Pizza, Panini, Cake & Columbia

I had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite gluten-free restaurants in New York this weekend, Risotteria, which I've written about before here in my blog. The gluten-free breadsticks they put on every table is just the beginning of the fun. Since I've had the pizza on a previous visit, this time I skipped it and went for the gluten-free panini. The waiter made sure to let me know they have an assortment of GF beers and a brand new cake with chocolate chips, chocolate frosting and a dusting of coconut, which I had him package up in a take-away box. I carried that piece of cake around with me the entire afternoon and then onto the plane with me for our return trip home. It was scrumptious. Even the flight attendant couldn't help but admire it as she passed by.

While in New York, Jess gave me a great tour of Columbia. She was even able to get me into one of her favorite libraries (I think there are something like 23 of them on campus), Butler Library, which is usually off-limits to anyone outside the school. The fella who let us in said, "I'm not supposed to do this, but since it's your Mama, I will." : ) Walking up the staircase you are greeted by a painting of a young Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was president of the university. This is the largest single library on campus and houses 1.9 million of the university's 9.2 million volumes. Very impressive!

Here is "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin in front of the Philosophy building.

And here's Jess, a proud and happy (but very busy) student!

I also made it (finally) to Metalliferous, a supply shop in Manhattan I often order from for jewelry-making supplies. It was crazy in there! SO MUCH STUFF! A couple of the sales people were friendly, but a couple of them were quite rude. It was actually funny in a strange way. Jess and I kept giving each other perplexed looks and laughing. Hard to believe people actually think it's okay to treat customers in such a condescendingly discourteous manner. It was definitely a memorable New York experience.

A Camping We Will Go

I just returned from a great week up in Little Switzerland, North Carolina. This year I took an enameling class with Linda Darty, and it was the best! Linda is an excellent teacher and is a wealth of information. My head is still swimming with new ideas. I have wanted to take an enameling class for years, so to be able to finally take this class with Linda Darty was a dream come true. (Note: A special thanks to my friend, Pam, who switched classes with me to make this happen.)

We had a few technical issues - one of them being the kilns were heating up the room to an unbearable temperature. So the solution was to move the kilns outside. But then it started to rain. This is Bev and Tom firing their work in the rain.

We ate way too much. Three full meals a day. It felt like every couple of hours, the bell was ringing to let us know it was time to eat again. And like little lemmings, we all came out of our workshops and headed to the cafeteria. This is Charlotte , Donna & Susan (Susan was my very first metalsmithing teacher and I've taken many, many classes with her.)

A photo of one of the workshop cabins:

Just a few of Julia's admirers:

We're all looking forward to doing it again next summer!



This is one of the enameled cloisonne pendants I made in Linda's class. I call it the Love Bug.

: )

How Much is that Ducky out the Window?

One evening my husband and I discovered two ducks swimming in our swimming pool. One was brown and tan colored and the other one had an iridiscent green head with a reddish chest (which I later discovered were Wood Ducks). We've lived here for over six years, yet this was the first time we had been visited by our new feathery friends. About a week after their visit, I was in the back yard and spotted what appeared to be one of the brownish-colored ducks DYING! It was just sitting there next to a tree by the pool looking all sad and unhealthy. I called the hubby up right away (he had just left) and said, "You've got to come back! There's a duck dying in our yard!" This was about week after we had found a dead squirrel lying on our family room carpet, so to now find an almost-dead duck was not even a surprise. I always suspect the mischievious Bella in moments like this. I explained how she just laid there (instead of flying away) while Bella barked at her frantically. He asked if there were a lot of feathers around her. Surprisingly, yes - a lot of them! He told me she was nesting. We had a duck nesting in our back yard. What a relief.


There she sits, day and night. We have had a couple of powerful storms since she arrived, but none of them budged her. One day she was clobbered by huge chunks of hail pouring from the sky. A few days after that, fallen trees due to high winds caused considerable damage in the area and a large part of Georgia had no power. I'd go to the window and peek out just to make sure all was well, and there she would be, still sitting on her nest of eggs.

She's been out there about three weeks so far, so last night I decided to do a little research to find out when these chickies are going to arrive. "Anytime within 28 days," is what I read on the internet. So it looks like we'll have yard full of little baby chicks any day now. : )

And just so you know, Mrs. Ming Ming Ducky (named Ming Ming after the fearless duck on Wonder Pets by Twitter friend, Betsy, Betsy & Claude Baking Company) picked a pretty nice place to hang out for a couple of months - right under this tree:

I'm a little worried about the baby chicks toddling about and then falling into the pool by accident before they're ready to swim. If you have any suggestions, please comment. I've never done this before (obviously) so don't know what to expect.

Reticulated, Anticlastic Formed Silver Cuff Bracelet with Blue Topaz Gemstones

Reticulating silver is still an ongoing adventure over here, so I'm showing you one of the cuff bracelets I recently fabricated. This is a variation of the cuff bracelet highlighted on the cover of Art Jewelry Magazine in January of 2008. I made a couple of alterations, which I'll explain.

First, when Julia, my talented teacher (and designer, master metalsmith), saw me trying to solder 10 gauge round wire all around the edges of this bracelet, she told me that half-round wire would be far easier. She was 100% correct (of course)! It was still difficult to solder, but because there were two flat surfaces touching each other, I was able to finish the soldering in probably half the time it would have taken me had I continued to struggle along with the round silver wire.

Second, not wanting my bracelet to be a carbon copy of the one in Art Jewelry Magazine, I added the two blue Topaz gemstones to the inner edges of the cuff.



More to come...

Adventures in Reticulation

To begin the process of getting a piece of reticulation silver prepared, you must anneal the piece of silver several times and then clean the surface after each annealing with a brass brush (how often one uses the brass brush is highly debatable).  The silver becomes ready to reticulate after somewhere between 5 to 9 times of this process. As the silver is heated, the copper oxidizes on the surface. Once the surface is pickled and cleaned, the copper is removed which leaves a surface nearly pure in silver content. This is what causes the surface to have a higher melting temperature than the alloy within. When the metal is heated one more time to bring out the texture, the surface will begin to move and form in rivers and valleys. There are no two pieces the same. The number of times you anneal and the size of the flame used to reticulate cause variations in the texture of the reticulated surface. Some people use large flames from a large torch tip, while others use a small torch tip. Both produce interesting designs, so I'm beginning to believe that there are numerous ways to experiment here.

A number of us are making a bracelet that uses reticulated silver on the outside and fine silver on the inside. They will be soldered at both the top and bottom and a box clasp and hinge added last. Here is where I am at in this process: One piece of formed silver and one piece of reticulation silver ready to be binded together with binding wire and soldered.



It's hard to believe this will all be one unit soon. It's not going to be easy. I've already seen the struggles of those who are ahead of me, so know what is coming. :)

In the meantime, I've made a simple ring with some of the leftover reticulated silver. It's holding a deep blue opal inside a 22K bezel.



Next time I'll tell you all about my week-long class in learning how to make clasps and closures.

The Golden Acorn with Jean Stark

Is it Hot in Here?

After a week-long workshop in granulation with Jean, it was sweltering.

I just had probably the most intense jewelry workshop of my life. It was fun, scary, enlightening, nerve-wracking, frustrating and joyous all at the same time.

I started off by working three days on forming the above dome out of 22k gold and adding on those miniscule granules one at a time. Sometimes they would sit nicely where they were supposed to be, and other times they would slip down or slither over to hook up with some other granule formations they were not supposed to be a part of. But it was definitely 3 days worth of work before I reached the point of being ready to begin fusing. My brilliant teacher, Jean Stark, was at my side to watch over me as I began to fuse. My heart was actually beating faster and my palms were sweaty. I'm not kidding about this. I was SCARED. Anyway, the torch was put to the dome and heated until it was a bright, glowing red (I thought for sure it was going to just burn up and melt into one big blob). Jean gently encouraged me on how to use the torch, and little by little the granules fused to the gold. It all happens so quickly. Knowing when to stop and move the torch away before melting is a skill one develops over time I imagine. At this point in my granulation experience, which is practically zero, all I could do was try not to blink in case I missed the "flash" that told me the granules had fused.

Then it was on to making the bail, as well as re-firing the dome again and again to fuse wayward granules. I must have torched this dome at least 10 times, so you can probably imagine how happy I was to bring this baby home all in one piece.  



















Amazing experience with an amazing teacher!

Blues, Greens and In Betweens

After receiving about a quart of Liver of Sulphur from Rio Grande, I've gone a little crazy with it. I'm throwing pieces of jewelry into the pot that I had never considered putting a patina on. It's always a surprise to see the results after a dip or two in the heated Liver of Sulphur, followed by a little steel wool scrub. This new pendant was made from one of the Australian Opals I bought in class a couple of weeks ago. The slightly antique look of the silver really brings out the blue of the stone, another unexpected effect.



Below is an example of my attempt to use some of those new skills I learned in the gemstone-setting workshop that took place a few months ago. : ) Practice, practice, practice.



This is Rebecca, the senior student I've been "mentoring" and teaching metalsmithing skills to. She made a lovely Egyptian spiral bracelet and just finished the pendant hanging from her neck. The picture is wacky because the camera was accidentally set on "Manual" by mistake. Whoops!



Here we have a couple photos from our trip to the Georgia Aquarium last week. Ken and Sharon, friends from Michigan, were in town and we acted like tourists with them for a couple of days.





The beginnings of my next project...such pretty stones...what shall I do with them?

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Red, brown, dappled, gray, big, small and in-between dachshunds everywhere you looked! Yes, it was time for the yearly Howl-O-Weenie Festival put on by Dream Dachshund Rescue in Atlanta. David and his friends, Matt & Jacqueline, joined us in the park for a morning of dachshund mania.

This little "Princess" was quite the eye-catcher! She had her own well-decorated pink float to ride on in the costume contest.
This was one of the funniest! You can't see the Obama dog next to this pup, but that dog had a Biden doll sitting on it's back.
How cute is this?
The scary spider dogs!
This little pup is named Daisy.
Oh, let's not forget our own little ones. Yes, I'm aware they look rather disheveled and tousled here. Poor little Bella - the excitement of driving into the city was too much for her and she had a "foam at the mouth" seizure when we arrived. Luckily, I had brought some valium (doctor prescribed for just these types of moments) and we got a half of one in her mouth. So if she looks a little out-of-it, she is! Plus, the hippie costume thing just didn't work. Their skirts kept falling off. I must plan better next time.

Ahhhh....home at last. Sure was a fun outing hanging out with all those dachshunds, though.

Ball of Confusion

This past weekend I took a class on Granulation. Getting those tiny, little spheres to fuse to the silver without melting is not an easy task. There's no random torching here! What you see below is an experiment. The spheres did adhere, but I somehow over-cooked the silver so it now has a mottled appearance. I need to find out what I'm doing wrong here because it happened on both pieces. In November I'll be taking another workshop with the lovely Jean Stark, and will have to be proficient at this by then because I'll be using gold ($835 an ounce today). Overheating will not be an option. But I've been told that if you can fuse silver, gold will be easy. I'm counting on this to be true. :) 

Wide Open Spaces

Jackson Hole, Wyoming. About 15 years ago I was having dinner with a group of business people and one of the women said she lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. At that point in my life, I was completely unfamiliar with the area. Now that I've come and gone, I understand why. Stepping off a plane in Jackson Hole is like walking into the past...back when there were huge open spaces with mountains and sky every which way you looked...cattle and horses grazing alongside the road...cowboys (real ones) with weathered skin and cowboy hats on their heads passing by on the street and taking pretty girls for a twirl on the dance floor at "Cowboys" in the evenings. Yep, it was the West I had envisioned in my head from stories and television shows and movies, but never really believed existed. It still exists, and it's stunning.

I suppose winters aren't quite as comfortable with a layer of white snow always covering everything and temperatures getting to minus 49 degrees. It makes me wonder how anyone can live there year round. About 7,500 people do live there year 'round. Good grief. Ann Arbor, Michigan has over 113,000 people in their little city so Jackson Hole residents must feel like a large family.

We had a great time hiking & rafting with our friends, B&C, who you have seen here on my blog many times before. Here's Brian tickling Connie on our way up the mountain. They are so much fun to travel with:



As we were entering the area to land our raft here was Mr. Moose, waiting for us. We were told not to get too close because he could get nasty. We kept our distance.



This is a view from Grand Teton National Park. We had hiked up to "Inspiration Point," which SOME of us found a little more difficult than others to accomplish (ME...because it was like straight UP the mountain!), and then we continued hiking along a more flat terrain (suggested by our rafting guide, Andy, who gave us so many wonderful suggestions of what to do with our time in Jackson Hole. He was a college student who had come there for one semester off, and never left. We understood why.)



I have so many photos of this trip, and plan to get them on flickr as soon as as possible. Will let you know.

: )

A New York Gluten Free Minute

First, I just want to thank the "celiac chicks" who have helped me find all the wonderful gluten-free restaurants in New York that I look forward to visiting when I'm there. This past weekend I was fortunate to actually find and try some gluten free potstickers!!! It was the first time in over eleven years I was able to order them in a restaurant. Lilli and Loo's (on Lexington) have a gluten-free menu with a wide assortment of choices. I drank Thai Iced Tea, gobbled up the potstickers and a finished with a crispy fried shrimp dish. Quite good and really a treat.

On a sunny and warm Sunday afternoon we headed to the Broadway show "Wicked." I wish I had pictures to show you, but they don't allow picture-taking in the Gershwin Theater (a good idea because you wouldn't want to miss a moment of the action on stage while messing with your camera.) What an amazing show. I was mesmerized from the opening number until the standing ovation. This is a picture of the stage right before the magic began:


Here's my favorite daughter, Jess, with her adorable boyfriend, Vitaley, in Bobby Flay's restaurant "Bar Americain," where we dined after the show (my favorite son was home watching the pups). I loved being in New York and I loved being with Jess & Vitaley for 3 whole days. I love so much about New York that I had to ask my husband if he was getting irritated at me constantly saying, "You know what else I love about New York?" He kindly replied that I wasn't irritating him at all. Hmm...I don't know about that...


The big letdown was on Monday when we all decided to meet at "Risotteria," the Italian GF restaurant I always try to visit when I'm there. This time I was going to try their GF panini. But we arrived to find it was closed for the day. Yep, a bit of a bummer, but we found another nice place nearby and then spent the afternoon doing a little shopping. How can you go to New York and not spend some time shopping? I splurged on a really-cool-sweater-wrap-kind-of-thing so am looking forward to fall so I can start wearing it everywhere. It's one of those pieces of clothing you can throw over your jeans & t-shirt and look like you are dressed far better than you really are. I need more of these. Lots more.

Somewhere in Atlanta with Diamonds

On Thursday afternoon I finished a three-day workshop with Robert Wooding where I learned how to set gemstones. Being the novices we all were, we used brass rings and cubic zirconias to do our experimenting with, and were expected to set approximately 3 to 4 rings every day. I learned far more than I expected to and am thrilled I took the course and can now, actually, set a stone! Amazing! Cabachons are cool and all, but sometimes its exciting to add something more...something dazzling.

Since returning home, I've been stuck with my head in the Stuller catalog, the Fire Mountain Gems catalog, and the Rio Grande Catalog, trying to find some lovely gemstones. Hmmmm...far too many choices!

Here's a good video on Youtube that demonstrates how to set a stone, for anyone interested:

http://www.technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpDiLpLgBOC4

I'd like to find a good source for gems in the near future. If anyone reading this has a suggestion, shoot me an email (Kathygrz@mac.com) or leave a message below. It would be very much appreciated! : )

Workin' on the Chain Gang

Last week I was fortunate enough to be a part of a workshop on chainmaking. Jean wrote the book (literally) on chains, which is called "Classical Loop-in-Loop Chains and Their Derivatives." We had time to learn five or six different types of chains, but very few of us completed any of them. It is a time consuming process, and the priority was to learn how to do these patterns to be finished later at home. The first step is cutting all the little links, sometimes one or two hundred of them, depending on the chain you are making. Then they must all be fused, one by one, so they'll stay nice and tight when you eventually form them into their pattern. I melted a LOT of links last week. There's a knack to heating the wire so it fuses just right.

Here are some silver examples Jean brought along:



And here are some gold:



One of the designs for a chain involved making what Jean calls a "Heracles knot." I liked it so much I made a pair in 22K gold with blue lapiz beads hanging from below.





The only chain I actually completed in class was this bracelet, which is called a "foldover link." The most difficult part was heating the metal to form all the silver balls on each link exactly the same size. Mine came out a little too big, so I'll have to be more careful the next time I attempt this.

Red Velvet, If You Please

Hammers pounding, drills buzzing, and torches ablaze with fire! That's how I'd describe my studio these past few weeks. Winter is bringing on a productive mode of being. The above pendant is a design from my favorite Japanese design book . These designs are so pretty I could probably make jewelry from this book for a very long time and never tire of them. I etched this particular design onto a plate of brass and then transferred it to sterling silver via the rolling mill. I lightly domed it and then soldered it onto a flat back piece before adding patina and polish.



Thinking it was about time to add some earrings to my collection, I came up with the design above. It's a cross between something I saw in a sundance catalog and a book on ancient jewelry. After cutting out the basic shapes, I added a bit of texture by chasing some designs along the bottom edge before adding the ear wires. I want to make them again, but this time edge each piece entirely in in sterling silver wire which will form the loops on each side, to which the ear wire can be attached. If successful, I'll post them here.

Tired of Smoothies? Try Energy Soup!

One of the things my teacher, Julia Woodman, is famous for (besides her master skills as a silversmith) is her Energy Soup. She whips it up and has it for lunch every day (truly, every day). I think it must be doing good things for her because she appears to have an abundance of energy and a zest for life.

I finally took the time yesterday to buy what was needed at Whole Foods. It's a wild concoction of ingredients that you simply can't imagine tasting good...but it DOES taste good!

If you don't have every single ingredient, it's okay. Just make sure you use a gluten-free soy sauce instead of the one listed below if you are gluten-free. Julia likes to add her leftover salad ingredients from the previous evening to her Energy Soup bowl before lunch, so I guess this is one of those recipes you can do whatever you want with, but the recipe below seems to have the just the right amounts of everything to balance the assortment of flavors and ingredients.  



Energy Soup

1 avocado
1 apple
1 medium Vidalia, or sweet onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 inch of ginger root (peeled)
1 three ounce container of Vonnie's sunflower sprouts
1 three ounce container of Vonnie's buckwheat lettuce
1 whole cucumber
1 peeled stack of broccoli
1 bunch of washed spinach OR 4 collard green leaves
1 large swiss chard leaf
2 tablespoons almond butter OR 2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons sweet miso
1 tablespoon of grade B maple syrup
1 tablespoon of raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Nama Shoyu organic unpasteurized soy sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
1 3/4 cups filtered water
Several sprigs parsley, a little dill weed.

Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Large leaves may be bunched together and cut across into 1 1/2 inch segments and pushed through the top of the food processor. I would suggest using the pulse command so it doesn't get too soupy. You want it to have a nice, somewhat chunky consistency.

Yields 4 generous servings. Freezes well. Will be okay in refrigerator for 2 days.  

Mina Rakkaus Sinu, Aiti

This past summer I met a woman at the Wildacres Retreat where I learned enameling from Jean Stark. This woman's name was Katri, and I found out she was 100% Finnish. My mother is 100% Finnish, as well, and once we started talking, I felt an immediate kinship with her. She knew everything about the Finnish people in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and was even familiar with my mother's family homestead, which has turned into a museum of sorts.

At the last meal we all had together, she wrote these words on a napkin and handed it to me: "Mina Rakkaus Sinu, Aiti." She said, "It means 'I love you mother' in Finnish." How sweet of her! My mother's 82nd birthday is coming up this month, so I made her this necklace with those words stamped on silver tags. I just knew I would eventually figure out a way to incorporate them into some form of jewelry for her. I even added a super big clasp so that she will be able to take it on and off herself. I hope she likes it.





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This is a new chain I whipped up last week. Can you tell autumn has finally arrived in my back yard?


This is my favorite time of year. It's so beautiful out there right now!



Until next time!

:)