Cleaning up
It’s Spring cleaning time, yay?
I must be truthful: Since January 21, I’ve been absolutely, completely unmotivated to do anything except go to my Ceramics class and associated open studio time at college. I do not feel inspired by anything happening in the world right now and sadly, I know am not alone. Like so many of my artist buddies, I too have been as creatively unproductive as H, E, double toothpicks. I haven’t been completely useless, just mostly completely useless. If it weren’t for the clay and my daily sketchbook, I’d have nothing to show for myself at all this past winter. I’ve only managed little things to keep on going, and I am doing my best to snap out of it. But, it ain’t easy.
On Inauguration day, I committed to not spending or shopping at any large/mega/national/online/billionaire-owed entity. I am all-in on a no-buy year (or four). No Amazon, WowMart, Fast “food,” Restaurants, Travel, Books, TarJay, no nothing non-essential except when purchased from small, local, second-hand or personally-connected businesses run by family, friends, and long-term acquaintances, unless I am forced to source materials for teaching a workshop with no other option.. So far, this has been working out great. I am only paying bills, and buying real food that I cook or gas to get to work/school. Lucky for me, I have plenty of art materials on hand – I just don’t feel like using them right now.
Three weeks ago, I deleted my decade-old Twitter account. And the same day, I killed the Linked-In profile, too. Small but controllable acts of resistance against the consumptive greed and evil, mean-spirited and downright corrupt disinformation machine.
Earlier today, I deleted Facebook. This brought about an unexpected wave of elation, because I was never into it anyway. You see, that stupid Facebook account of mine was a fossil remnant of a directive from the old Interweave job (Thou shalt promote thy company daily through thine own personal social media channels and thou shalt like it, damn it!) I have outgrown and left behind that period of my life, thank you very much. Sorting out current real-life priorities seems to be working a little to combat the pervasive spell of creative ennui, Now, there’s just the Instagram, but that’s in my crosshairs, too.
Anyway, back to the Spring cleaning. In addition to deleting unneeded online distractions, I have begun to force myself to do one, just one, physically productive thing per day: Sweep. Scrub. Weed. Wash. Dump. Organize. Clean. Edit. Just. One. Thing. Strangely, this has proved to be quite difficult. Granted, I am currently working one near full-time, plus two part-time gigs while also attending the aforementioned college class for credit and diligently trying to conquer the amazingly inspiring and challenging syllabus. I thrive on hard work, but, except for my Ceramics class, my heart just isn’t in the rest of it. Most of the time spent earning the money to pay for my life seems so utterly futile. There is never enough to get on top of the bills no matter how hard you try because every time you get it sorted out, something gets more expensive. Unlike my college work, those 3 jobs are just not much fun. They mostly drain the life from me and I don’t feel like what I am doing is making any positive difference in the world. That’s bad news for an artist, my friends. Really bad news. Unlike my college work, the jobs very often feel like “marking” a choreography to me: I get in on time, I run through the dance, try to get the constantly changing steps right, check off the rehearsal boxes, fill out the forms and get the heck out of Dodge as soon as I possibly can with my hair on fire. Hate that. What’s worse? Can’t fix it. Yet.
But if you know anything about me, you know I won’t give up. There’s a way to work at my work, I know it. I am looking forward to some upcoming workshops during the summer and fall, plus a wonderful Fellowship in the city starting very soon. Best of all, I can practically taste the absolute end of daily Public school teaching forever. Hopefully I will enjoy a peaceful/restful summer and have a chance to refuel my creative spirit to do what really matters to me, instead of what I must do to pay for this life. I have some promising irons in the fire and I hope they will begin to glow in the near future.
One can only hope.
In the spirit of spring cleaning, keep an eye on my workshops and classes pages here –. I will be doing a massive revamping of my content shortly, so please stay tuned. Keep the faith, and may the kiln and metal gods grace you with their favors.
Checking in
I’ve been insanely busy (of course) over the past few months taking a 3-credit Ceramics I class at my local college. I did it to finalize my Public School teachers credentialing, and it really was amazing fun and totally lit me on fire – creatively speaking, of course! We went through all of the basics of hand building, and then on to rudimentary wheel throwing. I am still completely mystified by the arcane art of glazing, but I am told that will come with time. Ceramics is the polar opposite of metalwork, but I have to say that doing it has changed my thought processes for making things in such an interesting way. It requires a lot of letting go of control, and for a jeweler, that’s asking a lot, lol. I got nearly 20 objects built, fully glazed and on the mantel, and I love it so much that I signed on for 3 more credits of Ceramics 2 in the Spring. YAY!
On the Metals side of things, I taught two great bunches of delightful students at my workshops at Snow Farm in Massachusetts and also at Charmtree Jewelry Studio in Maryland earlier in the fall. There was a full day of volunteer demos at Gemarama for the Tuscarora Lapidary Club, and now my overflowing plate is finally empty. I happily see some rest on the horizon later this week with the coming Holiday break from teaching Middle School, too.
Right now, I am hunkering down for the winter season, taking care of lingering paperwork, putting the garden to bed, trying to stay dry and warm and preparing financially as well as I can for the uncertainty of the coming New Year. I do have some workshop bookings and the delightful New Courtland Fellowship for Seniors to teach in January that have already been planned out, plus there is a body of work I adore creating and can’t wait to get back to. Then, there’s also a bunch of unfinished work on my bench I want to focus on, my columns for MJSA Journal, and a sweet little commission later in the summer. Other than that, I have ZERO intention of going anywhere spontaneously or doing anything requiring money or outside of my personal normal, because I just don’t want to spend, consume or contribute to the economy. It’s just gonna be food, living with what I already have, gas to get to work, doing my work, and going right home afterwards for me, probably for around 4 years – if you catch my drift. . .
I’ve voluntarily put myself on an austerity budget and I intend to keep it that way. So, no Tucson for me for awhile. But that said, I hope everybody I know and love can hang in, go on and get through all of this, and we can persevere as artists to make some great work despite it all, stay healthy, breathe slowly and remain safe.
Hold your loved ones close, keep your head down and your heart in the right place. That is never wrong.. Please be careful out there this winter. I have a feeling it will be a cray-cray doozy!
Welcome back!
If you clicked through the link on my old blog or Instagram feed, you have now – I hope happily – found the new home of my Materialsmithing blog which originally appeared (and still lives for a time) on WordPress, and which I began many years ago in another lifetime. The interesting thing about creating content is that sometimes it has a life beyond the moment you created it in - and I am touched that there are still faithful readers out there who read what I wrote so many years ago, and who still keep in touch today.
In this new home for Materialsmithing, you will find the “Best of the Best” of those old blogs, and I hope to get in the practice of writing and posting new content and new artworks here more often than in the past, but as you all know, life gets busy for a busy working artist, so no promises, eh?
In the works are a new book idea, adding a shop to this site, and a new group of object-making classes and workshops that are currently under construction. I will do my best to keep my word.
Anyway, enjoy, read on (again), and keep in touch.
Another dispatch from the jewelry making frontier
Wow. Just wow!
I was extremely honored to present a demo at the prestigious AGTA Gem Fair for the MJSA Journal and my bench there was generously loaned by Gesswein Tools, so thank you, thank you, to Roger, Lauren, Lindsay, Rich and all of the support staff at AGTA for helping me get this content out there to the folks who want it. And thanks for coming if I saw you there!
Originally published 2-8-2023
I just got home from the Tucson Shows and, yahoo, we had a blast! I taught mostly full classes at the glorious Casino Del Sol/ Colors of the Stone Event and the weather and experience couldn't have been more perfect. It was great to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and restock my classroom supplies after 2 long years of not going out west to treasure hunt. I found so many inspirational materials to incorporate into demo objects and kits for my upcoming classes in 2023 and I am so stoked to make new work.
I was also very honored to present a demo at the prestigious AGTA Gem Fair for the MJSA Journal and my bench there was generously loaned by Gesswein Tools, so thank you, thank you, to Roger, Lauren, Lindsay, Rich and all of the support staff at AGTA for helping me get this content out there to the folks who want it. And thanks for coming if I saw you there!
The motto for 2023? Never Stop Learning.
On that note, you might want to quickly and decisively take peek a my upcoming workshops page, because my upcoming classes are filling fast - as in so fast that they are selling out before I get a chance to tell you about them.
I am SUPER excited about my next class in March: An all-inclusive mixed media creativity retreat for Artists Rising. This is a fun switch-up for me and I have been flexing all of my artist muscles for this one! Basically, this is a fun format for incorporating any non-traditional jewelry media you might be interested in working with that will ultimately be appropriate to be cold mounted in a 2x2-inch brooch or pendant box. We will paint, sew, weave, collage, embroider, resinate, pastel, color, print, draw, and/or whatever floats your boat with an eye toward turning your creative expressions into wearable works of art...
Sometimes, I like to break out of the jewelry maker box and create other kinds of artwork, so this class is a good way to mix it up a bit with a loose plan for eventually bringing your efforts back toward a wearable (or not). Below are some in-progress shots of what I have been up to, so enjoy, get inspired – and sign up for the retreat if you've got the winter blahs and need a creativity jump start and for someone to take care of you with great food in a beautiful, peaceful place with loads of creative fun for a few days!
We. Will. Have. Fun.
I promise I will post again shortly and with more workshop updates and sign up info. Go make something!
It’s getting better all the time!
Originally published 10-17-2022
Wow, summer 2022 just flew by! I had a great summer camp silversmithing gig in Maine and the girls made some beautiful jewelry! I am so happy and so proud of them.
BeadFest was terrific in a new location in lovely Lancaster, Pa., and my classes were mostly full, so thank you for attending and thank you for restoring my faith in the world. And, I just finished teaching a tremendous week-long Cold-Connections class at Snow Farm with an awesome group of students combined with gorgeous Autumn New England weather plus great food – the experience really lifted my spirits. Happy, Happy, Happy!
Dare I say it? Life for me seems to be returning to normalcy with a side order of crazy rather than the other way around in this brave new COVID world, and it feels nice to not live in an anxiety-driven state 24/7. I hope it’s the same for you!
In the near future and into 2023, I’ve got a nice group of Tucson Winter workshops on the horizon at the To Bead True Blue Show at the Casino del Sol Resort, plus a couple potentials in April, Snow Farm again in May, possibly a return to summer camp, BeadFest again in August and Wow! Life is looking good!