2014 Workshops

My 2014 workshop schedule kicked off with a bang (or at least a bit of hammering) at the first of March with Granulation at Spruill Center for the Arts in Atlanta and at the end of March, Secret Treasures: Amulets and Lockets at Guilded Lynx in Ridgefield, CT. Thanks to all the wonderful students who attended, both workshops were lots of fun with some really great student work coming out of the events. 

In preparation for my workshops this summer at Rio Grande I was recently asked about my favorite moment in teaching. It would be extremely difficult for me to pick just one event in all the incredible learning experiences that I have facilitated, but there is one moment that stands out and makes me absolutely love the teaching part of my job.

It's the moment when someone shows me what they've been working on in class, and everything s/he has learned has come together into something extraordinary. I just look at the piece in awe and realize I had a part in making the lightbulb go on over someone's else's head. In that moment all the endless preparation, the challenges of 21st century traveling, and the sheer physical effort of teaching are eclipsed by this wonderful tangible object that now exists for someone else.

Check out the full 2014 workshop schedule here.

Next up

Russian Filigree

Peninsula School of Art

Fish Creek, WI

June 26-28, 2014

High Relief Eastern Repousse & Chasing

Rio Grande

Albuquerque, NM

July 27 & 28, 2014

And

July 29 & 30, 2014

The Pa-Chiz-si Strategy of Art Creation: Which way does your art play?

My ideas are endless.  My time is finite. As a one woman show, how to get it all done is my quest in life, so I'm forever taking a step back to look at and better understand my own trends as a creator and savvy art making business woman.  Lately I've realized my working style is not so different from my playing strategies.

Pa-Chz-isi, Sennet, Sorry, Trouble.  Odds are you played one of these games as a kid (or now play them with your kids).  The pieces and colors may be different, but the object is the same: Be the first to get all your pieces around the board and back home.  So which do you prefer? Do you mostly focus on one piece to zip it into the safe zone and home before spending your rolls of the dice on the other pieces, or do you leave your pieces close together and bring them home slowly a little at a time?

Whenever I start a new work of art, be it on paper, board, screen, or in metal, I delude myself into believing that I'll dive in and submerge myself in it's gestation and birth, ignoring all the other half finished pieces calling for my attention.  Alas, as soon as I toss a freshly soldered pieced into the pickle to remove oxidation, or check email, or just see something shiny I'm distracted into another realm of possibilities and soon working on another piece.

When I play those childhood games with my son, I marvel at how our differing strategies are indicative of our personalities and no easier to change than our shared compulsion for chocolate. Skyler obsesses over one piece and gets it home before focusing on the next one, and I get into a zone of slowly getting all the pieces around safely in their herd.  Must be my inner Shetland sheepdog at work again.

In the end, the pieces get around the board just as my pieces of art all get finished at some point too.  The pieces of art jewelry that might only have a few more steps before completion magically get finished all at once like when the three blue plastic pieces are in that safe zone and almost home on the Pa-chiz-si board. It's really only those tough days when I spend 14 hours in the studio, working like a maniac and yet not necessarily finishing anything that make me question my strategy.

Truth be told, Skyler might win a little more often with his strategy, but on those rare occasions with massive deadlines that I'm forced to adopt that method in the studio, I end up almost too exhausted to care that I've finished anything even if completion is what pays the bills. I'm happier to lose myself in the shiny things and bring them home with the herd.

Which way do you like to work/play?