Seriously. Stop what you’re doing and take a look at this set of rings by MetalRiot (aka Thomasin Durgin. Don’t miss the descriptions. And be sure to check out her videos as well. Love. Love. Love!!
|
||||||
   
|
Thursday March 4, 2010
I’ve been bitten by the jewelry bug. Ironic given the only piece I wear is my …very plain… wedding ring. But there is something about creating sculptural pieces that go beyond being simply decorative. Generally I think people feel more of a connection with what they wear than what they put up in their homes. How about you? In that vein, I’ve been trawling flickr (is there nothing flickr can’t do?!?) for inspiration. Oh! What wonders people are creating. I’ve developed some major creative crushes on a few artists … Amanda Scrivener . experimetal . Madelyn Smoak. Can I just say? *swoon* It was Amanda’s Sweeney Todd jewelry that got me thinking about a straight razor I’ve had kicking around. Although, frankly, I don’t have the stomach to expose the blade. *shudder* So for mine, I’ve “locked” it via the lower jump ring.
I think it needs a second string above the razor and I’m pretty sure a head of some sort will be added to the bottom. What I realize as I continue on this ‘new-to-me’ path is how specific our materials are. Much of what I’ve accumulated for assemblage is all but useless for jewelry. But. I’m trying to re-purpose what I have in an effort to keep the accumulation bug at bay. For example, I have virtually no beads and I’m desperately trying to resist the impulse to Buy! Buy! Buy! Ha. We’ll see how long THAT lasts, huh?!? Monday February 22, 2010
So after all the sturm und drang (thanks Jan for reminding me how much I love this phrase!) of OWOH coupled with THE cold from hell, I finally returned to my studio table and got back to work on the much languished Assemblage Challenge. You might remember that I finished Stacy’s piece back in what? OMG! NOVEMBER!! I had NO idea I was so far behind. Okay. So just to refresh your memories … here are the components that Fin sent me:  Assemblage Challenge - Fin's Stuff Of course, I immediately pulled the clock apart. Don’t know what it is about clocks … and radios… I HAVE to pull them apart! And pretty much knew right away I wanted to use the casing. It’s such a perfect size. And the glass is all roundy (technical term) and yum! I also loved what I think is a sheep’s wool carding tool. Though I could be wrong. It has all the elements I love … metal, rust and a bit ..erm.. dangerous looking! I have a couple more iterations before it’s completed. But here’s the work in progress:
And a few detail shots. Click on any to see them bigger.
Now off to melt some solder! Friday February 19, 2010
I’m continuing to ponder the “Yes. YES!” excitement from yesterday’s reading of SisterDiane’s post “What If We Paid Each Other” over on Make and Meaning. Creating a centralized site for self-publishing isn’t rocket science as we all know there are other sites out there that do it right now. Blurb is one I know of as friend Cynjon has published his Varietist Muse Zine through them and from what I gather the quality is excellent. I’m sure there are others. In fact, I just did a google search “self publish book” and came up with an unwieldy 89,600 results! At the top of the pack was Lulu … clicking on over, I see they have a Craft and Hobbies section with a whopping 4073 results. As I trawl through the pages though, the majority seem to be either really fringe, How to Haunt Your House (okay. total judgement call. maybe a TON of folks want to know how to haunt their houses!) or focus on creating realistic baby dolls. (*shrug* who knew?!?) But this isn’t exactly what I envision. These are full books. Similar to what Lark or Quarry already put out there. Where I see this going is deconstructing the “book” idea … in exactly the same way the music industry has taken apart the CD and made each track downloadable. I see each project, each technique, each pattern or design being available. Either as a “one of” – digitally as a PDF or Podcast or Video – or as a combo plate – I’ll take one of Michael deMeng’s Pez dispensers, add in a Wire Wrapping 101 from Deryn Mentock, and a tutorial on How to Solder a Bezel from Jane Wynn and create my own Jen’s Mixed Media Handbook that can be printed and sent to me. So. If you know of anyone that might be interested in such a concept, if YOU are interested in this concept, have ideas on how it might work, or not, or has the wherewithal to even conceptualize how this would piece together? Comment! Send them over! Let’s get the ball rolling and take our work into our OWN hands and make this thing happen! Thursday February 18, 2010
 A Diversion I had planned on doing a post/book review on Susan Lenart Kazmer’s Making Connections. But as I was reading my feeds this morning, a new post on Make and Meaning which, if you haven’t visited and read this phenomenal blog? Go. Now! The gist of the last few posts has been about “free” in the craft world – both in the good sense (read: NOT to generate meaningless traffic one’s site via a giveaway. I know. The irony was not lost on me. However it was a link within the latest post that has me more excited than I’ve been in a very long time – THIS post. If you’ve known me for any length of time you know I’ve been grumbling about the craft publishing business getting “rich” off the backs of crafters/artists good will. I know rich is subjective but I’m guessing that they, the publishers/authors, are at least getting SOMETHING for their efforts. But that isn’t what’s got me all in a dither. It is the second paragraph of this comment that has my mind racing:
OMFG! Can you envision the possibilities? A central site …a designer collective … that allows upload/download of PDF projects/patterns? Or! Pick and choose which project or process or technique you’d like to include after which they are collated, printed and sent to you as your own personal how-to handbook?? We only pay for what we want. And each designer gets compensated for their work. No middleman. No publisher. No “author”. It truly boggles the mind! |
|
||||
|
Copyright © 2010 Jen Worden-Mixed Media Artist - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
) in that giving with an open heart and hand is not blog suicide – and in the bad sense in that, as artists, we are asked way too often to donate our time, energy and “product” for loosely defined/if any benefits.
Popular Posts