A friend for Max the dog

I've just finished a commission for a lovely customer.  I think she found my work from the New York Times article - I should check that!

Anyhow she saw my bird jack-in-the-box necklace that I made quite a while ago now - and asked if I could make her a similar one with a dog inside.

She has a "goofy" golden retriever and sent me this lovely photo for inspiration of her Max with his girlfriend on the right hand side!

For my jack in the box pieces, I collaborate with Kim from JujuBeadz.  She makes lovely whimsical beads from glass and I like the contrast the colored glass makes with the silver.  She has closed her store for now, but I emailed her and asked her if she could possibly make a glass golden retriever bead for me, and also three red "balls" - Max's favorite toy - one for the box and two for earrings.  She kindly did and they turned out perfect - even with a little tongue hanging out like in the photo!!!

And so I made the little silver box, put Max on a spring - and now, when you pull on the red ball,  he enjoys surprising you by jumping out of the box to see you!!!!

 

Kim also made two extra beads - one bone shaped one and one paw print one in red, so they were added to the clip on earrings!!

Doesn't he look a happy doggie!!!  What a happy jewelry set!!!  Thanks so much Nancy. I hope you love and get a lot of laughs from Max's new friend.

Introductions - New Guest blogger Marly

I want to introduce you to a new guest blogger - my great friend Marly.  

Marly is an artist who works in fused glass, metal clay and lots of other things too.  She and Angie own and run Studio 28 in Waterloo, Canada (near Toronto).

Lake House View

The photo below shows Marly in my studio last year, when she and Angie were visiting.  While we were together, we had an incredible time making some collaboration pieces - three pieces with each of us contributing to each piece.  The process - and results - were amazing. Here's the link to the final blog post about our metal clay collaboration projects so you can see what we came up with.

Anyhow - I won't tell you too much about her, as she'll be doing that!  She will be blogging on alternate Mondays in her new slot "Mondays with Marly". So one week it'll be "Mondays with Marly" and the next it'll be "Monday's Millinery Musings" with Jennifer.  (Now why Jennifer's name doesn't begin with an M I'll never know!! Maybe she should change it!!!)

 Garden Window

I'm delighted she agreed to join our little band of bloggers, so we get to hear a little about "inside the artisan Marly".

See you Monday Marly!

Collaborations - part 5

Yeah! We had a great day today. Lots of fun silver time and wine time and friend time and sharing time. And during all that we managed to finish our collaboration pieces too.

Drum roll .....rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Here are the finished pieces - each started by either myself, Angie or Marly, then passed on..and then passed on again....

And of course - part of the process was the naming....so here is each piece described individually......

The piece Marly started, we named "Myriad". It illustrates the myriad of different friends we have in our lives and how different they can all be - yet all join as a single entity in our life.


Angie's piece we named "Trilogy" as it made us think of each of us three and the different life stories they have, but also how they all intersect.



And my piece we named "Anyone can be progressive". We felt the process of collaborating by starting a piece then handing it on was a bit like a progressive dinner where you have appetizer at one person's house, then move to someone else's home for the entree, then have dessert at someone else's. And as "anyone" was involved, it just had to be "anyone can be progressive". And of course - a little double entendre with progressive indicating moving forward, improving, change.....



We reflected on how it felt to start a piece and then pass it on..... it involved a stage of letting go - letting it become what it would and not necessarily what we had in mind...and also a level of trust in each other.

We then had to decide who was going to keep and wear each piece. We decided to number each piece then write the numbers on a piece of paper and throw them down. The piece that landed nearest to each of us, was the one we chose. Strangely enough - we each got the piece we started !!!! But in the end, we each kept a different one and agreed that next time we meet up again, we'll exchange and "progress" to the next piece. So I am now wearing Marly's "Myriad", Angie is wearing "Anyone can be progressive" and Marly is wearing "Trilogy" .

But now the day is over and they've gone.... and it feels sad....but at least I have my momento in "Myriad" - a reminder of the boundless and infinite friendships we have and share.....

So do let us know what you think of our collaborations..........

Collaborations - part 4

Marly and Angie are coming over in about an hour so we can finish off our collaboration pieces.

They are fired but now need polishing and patina and....

So here are the pieces before they went in the kiln.


First in this picture is Marly's collage which I got second and then Angie finished. Marly then add a bail to the top. Second in this picture is Angie's reversible lentil showing the side that Marly finished and then how Angie put the two halves together. (The next photo will show the reverse and what I did to it!). And third piece in this photo is "Anyone" which I started, Angie impailed (!) and Marly made a heart and moon to hang on his wand. They will be assembled after firing.


This picture shows the same pieces again but the other side of Angie's lentil with the little flower that I made.

Hopefully I'll post the final pieces later today.

Collaborations - part 3

Here are the next phases of our collaborations. If you want to look back at how this started - scroll down to Wednesday's blog post.

Here's Marly's collage with a couple of additions my me:


Here's my "anyone" which Angie impailed with a wand in his hands (and tummy!) and a squiggle on his hat and then a loop through his head! Yes, she is cruel!


And here is Angie's split lentil (sounds like a soup!) which Marly chose to decorate one half of. Marly often uses three circles in her designs - and it seems highly appropriate as there were three of us doing our collaboration!

Angie and Marly are coming round tomorrow so we can finish our fired pieces - so look out for tomorrow's blog post to see our progress!

Collaborations - part 2

Following on from yesterday's "collaboration" post, here are some photos of the stage one of our pieces.

This first piece was started by Marly:

It's a collage piece so she made the base and then added on some different textures and then passed it on to me.

I started a piece making "anyone" so he could be added to:

I then passed him on to Angie for the next stage.

Angie started a lentil bead with leaf texture on it - here it is in two parts that were joined at the end:

She passed it on to Marly.

Tomorrow I'll show the next phase so you can see what the second person in the phase contributed! See you then.

Collaborations!

My two dear friends, Marly and Angie are visiting from Kitchener, near Toronto at the moment. I met them last year at the metal clay conference at Purdue. They visited last year and I'm happy to say they are back again now before they head off to the art clay conference next week. I've mentioned them before in my blog - they work together and their business is Studio 28.

So yesterday we decided to create together. I had an idea that maybe we should try and collaborate on pieces - so each of us starts a piece in our own style, then we pass it on to the next person to add their touch and then to the next person to finish it off!

Here's Angie hard at work (in between knocking her head on the low ceiling every 2 minutes!)


I also tried to instigate a time limit on each stage -but didn't get very far on that bit! So we each began a piece in a style we had done before and then the piece went on it's way. Sort of like a progressive dinner, we decided!!! I use slightly different clay from them, so our clays moved around too....

We all really enjoyed the experience. We each tried to stay true to our own style - but also stretched and challenged ourselves a little to fit in the style of the other two people.

Here's Marly checking out my textures and trying to decide which one to use:


The pieces were fired yesterday but aren't finished yet. We need to book some more time to do that together.

I'll show some photos of the different stages of our creations over the next couple of days so come back and take a look at how three artists can work together :=D - and have lots of laughs in process!

(PS And yes, these photos do show a rare glimpse of my studio! This is purely because M and A were coming so I knew I had to tidy it up to find some work surface for us all!!).