Things That Fly

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A friend at our last wire workers meet up showed me her new book, Metalworking 101 for Beaders, and I was off and running. As she flipped through the pages, a metal bird caught my eye and it didn’t matter what else was in the book, I was certain I needed it.

After four order attempts, it finally arrived this week. I won’t bore you with the sordid details of the various online bookstores and delivery services that kept the book from reaching the ranch, I can only say “Thank you Amazon!”

The bird on the left is somewhat similar to the one shown in the book. Of course, I can’t make anything EXACTLY like the directions. I added the bottom piece of wire and can’t quite decide if he is a “bird on the run” or “a bird sitting still on a branch.” There’s probably something philosophical in that, but I won’t get into that either.

Another bird, much more like the one in the book will probably become a wall hanging for my mom who is an avid birder. When I told her I was making metal birds, she wanted to know what kind of birds. This was something I hadn’t considered, but she showed me how the birds at her window feeders had various unique distinctions. Not knowing if I could recreate my metal birds to her specifications, I changed the subject.

Another day, I minified the bird and created a necklace with the third creature.

These birds are actually quite simple to make and I’m hoping people will like them.

I made another type bird several weeks ago from a cabachon and sterling silver half round wire. He’s cute, but I’m not sure he will be popular. He was also tricky to make since his silver tail melted off once while I fused the pieces.

Well, you cannot think of birds without thinking about flight. My winged friends will fly out of here either as gifts or customer purchases. Flight will get them where they need to be just as flight got me where I wanted to be last week. (Yes, I know this is a stretch, but I wanted to include the picture below.) We flew to Atlanta to visit family and enjoyed the little cherub below. Hmm . . . I wonder if he needs a bird . . .?

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A Day Like Alexander’s

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I would NOT like to be Alexander who is best known for his bad day. Perhaps you have read about him in the children’s book by Judith Viorst. The title is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and you can hear Ms. Viorst read her book out loud online at the following Barnes and Noble link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp?cds2Pid=34152

When I’ve had a tough day, I try to remember Alexander and he usually makes me smile and feel better. Recently I had an Alexander day. It seemed fine at first, but by mid morning a neighbor came for coffee and wanted to talk county politics with my husband. Trying to be friendly, I grabbed my bead board and sat with them. I was working on an asymmetrical piece and should have known better than to let them see it. I’d been struggling with getting the multi strand necklace to hang correctly and kept holding it up to see how it was working. Each time, the men would sport somewhat pained and confused looks and each time I became more disgusted with the piece. Finally as lunch approached, I simply put it out of sight while I cooked. I pleased that the next day was NOT an Alexander day and I finished the piece shown here.

Following my ego deflating morning, I worked on making bezels most of the afternoon. Why did it take most of the afternoon? Because I burned up two bezels trying to get them to solder to copper backing. They simply wouldn’t connect. At one point I became so frustrated that I stopped and connected a different bezel to sterling silver for the necklace pictured below. This was much easier. However, since I was not willing to give up, I worked and worked until finally I managed to get the silver bezels to solder to the copper sheet metal. Yet, my ego took another hit.

Later that day, I managed to string the pendants and was relatively happy with the outcome. The following day, however, when I was showing some pieces at a store, my good customer politely asked how to fasten one of the necklaces. All I could do was smile and tell her it was just an Alexander day. Look closely at the clasp in this next picture and laugh along with me. 

Meanwhile, here at the ranch in the past few days, the puppy ate my good shoe and scratched the glass door. I put Vaseline all over the door to discourage him, but he ate that too. The pivot (irrigation machine)ran into a tree and wrecked. My car had a flat tire and the barn cat killed a rattler (actually that was a good thing since Angus got the snake before it got him).

I didn’t create this blog post to garner sympathy. I wrote it because I’m thinking you, too, could also create a narrative of the things that have happened to you on your own Alexander day. We all have them and we all survive. But just in case I forget that fact, I think I’ll keep in mind all the things that happened to Alexander on his own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

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Alexander Calder Inspiration

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A Facebook friend listed the following video and luckily I clicked to see it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK8yelalFcI  I have always admired the works of Alexander Calder and this video features an exhibition of his wire jewelry. While speaking at a conference on gifted education in Indianapolis one year, a couple of artsy friends and I snuck out and went to the children’s museum where there was a special showing of Calder’s work. Since it was a children’s museum, there were plenty of interactive centers. I recall manipulating vibrant red, yellow and blue colored pieces of vinyl to make a picture on a magnetic wall board. There was also a center for exploring the making of things with wire. Little did I know that I would later be so infatuated with bending wire into jewelry.  I was completely captivated by the exhibit and at one point I simply lay down on the floor to look up at the huge mobiles hanging from the high ceiling. The wonderful part was that no one thought I was weird! I guess I need to visit a children’s museum again!

Whether you are a Calder fan or not, I think it is interesting to note that he did not go to school to become an artist. He received a degree in engineering. We can certainly see how his training in how things work might have influenced his artistic endeavors, particularly his mobiles and large sculptures. There are many days when I wish that I had a better background in physics. As I recall, however, my engineer husband had to help me get through the basic college physics course required of elementary education majors. I got out with an A, but I think he deserves the credit.

Calder’s change from engineering to artistry reminds me of what I know and have mentioned before about so many gifted individuals. They don’t always stay with their initial focus or occupation. In the teacher’s gifted education classes that I held, I often had women come up at break to say they finally understood their own husbands. When these men mastered one occupation and reached the pinnacle of success, they dropped everything to move to a different occupation. It can be quite upsetting for the family, but may be totally necessary for the person. (I certainly cannot complain about anyone when I’ve been a piano teacher, school teacher, studio manager, piano salesperson, professor, consultant, teacher trainer, writer, rancher and jewelry designer. – I wonder what will be next – sure hope it isn’t wheelchair tester.)

In honor of Calder (I guess), I listed two wire bracelets in my etsy shop today. While the designs are not completly new for me, each piece is a bit different from the one before. It’s a good thing I’m not attempting to be a factory since I can never get even the bracelet armatures to turn out just the same. Do you think that is true artistry or just inability? Hmm . . let’s don’t even go there.

Both these bracelets are listed at $36 in my etsy shop. (www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com)

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Top Down Day

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Doesn’t that sound like a great day? I have visions of riding along the California coastline with the top down in my son’s convertible. The weather would be nearly perfect and the scenery glorious. We actually did this once on a visit to see him and he allowed us to borrow his car for a few days for driving down the coast. Was is the fact that we reminded him of what we shelled out for his Rice education that made him let us take it? I really doubt it. He’s just a nice guy.

Regretfully, it’s not that kind of top down day here at the ranch. Instead it is that dreaded day ever few months when I start at the top (ceiling) of our timberframe house and clean the dust all the way down to the floor. If you haven’t been in our home, that probably doesn’t sound like a big deal. A timberframe home like ours, however, has a good deal of exposed wood and a very high ceiling that catches considerable dust. The following link shows a photo of this type home. this is NOT our house, but you can get the idea. (http://www.timberframe-houseplans.com/gallery/Lindsey.shtml ) By the time I have been on the ladder and worked my way down, I am pretty much covered in dust, but feel good about getting it done. I can only work on top down when the puppy is ousted to his pen with the other dogs outdoors. Bruno likes to take my broom by the head and go raising down the hall with it. Cute – - but annoying! At any rate, I’m finally finished and ready for some design time.

The photos of what I finished last night are more or less top down as well. This picture shows the very first sterling silver free form bracelet that I have made. I finally got the nerve to use this more expensive wire and managed not to mess it up.  This is a dimensional cuff with amethyst, sugalite and pearls. I just put it in my etsy shop for $42 and we’ll see how it goes.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/52292709/sterling-silver-gemstone-bracelet

The second bracelet shown here is copper (I’m stretching to say copper is “down” from silver). I’ve been trying to develop a new bracelet that would incorporate a cabachon in a bezel. I think this might be a winner and will be especially nice when I get up the nerve to make it in sterling silver. This copper one retails at $30.  If you have been reading this blog, you know that soldering bezels is new for me, but it is getting easier. Perhaps when I try this one out of sterling silver, I’ll really go to the top and also use a turquoise cabachon.

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I’m a Little Bit Country

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No, I’m not Marie Osmond even though that’s her song.  How do you get to be country? Country speaks to me of time outdoors, gentle wind and farm ponds. When I was young, my father was the soil conservation agent in Medford, Oklahoma. As such, he helped local farms put in and stock their farm ponds. Later, he was allowed to fish in those ponds. I loved it except when the mosquitoes were out in force. My dad even used these country ponds to encourage his then “new” son-in-law to take up fishing. This country ease later gave way to boats with big motors and some small tournament fishing for my husband. At least it started out as country!

Another part of country that I enjoyed as a child was picking sand plums. We used to load up in the pickup and drive somewhere to find sand plum bushes. It seemed like I picked forever before my little bucket would be full enough to stop. The mosquitoes weren’t so much the problem as the bees in the bushes. One country problem with sand plums was that there was often sandy loam to traverse to get to the fruit. We carried a big board in the back of the pickup because my dad had a propensity to get stuck. Luckily, we were usually prepared for the inevitable. We brought sand plums home and Mother made great jelly from them. That’s something else I consider country even though city folks sometimes make jelly and do canning also. I think you could say I WAS a little bit country growing up.

Thinking about being country naturally leads me in to thinking about being western as well. My dad always wore a western hat and boots. I still have his last felt hat in a box in my closet just in case a need to rekindle a memory. It’s interesting to me that after all these years of living in major metropolitan areas while my husband was with Procter and Gamble, I grew up to be both country and western. Our ranch endeavors have certainly helped add a western bent to my life. Although I don’t wear a hat and boots, can’t ride a horse and don’t rope any steers, I can help round up the cows with the jeep, help down at the barn and save the life of a calf with a needle and fluids. Does that count for country-western?

I think a person’s art form takes on the style of who they are. Certainly your life, past and present, influences the things you like and therefore your style. While I continue to be a bit unsure about my own art style, I keep trying various types of designs. This week, I’ after country-western. So here’s the question, what does it take for a piece of jewelry to be that style? Western is somewhat perplexing. I’ve perused the web and been in several “western” stores, but am particularly dissatisfied with the store offerings. While the pieces carry a hefty price tag, they largely appear to be made of plated silver, large stones, magnesite dyed to look like turquoise and flashing beads, crystals or rhinestones. Since I haven’t been to a rodeo in about a 100 (slight exaggeration) years, I don’t know if this is what cowgirls are wearing. I envisioned more authentic turquoise, pure silver and less bling. I have several photos of pieces below that I would call western. See what you think.

This cuff has a brass layer on the bottom and the top is fold formed copper. I wired the turquoise stones to the copper and then attempted to rivet the two pieces together. Since that didn’t work, I finally used leather to lace it together and just riveted the ends.

The lapis, coral and carnelian necklace shown here has bone horses strung in it. I’ve done several of these before and have even sold a few  as far away as a store in Maine.

The sunstone necklace is composed of an array of shapes of sunstone beads with a peach sunstone cabachon bezeled on copper for the focal. I hoped the copper shape would look western.

Finally, this necklace contains Native American fetishes made from various gemstones. They are strung amid picture jasper chips, turquoise and carnelian beads.

These westernish pieces are missing the bling since they don’t display any rhinestones and the turquoise is real. This is my style country-western. A couple of these will probably go in my etsy store and we’ll see what others think about them.

I’m a little bit country and from my roots in Oklahoma to my anchoring here in Texas I hope the care I take with my art will reflect who I am!

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Thinking Creatively

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A series of short articles I recently wrote for Magpie Gemstones (www.magpiegemstones.com) on creative thinking in design instigated several new necklaces. If you have interest in this topic you can find these at the following addresses:

http://www.magpiegemstones.com/creative1.html

http://www.magpiegemstones.com/creative2.html

http://www.magpiegemstones.com/creative3.html

http://www.magpiegemstones.com/Creative4.html

In making these necklaces, I was trying to apply creative thinking techniques to my preexisting skills rather than coming up with a new element to add. The question was “In what ways might I create interesting pieces through relatively simply techniques?” The first piece is a simple strung tiger eye necklace. I added small wire flowers that I had been making as earrings and used them as spacers.

I seldom use a single color or type stone in a piece, but this one seems to work OK.

The next photo shows a simple strung necklace using glass beads. The easy pendant is made from a filigree piece to which I attached a small flower bead.

While the next necklace was more complicated, it simply combines processes I already knew. By the way, as we learn in creative thinking training, I used happenstance with regard to the copper “sticks” on the back of the bezel. They were not planned, but when I was trying to torch two straight pieces of copper wire, they fused themselves together. So I went with this mistake and used it in the design. The last photo shows a simple piece derived from thinking “what if?” I  just kept adding things to the basic piece of etched copper and ended up with a very long pendant. Although you can’t see it in the photo, there is a flower etched on the copper portion of the pendant. This pendant started as a bracelet and ended (at least for the moment) as a necklace. I think “resistance to closure” which is also practiced in creativity training worked well for this bracelet/necklace.

I guess the message I’m trying to send today is that easy methods can produce innovative designs. While I will continue to practice newly learned techniques, applying creative thinking skills to those that I have previously learned is another positive avenue for innovation. I hope you will read the short articles at the above addresses and apply them to whatever form of work you are doing. Have fun, laugh often and create for life.

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Funny

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Is it funny “ha, ha” or funny “strange”? Yesterday was both!

I’m not sure what was in the air, but it seemed to me that those I visited yesterday were just happy. When I called on a boutique customer to supply an order and show a few new things, the owner and sales associate were already smiling. This is the great store that will honestly tell me whether my prices are appropriately marked. Yesterday, when I would say “do you think you could sell this piece for $x” both women would say in unison “we can do it!” After about the third chorus of this, it got to be pretty funny, but then you might have had to be there.

Next, I visited the nursing home arriving just as folks were returning to their rooms from lunch. I could see my mother wheeling down the hall wearing one of those flower adorned headbands I made her along with a big smile. We had a great visit and one of her stories was about being funny. At lunch, her tablemate asked her if her daughter was as funny as she is. I guess I never thought of my mother as funny, until she finished her story. She told me that this place, the nursing home, was where they bring people who have gotten “funny” and if you aren’t funny when you get here, you will be FUNNY soon! At that point I wondered if I should leave quickly before I became funny.

Even my design work was funny yesterday (in an ignorant sort of way). While etching copper pieces, I had run out of styrofoam used to float the pieces in the etchant. I was in a big hurry, etching and trying to cook dinner while shepherding the two blue heelers running through my house because they were afraid of the thunder outdoors. Having read that you could hang the copper pieces above the etchant with tape, I grabbed the least expensive tape I found and thought I had solved the problem. Did you know that when aluminum tape touches ferric chloride (the etchant) it gets very hot? Each time I shook the etching container to settle the copper, I could hear a big sizzle. When I finally removed the pieces from the etchant, the tape had either melted or formed little sizzling balls that were very hot to my gloved hands. The funny part is that my pieces turned out the best of any I’ve done previously.

As my final example of a funny day, the photo probably speaks for itself. Look at the silly mess of a nest for this little bird. Not only is it funny looking, the process of getting the bird and the nest to remain on the copper was pretty funny. First I used E6000 glue to adhere them to the copper. That only lasted about 2 hours. Next, I attempted to cold connect the bird, but that didn’t work at all. Finally, I wired both the bird and the nest to the copper. The more I worked with this process, the messier the bird’s nest became. Then, I took a blurry picture of the whole thing . . . I’m trying to accept that this was just the perfect ending to a funny day.

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Perfectionism: Good or Bad?

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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!

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Jewelry Vacation

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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!

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Summer Camp

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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

1. 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.)
2. Know, understand, take pride in, practice, develop, use, exploit and enjoy your greatest strengths.
3. Learn to free yourself from the expectations of others and to walk away from the games they try to impose upon you.
4. Free yourself to “play your own game” in such a way as to make good use of your gifts.
5. Find a great teacher or mentor who will help you.
6. 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.)
7. 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.

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