Bracelets, Earrings, Metal Work, Techniques

“. . . I’m Gonna Let it Shine”

June 26, 2010 Karen 2 Comments

Do you remember that song from Sunday School? “This little light of mine. . . I’m gonna let it shine.” I was reminded of it as I polished some etched copper yesterday. A generous friend provided me with two types of polish and the dremel parts to use them. It’s a rare thing when someone brings you everything that you need for a task, but this friend did just that. Was she worried that I would never get to it if I had to go hunting for parts or was she just especially nice. I’m sure NICE is the key adjective here.

Having everything I needed, I shined and shined! The picture of a bracelet and some copper circles doesn’t really do justice to their shine. The dark shadows hide a bit of the glow, but you can get the idea. It was actually relaxing, listening to the hum of the dremel backed by the whir of the tumbler containing other pieces. Relaxing until . . . the bark of the puppy informed me the noises weren’t all that pleasant for canine ears. I etched the bracelet with a row of flowers at the bottom and a snail and dragonfly amongst them. The circles have a flower in the middle and some decorative markings around the edges. Following a light patina in liver of sulfur, they were tumbled and then polished. I’m not sure yet what the circles will be. (perhaps earrings or a bracelet) I’m incubating on that one. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately, today the only shining I’m doing is on my dirty house. It appears that between my dust producing design work, the dogs (who aren’t really house animals) and the yuk from this week’s cattle work, the house has been the real loser. I think the word for today is “attack” so it can shine, shine, shine.

Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Philosophy, Wire Work

Perfectionism: Good or Bad?

June 23, 2010 Karen 4 Comments

Perfectionism is a relatively common topic in gifted education literature. Miriam Adderholdt’s book, Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good, was a must-read on many graduate course lists. Although perfectionism can have both good and bad sides, we often view it through a negative lens. I’ve thought about it lately since I’ve been working hard on learning to make sterling silver bezels and am never totally happy with how they turn out. Am I becoming a perfectionist? The following quotes from Adler and Maslow made me feel better: “Adler (1956) said, "the striving for perfection is innate in the sense that it is a part of life, a striving, an urge, a something without which life would be unthinkable." And Maslow (1970) described perfectionism as the "full use and exploitation of talents, capabilities, potentialities, etc." Maslow believed that striving for perfection through self-actualization is the absence of neurosis rather than an indication of its presence. Winner (1996) noted that gifted children are well known to be perfectionists, "But being a perfectionist could well be a good thing if it means having high standards, for high standards ultimately lead to high achievement" (Winner, 1996, p. 215).

Even the idea of perfectionism does not fit within my organic design style. I truly enjoy just seeing how something turns out rather than doing a great deal of picturing how I want the design to look. If a color or shape changes as a result of too much torching, I usually just go with it and benefit from happenstance. How does this fit with perfectionism? Hamachek (1978) suggested that perfectionism exists “along a spectrum ranging from normal to neurotic.” He would label a normal perfectionist as someone who gets pleasure from painstaking effort and neurotic perfectionists as "unable to feel satisfaction because in their own eyes they never seem to do things good enough to warrant that feeling."

Even when the design work follows happenstance, I finish each piece to the highest level of perfection my technique allows and then I’m usually happy with the design. I believe it is possible, however, to become so absorbed by the idea of perfecting a piece that we lose sight of the art. I remember a friend who made a seed bead bracelet and then continued to add another bead here and there for several months. She never felt the bracelet was finished (perfect). I thought it was beautiful in its beginning.

Working on the bezels each day. I thought my first few were nice, but then I looked at someone else’s work and realized I have more technique to perfect. I believe the trick is to keep striving for the best I can do, gain joy in the process, and continue to grow. Positive perfectionism . . . I hope so!

Bracelets, Necklaces, Pendants, Philosophy, Techniques, Wire Work

Jewelry Vacation

June 17, 2010 Karen

Since I wrote about summer camp in the last entry, why not vacations today? Summer also reminds me of past vacations when the children lived at home and the break from school was “our time”. I can’t help but wonder if some families are doing as we occasionally did by taking their vacation at home. When we did a home vacation, no one worked and I didn’t cook. (Was that the best part?) Since we moved reasonably often, home vacations gave us the opportunity to really explore the area in which we were living. One week while living in the Dallas area, we visited the Children’s Museum, Museum of Natural History and the Aquarium among other things. These were short relaxing jaunts and we had the time to enjoy each one without hurrying off to the next big adventure as was often the case on an out of town trip.

Yesterday, I thought about a jewelry vacation. It sounds like this could mean relaxing and taking a break from designing jewelry, but that wasn’t the case. I took a couple of pieces of jewelry on their little vacation. That term could be a misnomer since it was more like a road trip, but the pieces did go somewhere! As I’ve mentioned before, I like to wear my new designs to see if they will hang correctly, feel good and also to see if they get noticed. The bracelet shown here is made of copper that was torched and then polished. I added dangles on the jump rings linking each circle. Although I spent what seemed like an enormous amount of time filing and sanding this piece, it still developed a problem on its vacation. (This is not unlike some children – excluding mine, of course.) I noted a couple of spots that were still a bit rough when I used my wrist. It was good to locate these and fix them before marketing the piece.

The necklace in the photo also got a vacation yesterday. It is made of brass with copper and silver wire and copper chain. This one did well and only required a slight turning of the jump ring to be fit for human wearing.

I think these vacation-road trips work well even if the trip just takes the design piece around the house as I work. The trips can reveal any design or technique flaws and give me a chance to make things right.

Hmm . . is that what vacations do . . . reveal your need for relaxation and give you a chance to make things right with the family? I guess I’d better think about that and practice the latter a little even before our vacation. My husband might really appreciate that and It certainly couldn’t hurt!

Creativity, Diversions, Metal Work, Pendants, Philosophy, Wire Work

Summer Camp

June 14, 2010 Karen

It’s hard to think about summer without remembering going to summer camps both as a child and later as an instructor. My favorite camp experience was the annual gathering of Creative Scholars in Louisiana. Each year, students who rated high scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were invited to join together for a two week learning experience. Initially we met in Natchitoches and later in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I was fortunate to be among the small group of instructors working with these students who were sixth graders or older. We wrote and shared our own creative thinking curriculum.

We instructed students in three basic creative thinking strategies, Synectics, Lateral Thinking, and Creative Problem Solving. Students also took electives that included inventioning, book writing, song composing and many others. The students always challenged us as only high creatives can do, but we loved it. I conducted my masters degree research with the first group of students and used a good deal of my learning there to set up my doctoral experiment. Therefore, it’s hard not to think of Creative Scholars in June each year.

While throwing out items from my files, I came across a list by the man who first dreamed of developing the Creative Scholars program, Dr. E. Paul Torrance. Although Dr. Torrance is now deceased, his words still ring true to individuals all around the world who value creative thinking.

How To Grow Up Creatively Gifted

Don’t be afraid to “fall in love with” something and pursue it with intensity. (You will do best what you like to do most.)
Know, understand, take pride in, practice, develop, use, exploit and enjoy your greatest strengths.
Learn to free yourself from the expectations of others and to walk away from the games they try to impose upon you.
Free yourself to “play your own game” in such a way as to make good use of your gifts.
Find a great teacher or mentor who will help you.
Don’t waste a lot of expensive, unproductive energy trying to be well-rounded (Don’t try to do everything; do what you can do well and what you love.)
Learn the skills of interdependence. (Learn to depend upon one another, giving freely of your greatest strengths and most intense loves.)

The above manifest by Dr. Torrance makes more sense to me with each passing year. He certainly made it OK to be creative.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that other side of summer camp – BUGS. If you didn’t get bitten by something or have a rash or get sunburned, it just wasn’t summer camp. There were always lots of varmints around ranging from snakes that the guys used to scare the girls, to turtles. Those varmints are much tamer in today’s jewelry studio as shown by the one I made this morning.

Ah, the good old days of summer camp. Alas, I think I’d rather stay in by the air conditioner for now. I’m not sure I could still handle the exuberance of those sixth graders.

Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Wire Work

What’s in a Name?

June 9, 2010 Karen 8 Comments

There used to be a television show called “Name That Tune”. People always thought I would be good at it since I was a piano teacher. Yet, I was a total flop when it came to that show’s tunes. I couldn’t name them. Now if you ask, I could hum a few lines, but that was it. Even now, I cannot remember the name of the song I’m searching for in the music store.

Some others appear to be more interested in names than I am. For example, my friends at Wildtype Ranch http://wildtyperanch.com/) who sell pasture raised Angus beef, carefully name their cows. For example, a few years ago, we purchased a cow from them named Lola. Instead of saying that they are moving cow number “xxx” out of the front pasture, they just say they’re going out to get Sally or another gal.

Today, I read about a Texas business (http://www.buttersbrownies.com/) where the owner names her brownies. While one brownie is “Jane” it’s counterpart without nuts is “Sane Jane.” She has even named a brownie after her ballet teacher.

All this naming business made me wonder if I should be naming my individual jewelry pieces. After all, if you look at products on the etsy marketplace (www.etsy.com) most of them have clever names. I have a few designs named such as the wave bracelet and the pot luck bracelet, but each of these has variations and the single pieces have not been named. Is it time for names? Could you offer some ideas?

The first two pieces that need clever names are pendants. I haven’t yet made a hole in each, but you can get the idea. Pendant #1

Pendant #2 (this butterfly has a crooked middle!)

Necklace #1 Necklace #2

All four of these pieces are up for names. If you think of something clever, please chime in and “Name that Jewel!”

Color, Metal Work, Necklaces, Techniques

Coloring for Fun

June 7, 2010 Karen 2 Comments

Remember when getting a new box of crayons was exciting? Did you like it when you were old enough to get that big box of 48 colors? I always liked to color, but not necessarily in a coloring book. Just give me a big piece of paper and I was happy. I wasn’t an artist and didn’t try to color anything in particular; I just liked to run the colors back and forth across the paper.

I don’t think I’m the only adult who still likes colors. Working as an educational consultant, I carried large containers of colors and markers that were used for various projects during the workshops. I particularly remember one group of high school teachers who got so excited about getting to color that I thought I would have to put them in “time out” to settle them down. Most of their workshops just required note taking; so coloring while learning was a treat.

I could hardly wait for my grandson to come for this past visit because I knew he was finally old enough to work with color. We chose watercolors instead of crayons and had a great time splashing it on the paper. We just worked with one color using the Driscoll Lipscomb approach from The Gift of Driscoll Lipscomb by Yamaka. In this children’s picture book, an artist gives his little friend a single color pot of paint each year on her birthday. She spends an entire year exploring it. I think it’s a good approach for little people and am reminded that “less is more”. Don’t ask who had the best time when we painted.

Color again burst forth over the weekend when I was torching some copper sheet for a necklace. I inadvertently left the torch on the piece too long and before I knew it, the piece was solid black. Yuk . . . another mess up. Since the piece was too hot to throw in the trash, I quenched it in water. To my happy surprise, the copper was a nice shade of red and following an hour in the tumbler it was quite useable. Who knew????? I used the red copper for a disc necklace like those described in the January 27, 2010 post. There was enough copper for earrings and I used some dried corn from an old Native American necklace for the chain. I also used Renaissance Wax to help preserve the color of the copper. I like this kind of coloring. Staying with the single color idea, my grandson and I did have one other experience – painting with pudding. This was even more fun than finger painting with shaving cream and with pudding, you get to lick your fingers! Yum! Did you know you can even finger paint your face this way?

It’s really a shame that we have to grow up. I want to go back to childhood and let someone else do the clean up. Unfortunately, I think using the torch to color is about as close as I can get to being a kid again. Yet, I could just go get my own new box of 48 crayons!

organization, Philosophy

The Centers Approach to Studio Organization

June 5, 2010 Karen

Have you noticed magazines in the stores featuring places “where women create?” I eagerly grabbed a copy on my last visit to the book store wanting to learn how to better organize my own design studio. It wasn’t exactly what I expected. I wanted to see places that looked like my space, but those studios looked like something out of a home decorating magazine rather than places to WORK. When I work, things are askew, scattered and there is a general appearance of disarray. The studios in the magazine were well decorated and organized. I realize that if a photographer were coming to my studio, I would spruce it up a bit, but mine could never look like those places. Then I began to wonder . . . should it look that way? Would I be more creative amid all that beauty? I also wondered if I would be more credible if I wore fancy clothes like the designers in the photos.

Now I’m on a mission! While my goal is not to create a studio that would win a spot in one of those magazine, I could be better organized; Yet, my space should still represent the way I work. Since my doctorate is in early childhood education, I decided to use what I know and take the centers approach. Several years ago, one of my major workshops for teachers was on centers and my last book covered the topic (Tiered Activities for Learning Centers: Differentiation in Math, Language Arts, Science & Social Studies, 2004, Pieces of Learning Press) School children, especially in the early grades, often spend time in centers. In kindergarten we usually find housekeeping, blocks, art and various other centers where children spend time exploring and learning. These centers are created for specific purposes, not just for play. I even used centers in university graduate level classes. Now, I’m using centers for studio organization. One of the keys to educational centers is to have everything you need for basic exploration in that one area. That’s not to say that a block or two didn’t ease on over into housekeeping once in a while, but when it was clean up time, all the students knew where the blocks lived.

My studio problem has been figuring out where in the world I last used this or that tool. Now, with my design centers, at least I know where the tool is supposed to be. For example, although my metal cutting shears always belong in the sheet metal center, they sometimes wander over to the hammering center. Now I’m trying to be sure I immediately put them back in the right center after their visit to another spot. This probably sounds silly. Didn’t someone teach us that everything should have its own place? Yet, somehow this centers approach helps me. Now I can remember where something belongs because the location is based on need. I try to think of what someone else would need if they came into a particular center to work and then keep those supplies in that area.

Currently, I have the following studio centers: hammering/drilling, beading, sheet metal cutting, applying patina and torching. The laundry room doubles for washing clothes and applying patina and the torching is in the mechanical room made of concrete and bricks (no combustibles). The other centers are in my office.

I am fortunate to have a good deal of work space; However, I think it’s important to try not to take over the whole house. If I’m too spread out, the organization impedes the work. I think this centers approach would work well even in a small space. For example, shoe-box centers were functional in school. Each box contained the materials needed for learning a particular skill or developing a concept. Now, I have box centers for storage of things seldom used that don’t belong in the centers. These include wax and finishing products, stamps and ink and decoration paper. I keep these in a closet, but they are readily available.

No matter how well I organize, the proof is in the using. Do I have the centers organized correctly? Will I be disciplined enough to keep things in the right center? I can’t yet answer those questions as I have a feeling that a one week trial period is not enough to say “yes”. I am, however, optimistic, and find that cleaning up is much easier than it used to be. Unfortunately, along with clean up, that little kindergarten song we used to sing keeps ringing in my head “pick up…pick up…it’s time to pick up”. (Johnny, that means you too.) “pick up . . . “

Metal Work, Pendants, Techniques, Wire Work

The Heat Goes On

June 2, 2010 Karen

This blog entry could easily be about the current Texas weather which is unseasonably hot for early June. It could be about my temper that continues to fire when provoked. The entry might even talk about a sports team that’s currently in their best scoring zone, but it’s not about any of those things. The pictures are a hint.

I’ve been out in the HOT garage using the HOT torch to put the heat on some silver and copper. Learning to make sterling silver bezels for stone cabochons has proven to be a good challenge. While neither example here is perfect, I’m rather pleased with what some good old fashioned sweat can produce. I’m mostly pleased with what I am learning. My friend showed me how to make these several months ago, but it wasn’t until this past weekend that I actually was able to try a bezel. My generous husband, with advise from my son-in-law, got me a new torch for our anniversary. Currently, I much prefer tools over diamonds and I think my guy finds tools easier to pick out.

I won’t comment on the number of bezels that I ruined as the heat goes on, but thus far, I haven’t broken the bank on too much washed silver. Luckily, scrap silver can be returned to the supplier for credit.

I’m also trying to learn to sweat solder. The connotation for this strikes me as funny if I consider how “sweaty” I’m getting in the HOT garage. Tomorrow I’m moving this little operation down into the basement mechanical room where it is much cooler. That room is made completely of concrete and brick so I shouldn’t be torching anything too detrimental. As my husband says, the first rule of using the torch is NOT to set the house on fire. I’m doing the best I can.

Bracelets, Creativity, Necklaces, Techniques, Wire Work

Swirling

June 1, 2010 Karen 2 Comments

Summer makes me think of home in Medford, Oklahoma, where my two best friends and I spent much of our time twirling. I don’t know if we really thought one of us would be the next great drum major, but twirling those batons was great fun. Unfortunately, I was clumsy and sometimes when I threw my baton too high and I didn’t catch it properly, it would smack me on the head. (I can hear my immediate family saying “now we know what’s wrong with Mom.”) I had a similar whacking problem when I tried to twirl two batons at once. Luckily, I survived those head bumps and lived to tell about them.

The best I can do now is swirling rather than twirling. I’ve been working with this basic swirl for a series of short articles on creative thinking for Magpie Gemstones (www.magpiegemstones.com). If you don’t already subscribe to the newsletter from this site, I think you would enjoy it. I’ve made all manner of different swirling shapes for the upcoming articles and tried to find new ways to use them creatively by applying fluent, flexible, original and elaborative thinking. I’m enjoying wearing a couple of bracelets that I made with swirls. These are quite plain and layer nicely with other bracelets.

bracelets two

Additionally, playing with how to use these swirls in necklaces has been more of a challenge. These pieces fit nicely and mold well to the neckline. It is, however, somewhat difficult to display them. I’ve worn a couple of these and people seem to like the way they look.

View Full Album

I guess I’ll stick with swirling in lieu of twirling as one of this summer’s activity. Alas, with age, we should put away childish things and I do still remember a bad bump I got across the bridge of my nose,. (But isn’t it good to stay young at heart? I wonder where that baton went.)

Hair Adornments

Counting Flowers on the Wall . . .

May 29, 2010 Karen 2 Comments

I can’t help thinking of this old Statler Brothers’ song when I look at the decorative headbands I just finished. There are days when I wish that visual stimuli would NOT make me think of a song, but, alas, that’s just how I’m wired. It’s just part of the musical chatter than runs through a musician’s mind.

“Counting flowers on the wall, that don’t bother me at all,

Playing solitaire till dawn, with a deck of fifty-one . . . “

Personally, if I’m going to stay up until dawn, I’d prefer making jewelry to playing solitaire, but “to each his/her own.”

Headbands seem to be quite the thing right now among women with few years on their faces. However, even my 89 year old mother wears a headband to hold back her beautiful gray hair. The newer embellished headbands, however, are no longer just for functionality, but rather for adornment.

The initial three headbands pictured and one hair clip at the bottom of the photo are the start of my learning to decorate hair ornaments. I want to continue to make some of these with beads, dangly chain, etc. They are quick to make and fun to create. Now, I just wonder if I can get my mother to wear one that I’ve embellished. You never know; it seems to me that any woman who would get her picture taken with a flower in her mouth would surely wear a fancy headband!

Dreamcatcher Designs