and people we have met each evening over a glass of Ruth’s very own Birdland Merlot. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Ruth, Angie, and Marly at PMC Conference 2008  

First bronze projects by Angie

First bronze project by Ruth

Little do we know that when we say our sad goodbyes at the end of the conference, that we will all be together again in a few months. Wait...what’s that? Oh dear...the left side of my brain is wringing her hands, glancing over to the pile of now neglected receipts, and telling me in a very forced whisper that there are tax deadlines to meet.  I guess, the next chapter of our adventures with Ruth have to wait. But, at least now I know what I’ll be writing about in my second entry. I really wish I had invested in that nifty “receipt reader” thing that Ruth talks about earlier in her blog. I might be a little less reluctant to go back over to the table. Maybe, I should go online and learn more about those receipt
readers, or perhaps go for a walk on this beautiful, sunny day to clear my head a bit before I get back to the numbers...isn’t there some dirty laundry that needs attention?...and so it goes.

My favourite metal clay tools - Part Three - fired metal clay stage

The third part of my favourite tools series is about a tool that I use once the silver has been fired.

Sometimes I like a highly polished and mirror finish on my pieces - for example with my frog necklace, I felt that should be polished and shiny as frogs are wet and so shiny too! However, the finish I actually prefer myself is a soft polished finish. I think that a lot of that decision is based on the fact that my pieces are rounded and soft shapes and thus having a soft finish tends to seem integral to the design - like soft, cuddly, birds and bunny rabbits.......


So once the piece comes out of the kiln, I sand and polish as necessary until there aren't any lumps, bumps, scratches and stuff and then the piece is looking shiny. But then I get to use my favourite tool and take that shine off, replacing it with a soft brushed look. The tool I use is a fibre/ fiber wheel that you can buy from Rio Grande. It fits into a rotary tool and just brushes away that shine to give that soft look that I love.


Sometime people request the shiny look as it's what is more commonly associated with silver - and I'm happy to do that - but I like the soft approach best!

What is your favorite finishing tool?