They Call Me Mellow Niello - Wildacres, 2019

Another summer is almost over and I'm happy to say that I was able to take Gia's class at Wildacres in June.  The Florida Society of Goldsmiths puts this on every year and they do an AMAZING job!  This time I learned a technique called "Niello."  Niello is a black metallic alloy used as a surface decoration and is fused to a metal base.  We made designs in sterling silver using engraving tools (and sometimes burrs), making designs in the silver. Once finished we filled the spaces with the Niello substance and fired.  Once cool, we then sanded until the designs surfaced. 

Such a great class!  That's Fred the Deadhead in Cyndi's hand.  She snuck him into Meike's bed when Meike was off doing something else in hopes of freaking her out when she walked back into her room.  

Personally, I would have screamed...loudly...if I came upon THIS in my room, but Meike is on to Cyndi's shenanigans.  LOL!

Always a joy to come back to this beautiful view again. 

Below you see us outside watching Gia make the Niello.  He's firing silver, copper, lead and ground sulfur.  Some of us came prepared for this with our heavy-duty respirator masks.  If you are downwind from the smell of these chemicals while they're being fired, it's not going to be a good thing.  The lead and sulfur are highly toxic.

Me & Meike

Here is the beginning of a piece.  This was the first time I'd ever used engraving tools for ANYTHING, so my work is messy.  But by the end of the week, I had a better feel for this process.

When the piece was finished with the design work, I added the black, powdered Niello and fired.  This is how it looks once fired.  Then I went to the sanding machine and took off most of the Niello there, and finished with a regular file.

Here's how it looked when almost finished.  Just a little more sanding and polishing to do.

This is Gia's finished pendant along with the bracelet he made in class.

I was the lucky purchaser of this bracelet at the auction!  Sooooo happy to have this.  It's gorgeous.

Fred liked to be with us every day in our studio. 

This is a sterling silver pendant that I had etched at home and brought with me to Wildacres. I filled it with Neillo, fired, then sanded and polished.  It came out pretty good.  I was surprised how much detail there was.  Another person in the class brought some Metal Clay pieces she had made and they also came out great filled with Niello.

Another beautiful sky, another wonderful week in North Carolina.  

There is a sign entering Wildacres that says, "You are now leaving the real world."  At the end of the week as you begin to drive home, the sign says, "You are now entering the real world."  I can't tell you how true those words are, but everyone who goes to Wildacres for a week knows what I'm talking about.

A Week in the Mountains

I almost missed going to Wildacres this year.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I came to my senses about two weeks prior to classes starting, called the registrar to see if there were any openings in any of the classes and got in at the last minute.  Phew!  

This year at Wildacres, my teacher, Janet Harriman, started our class off with a little Tai Chi called "The Waterfall."  She wanted us to spend our week working hard, but remembering to breathe.  Good advice.  That's Janet in the middle, pouring out our first pieces from their overnight firing.

This was my first attempt at learning Bronze Clay, PMC3 and enameling on metal clay.  We started with the bronze, learning how to work with it, roll it out, keep it from drying out, making slip, attaching wire, etc.  We also worked with fast fire bronze, which has a different color and texture.   Here are Cyndi's amazing pieces (on the last night of Wildacres, we have Show and Tell, where we all put our pieces on display):

We all made a locket (similar to the one third from left), which opens and closes and has a little compartment inside.  I just love how you can set stones (strong enough) into the wet clay and fire them!  I also like the color of the bronze clay.  Sometimes it looks golden and sometimes it comes out of the kiln with a nice patina.  We also spent a day working with PMC3, a fine silver clay.  On the last day of classes, Janice gave us a demonstration on how to enamel on silver clay, which I can't wait to try out soon.

There is always plenty of fun happening at Wildacres.  We had some fantastic items for sale at the auction this year!  This is John Cogswell showing everyone a gathering of fold forming pieces from his students that was being auctioned off.  We also had jewelry items from all the teachers and a three-night stay in a fantastic vacation home in North Carolina.  I think the Florida Goldsmith Society did well (it's their biggest fundraiser of the year).

Three meals a day.  Seems the bell is constantly ringing for us to get up and come on down for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  The photo below shows all of us, except two tables hold The Sycamore Hill Writers Group.  We share Wildacres with them every year.  I approached one of the writers on the road late one night, saying, "Karen Fowler?"  She said, "Yes?"  I introduced myself and told her I had just started reading her new book, "We are All Completely Beside Ourselves," and how much I was enjoying it.  Karen is also the author of "The Jane Austin Book Club."

Here are some of the pieces made by the Foldforming class and the Trapped Objects class.  I wish I had more from the other classes, but the lighting was odd and I didn't have my good camera with me.  This one is Foldforming, taught by John Cogswell:

Trapped Objects - Joanna Goldberg is the teacher:

Some of the people in my class after Show and Tell are below.   We had a great time!  Monica was always cracking us up and Cyndi made sure we had some good music to keep us going.  We did an amusing skit about Janet, adding "The Waterfall," reminders to breathe, and a golf ball rolled under one of our feet to stimulate our creativity.  Roberta stole the show with the golf ball scene!  Monica wrote the entire skit, filled with sentences that had been actually said out loud during the week including, "Can you solder my crack?"  "You've got to spit on it."  Okay, maybe you had to be there.  : )

Before we packed up and left this wonderful place, I purchased this sweet piece from Janet.  I absolutely love it and have been wearing it every day since returning.

All in all, a GREAT week.  Janet was a wonderful teacher -- we learned a lot in one week.  We also had amazing laughs!   Until next year!

2012 Wildacres Trip

Another week up in Little Switzerland has come and gone.  I returned on Saturday, tired (as usual), but happy for having had another great week at Wildacres.  This year I took an enameling class with Pat Nelson.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this class called 2D and 3D enameling, and we ended up learning a vast array of different enameling techniques.

We started off using stencils to make designs, and later moved to using Riso Screens and Thermal Fax machines (something I had never heard of).  

 Things got MESSY!  We experimented with foils, drawing with graphite, using watercolor enamels and ceramic pencils.  We played with decals and even learned how to make our own with black and white laser copiers.  We also learned how to make our own stencils using silkscreening techniques.  Phew!  It's a good thing I take good notes because I can't remember half of what Pat taught us and I've only been home 2 days.

Karen and Alan (this was Karen's first year, and she'll definitely be back).

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Then came Auction Night!  First we have a silent auction followed by the live auction where the "special" items donated by all the teachers are auctioned off.  Charlene won a gorgeous necklace made by our one of our most favorite teachers of all time, Julia Woodman.  : )

 
Here is Susan on the left, who taught me all my basic metalsmithing skills at Spruill, Charlene, Me and Cyndi, with Tom Beard, another teacher at Spruill sitting in front.  Good times!




 Susan and Cyndi, who decided we all needed to be fed one night while sitting out on the patio and brought out different types of cheese, crackers and dips.  Amazingly yummy.

Here are a few of the experiments we did in class, and here is Katherine and Pat up above.

Practicing "the pose" before dinner one evening (shoulder out, head forward and slightly down). 

Mary Ann Scherr (second on left) taught a class that used etching materials and also worked with the student's own body to form the metal to their personal shape.  They turned out some amazing pieces.  Here are some examples.

Some more examples from our enameling class:

Harold O'Connor was also at Wildacres this year and here are a few items his students produced.

We also had a Lapidary class taught by Helen Driggs, an Engraving class by Les Bryant and Andrea Kennington and a stone setting class by Hiriko Yamada. Everyone produced extraordinary pieces and I wish I could include them ALL here.

I will end by saying I missed a few special people this year who have been up at at Wildacres with me now for 5 years - Julia, Kathy and Maggie especially!  I hope they find a way to make it back up next summer.  Of course, we all missed Jean Stark who decided 2011 would be her last, and John Cogswell's absence was also felt.  And where were Leslie, Gail and Robert (we missed his home-made honey!)  I hope they all know that there were a lot of people who asked about them.

Wildacres, 2011

Another summer at Wildacres came and went without my remembering to blog about it here.  So I'm going back and gathering the photos and thoughts I have from another memorable adventure to share with you.  That's Donnie in the video above.  Donnie helps us with all the equipment that we need during our stay and is always there to lend a helping hand...but watch out when he's got that whip in his hand!

This year was a special time at Wildacres because it was Jean Stark's last summer teaching there.  Jean had been there every summer for 25 years!  Everyone who loved her as a teacher looked forward to this time every year, so there were quite a few tears shed this week.  Jean took a liking to Donnie's whip, trying to convince us that she was going to come down hard on us if we didn't behave.

Jean taught a class in enameling this summer and we all learned how to create lovely little pears.  She brought along lots and lots of examples:

Leslie and Karen were very proud of their creations:

Gail (sniffling a bit) and Robert have been in Jeans class without fail every summer.  I hope they come back in 2012.  

This is one of Jean's enameled pieces that I find stunningly beautiful.   Maybe someday I'll be this good (hopeful thinking).

And here's me with another one of my favorite teachers, Julia Woodman!  She's always kind, encouraging and has a magical bag of forging techniques.  I'm presently back in her class at Spruill and feel like I've returned home again.

My friends, teachers and classmates:

Would you like to see my pear?  It's amazing that it took an entire week to complete two pears (I haven't set the other one into a bezel yet), but enameling can be a very long process.  

Okay - goodbye for another year, Wildacres.  I hope to be back in 2012.