Pratt followup

Here are a few of the pieces that emerged from my recent 8-week class at Pratt in Seattle. The schedule (6-10pm on Thursdays) proved to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but my students were real troopers. As usual, I was amazed that a group of people could start with the same materials, resources, and instructions, and end up with such diverse and individualistic work.

Thank you to all my students, and thanks again to everyone who helped me spread the word about this class!


















Cedar necklace, plyboo earrings
Molly Simmons













Belt buckle, walnut ring
Vance Wolfe


















Plyboo and pine earrings, walnut carvings (in progress)
Emily Lubahn


















Maple ring (in progress)
Rebbecca Tomas

"Anatomy Lessons" at Taboo Studio

I have a small batch of work (including "Holler", above) in an new group show at San Diego's Taboo Studio.  "Anatomy Lessons" also includes work by Kristin Beeler, Jessica Calderwood, Diane Falkenhagen, Thomas Mann, and Christina Smith, and I'm very happy to be keeping such good company.  

The show runs through June 18, and since I won't be able to see it, I'd love feedback from anyone who does!

Glass Hand

Last year I was thrilled to receive a Pratt/PONCHO scholarship, good for credit towards classes at Seattle's Pratt Fine Arts Center.  So thrilled, in fact, that I've just now gotten around to cashing some of it in.  And I'm not being at all sarcastic here; I have lifelong history of hoarding the things I value most--outgrowing unworn dresses, or letting the premium Halloween candy (precious, precious candy) molder while I wait for the "perfect" occasion to eat it.  

So I sat on my scholarship until something just too good to pass up came along: Intro to Kiln Casting with Susan Balshor.  In the past I've dabbled in both casting (bronze, silver) and glass (fusing, lampworking) but I never found a good fit for the scale and level of detail I like to work with.  Then along came leaded crystal...

As opposed to "hot casting" with ladles full of molten glass, kiln casting involves placing flowerpots full of crushed crystal on top of plaster molds arranged inside a kiln.  As the kiln slowly heats up, the glass turns to syrup, drizzling down inside the mold and filling every nook, cranny, fingerprint, and tool mark.  You just have to show up a few days later to take your nice cool mold out of the kiln, and--gently--bust the glass out of its shell.  

During the 8-week class I did a few few smaller pieces but spent most of my time prepping a wax sculpture that is just about old enough for its own driver's license.  Sometime during my sophomore or junior year of college I started making a modeled wax "portrait" of my hand, motivated, I seem to remember, by a comment my mother made when I started to get more serious about sculpting:  "Well, you'll never be a hand model now."  

Turns out she was right.  Although the hand is a sculpture rather than a life-cast, it's a pretty careful rendition (modeled finger by finger) of my right hand as it was then; next to it my hands today are notably knobbier, more scarred, and more masculine/muscular.  Funny to think, though, of all the things my hands hadn't yet done or learned when I made that model--I didn't even know how to knit yet!

I sculpted it slightly larger than life, intending to cast it in bronze (which shrinks significantly) but I didn't get around to casting it before I left college and lost access to the bronze foundry.  The wax hand kicked around in various apartment freezers before I finally left it (along with most of my worldly goods) at my parents' house while I proceeded to live out of a suitcase for years at a time.  When my parents retired and moved crosscountry, my mother somehow managed to transport the hand safely from Tennessee to Oregon.  She doesn't often ask me for work, but when she gave me the hand back a couple of years ago she expressed an interest in seeing it made "into something".  

And at long last, it has been.  It weighs a lot more now, but at least it doesn't have to live in the freezer. 

Pratt Auction

The Pratt Fine Arts Center annual auction will take place this coming Saturday at Seattle's Magnuson Park.  As far as I can tell, both tickets and volunteer opportunities are still available, and there's also a free preview the evening before.  My contribution is "Truffle", a brooch carved from German pearwood.  The catalog is full of covetable items--it's like Hammacher Schlemmer for craft lovers!

Upcoming: 8-week Pratt Class

Starting in April, I'll be teaching an 8-week version of my "Jewelry that Grows on Trees" workshop at Pratt Fine Arts in Seattle. Here's the course description:

"Beautiful, versatile and widely available, wood is an ideal alternative material for jewelry. In this class we'll learn to make the most of wood's palate of colors and textures using tools and techniques appropriate for use in a home studio. Topics will include basic shaping and finishing, surface embellishment and creating more complex dimensional forms such as rings and cuffs. The instructor will also introduce basic carving techniques that rely on a minimum of hand tools. Prerequisite: Jewelry/Metalsmithing I or equivalent"

This will be the longest class I've taught yet, and I'm really looking forward to seeing ambitious projects and blossoming skill sets. Judging by the amazing work that comes out of a weekend workshop, I'm totally prepared to have my socks blown off and handed to me on a plate.

We'll meet on Thursdays, 6-10pm, April 1 to May 20. Students will also get FREE Friday access to the jewelry studios--perfect for all that homework I'll be assigning!

(Only kidding! Well, sort of.)

If you'd like the nitty-gritty details, go to http://online.activenetwork.com/pratt/Activities/ActivitiesDetails.asp?ProcessWait=N&aid=500
Of course, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to e-mail them to me.

And please spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested!

3/4/10 update:
The class is a go with 6 fantastic students! Thanks so much to everyone who helped to spread the word; I am so grateful for your support. Please check back to see what we get up to...

Generous Ring

Generous Ring

My first finished piece of the new year was brought about by something I read in People magazine probably 15 or 20 years ago. Asked to describe his accessories, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards mentioned a sterling silver skull ring he wore regularly. Although skull jewelry is more usually associated with the principle of memento mori ("remember that you will die"), Richards said the ring reminded him that, "We're all the same under the skin."

Like much that I've read in People over the years (but unlike the Japanese lesson that I read only yesterday, sigh) this really stuck with me. It highlights something I find peculiarly seductive about jewelry, namely its instructive potential. While most forms of jewelry are capable of carrying a message (think slogan badges, fraternity pins, or pendants religious) rings are especially interesting because they spend so much time in the wearer's own field of vision. Say you need to remember to buy milk or pay a bill: a string tied around your finger is probably going to be a better reminder than one looped around your ankle, right?

So what do I want to be reminded of? Well, in the wake of a difficult few years, I want to keep in mind that as a rule people are kind and generous. Although my motif is admittedly heavy-handed (part claddagh, part Allstate ad) it manages to cue my memories of the innumerable people who've housed, fed, hired, supported, and encouraged me, who've taken my classes or purchased my work, who've given me a genuine smile or accurate directions. This ring also reminds me that although I may continue to depend heavily on the kindness of friends and strangers, the time to start returning those favors is now, not some fictional and far-off "good time".


















[The first installment in my "repayment plan" is the photo below, which goes out to my recent and future carving students. Although I'm squeamish about showing unfinished work (I'm still not over the time someone called one of my unfinished female figures a "fattie") I think illustrates something that's crucial for any aspiring carver to know: a carving looks awful until suddenly it doesn't. Don't loose heart!]

ASU Workshop

I just spent two exhausting but enjoyable days in Tempe, leading workshops for jewelry students at Arizona State University.

Since these were very experienced students with unlimited access to really good facilities (including the best-kept wood studio I've ever seen), I had the luxury of doing things a little differently than usual. Our first day was a fast-forward version of the wood jewelry class that normally takes me 2-4 days to teach; I powered through one demo after another, pausing only for a Chipotle burrito (which somehow tasted even better than they do in Seattle).

On day two we switched our focus to carving basswood spoons. Because they include a variety of forms and surfaces, spoons are a great way to gain experience with carving tools and techniques. By the end of the session everyone had a recognizable spoon to show for their efforts and a new set of skills to apply to more complicated projects.

Thank you to ASU Metals chair, Becky McDonah, grad student extraordinaire Lynette Andreasen, and everyone who attended my workshops or lecture!

Wooden Chain

This project has been my very own white whale for an embarrassing number of years.

It all started when I read anthropologist Simon Bonner's study of elderly woodcarvers in Pennsylvania, The Carver's Art: Crafting Meaning from Wood. Bonner's subjects were mostly retired laborers, looking for a way to way to reestablish social bonds, identity, and a sense of validity in the absence of a professional context. In ways that I found very moving, many of these men create a new niche for themselves as "trick" carvers, producing mind-boggling items such as chains, "Crown of Thorns", caged balls, and pliers. While some of the guys just carved as a solo hobby, others became demonstrators at local museums and fairs, where their abilities were justifiably appreciated. I mean, it takes a pretty jaded fairgoer not to be impressed by a guy who can turn a matchstick into a tiny, fully articulate chain.

When I read the book I was headed to Penland to teach my first ever wood jewelry class. I needed an ego boost and something to wow my students; "A-ha!" I remember thinking, "I'll whip out a wooden chain; that should impress them." The diagram included in Bonner's book made it look about as hard as connecting A to B. Here's the general principle: imagine a chain compressed and arranged so that each link is oriented perpendicular to its neighbors (the cross-section looks like a +); links A and C are butting up against each other in the middle of link B; to transform the rigid plank into a wriggly chain, "simply" cut away the material between the links.

It was vastly simpler to diagram than to do, which leads me to my long-standing beef with the majority of craft ethnographies: they're rich in detail on everything but the practical minutiae of the craft. Over the years, I've spent a lot of time trying to learn how to do odd things from such books and have almost always found that key information is missing, glossed over, or just plain wrong. When I started to pursue anthropology and my own ethnographic studies, my suspicions that many researchers don't bother to learn the technique they're writing about were largely confirmed.

Does this matter to anyone but a craft nerd who sees every craft ethnography as a potential how-to book? I think it should. When an author fails to grasp and/or attend to the very details that a craftsperson has spent years mastering, I can't help but question the validity of the ethnography's other observations and conclusions. How things are made matters, and resonates throughout an object's lifetime (for example, consider the different associations you have with a homemade chocolate-chip cookie and a Chips Ahoy).

But back to the chain. That "simple" matter of removing the wood between the links turned into a 3-year ordeal (admittedly, I made things harder on myself by choosing to make a graduated chain, fatter in the middle than at the ends). The trick I came up with (which might or might not have been used by Bonner's informants--who knows?) is a little harrowing: carve away as much wood between the links as you possibly can, using successively smaller tools, then hold your breath and snap the remaining wood (not the links themselves, ideally). Once the links are free you can work them around to get at the leftover splinters with your knife.

Having freed the final link, I was unable to put my not-quite-finished chain aside. That same night I fastened it (pencil marks, bloodstains and all) around my neck with a handmade padlock, and headed off to an event at the Seattle Art Museum. At the museum I joined an informal tour led by Dan Webb, a fantastically talented Seattle-based carver whose work is in the SAM collection. When I approached Webb afterwards to compliment him on his work, he asked me about the chain. I went red and started to stammer that it wasn't finished, wasn't very good, etc. Webb stopped me: "I've carved a few chains, and that is a good chain."

Maybe there's something to the notion of establishing an identity through trick carving after all.

Wood Jewelry Class at Pratt

Jewelry that Grows on Trees
October 17-18, Pratt Fine Arts Center

It was my first time teaching at Pratt and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. All 12 students showed up raring to go, despite Saturday's treacherous downpour.


















Some had experience with wood, others with jewelry, but everyone was pleased to find how well their skills applied to creating wooden jewelry. Check out the gallery below to see some of the amazing work produced in just two short days!


















































Want to hear about the class from a student's POV?

Signs of Life Opening

Signs of Life 2009
Facere Jewelry Art Gallery
October 7-28

Every year the Facere Gallery puts together a show with an interesting twist: each invited artist submits a photo of a major work, which is then is given to a writer to serve as inspiration for a poem, essay, or story. The two are published together in a lovely glossy journal.

The exhibition of the submitted works opened on October 7. A number of the artists and writers showed up for a public presentation beforehand, where we showed slides and read passages from the journal. It was fantastic to meet so many of the participants, to see their work, and to hear the stories read aloud--it really brought the whole project to life!


















My catalog piece was Choros, a necklace made of 11 torsos carved in the classical style. In the accompanying short story, writer Erica Baumeister cannily describes a visit to the Louvre--the very place where I got the idea for this piece.

I also submitted a large maple pendant, Veneer (not shown), that looks sort of abstract but is in fact a portrait of Victoria Beckham's overengineered cleavage, and two brooches depicting cleavage of another kind. I carved the plain version, Low Rise (below, middle), a while ago, after trying in vain to find jeans that were neither matronly nor obscene. Further thoughts on sacral display led to Swallowtail (below, top), which is "tattooed" with a wood-burning tool, and Formline (below, bottom), whose lacquered thong also alludes to the sinuous lines seen on much native Northwest Coast art.

Doll parts

My repressed childhood preoccupation with dolls seems to be resurfacing. This pearwood piece-in-progress is made up four unattached limbs that can be restacked into different configurations--doll as building blocks. My friend Gary's trenchant assessment: "So did Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois meet in a dark alley?"

Ruffled

I've been wearing this carved maple cuff around Manhattan today, and as far as I can tell, no one has taken any notice of it.

On the other hand, I have been getting an unusual number of complements on my dark pink leather gloves (which are thin enough that I can wear the cuff on top of them).