The gallery where I volunteer and sell my work (AuSable Artisan Village Gallery & Art Center) has started a very successful series of "Art Uncorked!" classes.  We provide the teachers and classroom while our neighbor, Valley Mist Winery, provides wine tasting for our students.  So far it's all been painting on various surfaces such as canvas, wine glasses, pottery, etc.

Some time last year I decided that, in the future I would only teach jewelry making in my own studio.  I really like small flexible classes. In my own studio I specialize in customizing the teaching to the student, so if he/she shows an interest in working a slightly different way - off we go.  That's my idea of fun! But off-site I can't go in a new direction because I'm limited by the (HEAVY METAL!) tools and materials that I haul with me as well as time constraints and class size. 

But I've been a student in a couple of Art Uncorked! and seen how much fun they are.  The emphasis is having a good time and helping folks with all levels of experience be comfortable with dipping their toes in the world of creativity. It's all about loosening up, diving in, and trying something new. 

So  I take it back!  I wanna play that game, too.  I'll still teach the more in-depth things in my own studio but I'm looking forward to this new perspective.  I'm developing projects that use as few tools as possible, use inexpensive materials, and look like they take a bit of skill but are actually surprisingly simple.  Those are the kind of things I gravitated to when I first started learning myself.  If all goes well newbies should be able to surprise themselves and create something they're proud of while more experienced folks can pick up some new techniques.  And of course, we all have a good time.  Here's our first project.  Students will each make at least one pair of earrings and one pendant using the caged bead technique.  

A local home-schooled student, Anna Tomlinson, has been creating a series of video reports on the Arts in Grayling. She and her family are often in the gallery. Her latest video focuses on the AAV Art Uncorked! classes.  I'm adding a link to it here because it's got relevant information, but even more so because I'm so impressed with the projects being created by this bright young student. You go girl!  You can see the other videos in her series on that page as well.

If you'll be in the area on April 28th, you might want to join us for jewelry making and wine tasting.  You can find out more about the class and/or register by going here.  In fact, Art Uncorked! classes of various types are offered almost every Saturday.  You can check the AAV calendar to see what's scheduled.  New classes are posted regularly.  A significant portion of the Art Uncorked! proceeds goes directly to our all-volunteer, non-profit AAV Art Center so it's a great way to support the arts in northern Michigan.

A jewelry saw is a pretty special tool.  Its blade is so thin it can be tough to see which way the teeth are pointing so I do it by feel.  But that fineness is what enables you to create amazing detail.  The first thing I attempted was the state of Michigan (just the lower peninsula) about 3 inches tall from a piece of 18 gauge aluminum.  I couldn't believe how good it looked and how quickly I finished it. I was hooked. Turns out it was dumb luck that I chose a project and materials that made it deceptively easy.  Aluminum is very easy to cut. I found out later that thick metal I used is much easier to cut because it's stable and doesn't bounce around as you push the saw against it.  Now the shape may seem intimidating but as I learned on my next project, it is so much easier to create organic flowing lines with a saw rather than straight lines or symmetrical designs. Any tiny variation on the latter is immediately obvious. If I was off a tat on part of Michigan's uneven shoreline I just curved back the other way and nobody was any the wiser.  And finally the size was ideal. Past a certain point, the smaller your finished product the harder it is to cut in all your tiny details.  For example, the bronze Michigan on the bottom left is less about 3/4 inch tall and was much tougher to cut. And of course, past a certain point, the larger it is the more unwieldy it is and the longer it takes to navigate with that tiny blade. 

Something I'll be comparing in posts about metal sawing is different ways to get your design on the metal.  With each project I tried a new method and I'll detail others in future posts.  Each seemed to have its own pros and cons. Here I hand drew the design on a piece of paper. When I was happy with it I cut it out and rubber cemented it to a circle of copper. You need to make sure the cement is totally dry  before you begin or it can goop up your saw and/or move around as you work.  If you want to create your own design, I'd say the wait time is the only down side of this method.  You can also use double-sided carpet tape or a glue stick.  I had trouble with the edges coming up when I tried a glue stick but I read about people liking them so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

The middle picture shows the design cut out and the paper template removed, but there is still a lot of filing and sanding ahead to smooth all those edges.  I was dismayed to discover this takes a lot longer than the actual cutting.  The good news is that I've since learned ways to create designs that are more efficient for filing, have some handy new tools, and practice helps a lot.

This was my first sawing project that involved piercing. That is, not just sawing around an edge (like the Michigan earrings) but a design that has holes in the interior.  The secret is drilling little holes wherever you need to remove metal.  Then you detach one end of your saw blade and slip it through the recently drilled hole, reattach it to your saw frame, and start sawing.  For each separate area you repeat the process.  It's a little tricky but fun and oh so rewarding.

After finishing my filing and polishing, then attaching my handmade bale with a rivet, I thought I was just about done in the picture on the right.  Then I noticed how far off to the left my rivet had traveled during the attachment process (see the green arrow).  Turns out it was just the first of three bales that I put on and then cut off this pendant.  It took many more problems with several more pendants/bales before I finally discovered 3 separate issues that were contributing to my wonky rivet problem.  I was going to explain them here but frankly, the memories are still too painful.  Usually I'm having big fun when I'm trying new things in the studio - but occasionally I'm contemplating mayhem with perhaps just a little murder thrown in, too.


In retrospect I'm glad I wasn't finished when I thought I was. Besides the wonky rivet I was disappointed in the piece.  I first drew a tree silhouette in the middle of circle waaaay back in college and loved it.  (It was for an environmental paper and I recall the professor suggesting I could have gotten an A on it if I'd spent a little less time on the cover picture and a little more time on my footnotes.  Pish - where were that man's priorities ?!) That combo has stayed close to my heart and I've attempted to recreate it in several mediums since.  I'd been itching to try it in sheet metal and figured when I finally learned how, it would be pretty thrilling. I'd put in lots of work and learned a lot but when I looked at it I just felt ... meh.   That's where the third part of my title comes in: Finishing Details.  It was while I toiled on the bale issues that the pendant told me it needed to be domed, smooth finished, antiqued, and textured. (Wish it had told me it needed to be domed before I finally got a bale properly attached - would have been a lot easier.)  Here are the results above and below.  As usual, you can click on any picture for a larger view.

What a difference! It may not seem like it to someone else, but for me the changes took me from a disappointed "meh" to an excited and satisfied buzz.  The longer I work with metal, the more techniques I learn, and the more natural it seems to know what a piece needs - to give me that buzz anyway.  There are a multitude of finishing detail techniques to learn about in the world of metal and I'm thoroughly enjoying adding each new one to my skill set.

This piece moved to my wall at the gallery (AuSable Artisan Village Gallery & Art Center) and sold a few months ago.  I was actually a little sad when I saw it was gone.  We'd been through a lot together.  I hope it went to a good home and I'm glad I took pictures to remember the experience.

Winter’s Comin’ & the Almanac Says, a Frozen North
(Sung to the tune of Eli’s Comin’ by Three Dog Night.  You know, "Eli's comin' & the cards say, a broken heart") 

I ran across a magical phenomenon in our woods last winter but didn’t have a blog to share about it at the time.  Now I do so I thought I’d add it in anticipation of the beautiful season to come. (Yes,  I’ve turned into one of those annoying transplants who loves the northern Michigan winter experience!)

In February of 2014 northern Michigan, along with a lot of the rest of the country, was in the middle of a record breaking winter in terms of snow fall and low temperatures.  Something in these unique conditions started creating what I've come to think of as “snow ribbons” in our woods.  Here’s a picture of our most amazing one.  You can click on it for a larger view.

People were so very amazed by the picture and nobody seemed to have seen anything like it before.  Me too, me too!  But then some folks started wondering out loud if I used some kind of techie tricks to create a fake picture. No. I. Did. Not.  (Will I ever live down the cat drinking with her new chipmunk friend joke/debacle?  Well, perhaps I shouldn't.  But remember friends who called me out on Facebook, there was no photo trickery involved there either ... just very poor judgment.)
  
The video that follows was taken in the same spot a number of days before the still picture so it gives clues about how it evolved.  Now I'm not a meteorologist.  Heck, I've never even played one on TV.  But this is my theory of what may have been happening.  As we can see from the first photo, if the sun was out it could filter through the trees and hit this spot. I suspect parts of the snow piled on the branch would start to melt but as cold as it was, it would quickly refreeze as soon as the sun was blocked again. Melting snow and ice droplets are heavier than the fluffy stuff and so they would tend compact the snow and sink down. The increased density caused the whole thing to begin to, for want of better words, sag and stretch, eventually forming this ribbon-like shape.  Seeing it change daily reinforced this theory. I suspect we must have had very little wind during this time too.  Normally snow is blown out of the trees long before anything like this has a chance to develop.  My alternate theory is wood nymphs came out at night with bags of snow icing and decorated the trees.

I noticed several other little ribbons starting to form in the woods through the winter but nothing as large and perfect as this one.  Plus its wonderful placement high up between the sun and our trail spotlighted it beautifully. 

The Farmers Almanac  is predicting another hard winter.  I’m choosing to look on the positive side and view it as ideal conditions to see more snow ribbons.  If anyone has seen snow ribbons before, or knows what they are really called, I’d love to hear about it in a comment below. 

Whenever I’m going to teach something new I first try to round up friends to be guinea pigs.  That is to say, give them the chance to take advantage of a special opportunity – get a free jewelry making class and come out with a piece they probably never thought they could make.  That sounds much better, doesn't it? I discovered long ago that there are always surprises when you start teaching a topic and everything goes more smoothly when I’m aware of common problem areas before “official” classes begin.  

 This fall I’ll be teaching a fold forming class so I’ve been gathering willing, and a few not-so-willing subjects.  (What is fold forming?  See the previous blog entry.)  One was the husband.  I’d have to put him in the not-so-willing category but he finally succumbed to my sighing and gamely created a work of art that surprised both of us.  We're not sure where it is now or it would be included here... The only two I’ve convinced since I started this web site are my sister Danni and the husband’s old Albion College chum, Larry Downs.  The only one I remembered to take pictures of in the studio was Larry – so may I proudly introduce AuSable Designs August Student of The Month:  Larry Downs of Coldwater Michigan (pictured above).

I knew Larry was a handy fellow with an artistic eye and it wasn't too hard to talk him into trying to create a pair of fold formed leaf earrings for his lovely bride (of many years) Judy.  I assured him I would happily finish whatever he didn't want to, and he’d still get the special gift for Judy along with major husband Brownie points.  What's not to like? Turns out I didn't need to finish anything.   

I've always felt an important part of teaching is figuring out how much guidance your student needs.  Some are nervous and want step by step support. Others not so much.  I quickly learned Larry was at the extreme end of “not so much.”  I might have to make a new category of “show me only what you absolutely HAVE to then get out of my way.”  No matter how quickly I tried to demonstrate, it seemed his hand was reaching for the tool before I was done.  I found it best to keep myself busy in another part of the studio rather than hover.  If I saw a problem developing I tried to move in and out with explanations ASAP so he could get back to his own pace.  He did every step of the process from cutting out the copper sheet shapes to making his own sterling ear wires and applying multiple coats of Renaissance wax sealer in the final steps.  Here they are.  Who knows, this could be spoken about, in years to come, as the week that Larry Downs first learned he liked to move metal.  

His visit ended with a wonderful dinner of fresh grilled king salmon that the husband prepared while we metal smiths toiled in the studio.  The guy is a gem. Have I mentioned what a talented cook he is?  My mother used to loudly kiss her pinched fingers and shake them at you exclaiming with an Italian accent (No, we’re Irish, not Italian.  Not sure how that started but the accent and hand gesture had a recurring guest role on Mother's life show. It was probably an East Coast thing.), “My son-in-law, the gourmet chef!” 

But I digress ... again.  Larry caught the salmon earlier in the day jigging on Betsie Bay (just off Lake Michigan at Frankfort) with the husband.  Nice fish, nice earrings, nice dinner, and nice end to a 3-day fishing trip visiting with his old college pal.  Not a bad day for Downs. 

Fold forming is a technique of metalworking in which you fold sheet metal, forge it (form with a hammer), torch it, then unfold it.  Depending on your final design, you may repeat these steps multiple times.  Because of metal's unique properties it will stretch and compress during this process, yielding wonderful new 3D shapes.  One of my favorite fold formed projects, and one of the simplest, is making leaves.  You can make many different shapes and sizes using the same basic steps and techniques.  For example, the same techniques were used to create both leaves shown here, but the results are quite different.  The one on the far left is about 4 inches long and it's main/center vein is tucked behind the leaf.  Its shape is asymmetrical, flowing, and sinuous.  The one to its right is about an inch long, it's center vein juts forward, and the form is symmetrical.  

Here's an overview of how I make fold formed leaf earrings.  If you want them to match you can create paper patterns like I did here, but freehand cutting yields great designs, too.  I'm showing 3 different patterns here to demonstrate how varied you can make them.  First I cut strips out of 26 gauge copper. At #1 I've drawn a line just a tad wider than the widest part of the leaf so I know what size to cut the strip.  At #2 I've completed that step on another piece, then folded the cut copper strip in half.  Then I traced the pattern shape on it (also folded).  

The next step is to cut out the leaves. Twenty-six gauge copper sheet is pretty thin so I usually just use metal shears.  But with this one I also used a jewelry saw because it has a tricky inside curve that can be hard to navigate cleanly with shears. 

Here I've cut a couple of different shapes and some have been hammered to create the leaf shape that will emerge in the next step.  I had trouble getting the light right to show this, but the leaves that look somewhat like swords were hammered with a very narrow hammer head.  The shorter leaves have wider blows of a different hammer. Clicking on the picture to see a larger version may make it more clear.  You get varied effects depending upon which hammer shape you choose, how hard you hit, at what angle, which edge you hit (the folded or open edge), and how many times. These leaves should be a good demonstration of that when they're finished.
  
Also shown is a steel block on which I hammer the piece, a couple of typical fold-forming hammers, and the head of a rotary tool with a sanding disk to help smooth sharp cut edges.  It's optional at this stage but you'll need to do some edge smoothing before you're finished. Sometimes I wait until the end to clean up a piece but it seems more often I do lots of little cleanups as I go.

Ironically, that's almost always my plan for how I'll work in the studio, too.  Just clean as you go, Nancy. Use a tool or material, then put it away.  How simple!  But it never continues through a whole project.  At some point I always stop and look around in stunned silence.  How did all that stuff get out, and over there, and over there, and under that?  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, kids. Creating art is NOT always pretty ... or even hygienic I suspect.

All that hammering work hardens the metal and makes it brittle so it needs to be annealed (heated to soften) before attempting to unfold it.  Here you see one leaf that has just reached the lovely red glow of annealing temperature so I'm pulling the torch away.  At the bottom are the other three waiting their turn. They quickly cool with a dip in cold water (quenching) and are ready for handling.  In their newly malleable state you can pry open the fold. The earlier hammering stretched and textured the metal in such a way that it is pretty easily coaxed into a leaf shape as you unfold.   The movement of unfolding and additional hammering hardens the copper again and you have a nice solid leaf ready to be surface finished and, in this case, made into earrings.  

The final step for any of my earrings is always attaching argentium sterling silver earring wires.  Argentium sterling is more expensive than regular sterling silver but the fact that it doesn't tarnish like traditional sterling makes it worth the extra cost.  I switched to silver earwires for copper or bronze earrings, too, because many people seem to have skin problems with non-silver or gold earwires.  I discovered that making them slim and quite simple helped insure the silver doesn't detract from the copper or bronze of the jewelry.

Clicking the pictures below will produce close ups of the earrings made for this blog post.  Note how each are shaped uniquely and have different numbers and shapes of hammer blows.  But the process to create them was essentially the same with only little tweaks at certain steps.  I do love how copper moves!  While you can fold form many metals (given strong enough tools and arms) copper has the ideal metal moving properties for this technique.  

These earrings, along with a number of other new pieces, will be available in my AuSable Designs shop at the AuSable Artisan Village Gallery (AAV) this week.

I'll be teaching Fold Forming classes this fall through the AAV Gallery and Art Center.  They'll include additional things not detailed in this post along with lots of tips and hands-on practice. The classes will be small (4-5 students max) and held in my Roscommon jewelry studio.  You will sign up through the AAV and the fees help support the non-profit center.  More information will be available both on this site and the AAV site in early fall of 2014.

Welcome to my first Sorta Blog post. (I can hear the whispered comments; "What the heck is a Sorta Blog?"  Patience my slightly befuddled readership. This slightly befuddled writer is getting to that.) I enjoy reading blogs, especially by people who work with metal. I've picked up lots of good tips and made some online friends that way. I also enjoy writing (when I'm in the right mood) and sharing about things I learn.  So when I thought about creating a web page, a blog section seemed a no-brainer.  But then I'd see bloggers guiltily apologizing for not posting regularly enough. Back to that "when I'm in the mood" thing about writing.  I discovered one of the quickest way to get me out of the mood is to give me a deadline.  Then it becomes work, then my brain blanks out, then I start procrastinating and feeling guilty.  Who needs that?  I'm retired from official work and this is supposed to be fun. "Aha", says I.  "Don't call it a Blog and then you don't need to feel like you have to post on a regular schedule."  No deadline, no guilt, no problem - perfect!  So that's how I came up with the strange page name of Sorta Blog.  That's a blog-type page with no assumed posting schedule.  

And the picture?  Well, that's our adorable cat Marlowe hoping to be taken along on a fishing trip with the husband.  Some of you may be thinking that it doesn't have much to do with the topic.  Well, what the heck kind of picture can a person use to illustrate a topic like this? Have you got a picture of a Sorta or a Blog you can loan me?  On the other hand Rule #1 of Sorta Blogging is: when in doubt toss in a cute cat picture.  Works for me.