There is a crazy, and very wrong, idea that smaller things are faster to make, as if scale were the arbiter of time. True, super large artwork can take ages, but every time I move back to a small scale, I get to remember that tinier equals painstaking and exacting, which can easily take just…
Spring here is now Jedi season as baby barred owls Leia and Rey have emerged from the hollow in my neighbor’s nesting tree that looks like it was drawn by E. H. Shepard for a Winnie the Pooh story. Learning to fly is no easy task even if you’re born with wings. The landing part…
After becoming slightly obsessed with a chased gold cylinder from ancient Nubia that I saw last summer, I began experimenting with what I call micro chasing. I created this chased bead from seamless, sterling tubing (Rio Grande’s largest diameter). By slightly altering the order of Eastern repoussé steps I employ to refine my repoussé pieces…
After months of waiting, all is green again here. Kermit might have found green a challenging color to be, but I revel in my fully tree-canopied yard. I literally can’t get enough of looking up at the vivid blue sky through the lush leaves of my giant water oaks. Ok, so I’ve all but given…
Spring here continues in all its glory. The trees are nearly leafed out, which means soon I’ll be able to stop skimming oak flowers out of the fish pond. Skimming them does no good for the many displaced cervical discs in my neck, but it’s so calming that I can’t resist. This is how I…
Happy Spring/Fall! Wherever you are, may the colors and weather be beautiful and inspiring. Spring here is underway, and despite the persistent freeze warnings and night, and the clouds of pollen…ok, and if I’m honest the fact that everything in Atlanta is covered in The Yellow Snow (in which no dogs have play a part),…
I recently took an online art history course in Ancient Jewelry through the Penn Museum. The instructor Dr. Jane Hickman showed tons of gorgeous granulation jewelry from antiquity (along with filigree that’s really also granulation because it’s fused to a base sheet). As she was endeavoring to explain to the non metalsmiths in the course…
