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.

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).

.

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.

Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez Workshop

The Georgia Goldsmith's Group had a workshop recently with Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez.  Juan Carlos is an Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and I first came across his work at Wildacres in North Carolina last summer.  All of the students in his class carried on and on about what a wonderful learning experience they were having, and I have to admit I was a wee bit jealous.  So when I heard GGG was bringing Juan-Carlos to Atlanta, I signed up immediately.

Juan Carlos

Our class was all about textures and embellishments.  We started off texturing round steel blocks (in any pattern we desired), which we can now use to add texture to our metal.  We also textured hammers and made numerous stamps out of steel and nails.  The picture below is one of the steel blocks I textured with separating disks ground into the metal.  The photo underneath shows how the texture looks after hammering a piece of silver onto the block.

We also spent a good amount of time etching.  We used PnP, paint pens, sharpies, contact paper, stamps, universal etching ground, bees wax...just about anything that would resist the etching solution.

Kathy and Debby

Barbara, Cyndi and Anna

Juan Carlos demonstrated how to obtain many of the techniques used in this piece below, i.e., texturing, scoring and folding, rolling mill techniques, forging.  He demonstrated flush setting tiny stones (and he made it look so easy), depletion guilding and cleaning with a DRY brass brush (great tip!).

I think we all agreed it was a wonderfully inspiring week.  We'll take everything we learned back home with us and, hopefully, some of what we absorbed will come out in what we now create.

It's Still Rock 'n' Rubies to Me

My friend Maggie and I began our adventures at the Tucson Gem Fair with a morning seminar on Thursday called, "Best Buys in Tucson," presented by Richard Drucker from GemWorld International.  He discussed issues facing colored gemstone dealers, which gemstones are most popular (and most expensive), the quality and sizes available, and to prepare ourselves for higher prices.


Then we hit the AGTA show.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I have never seen so many exquisite stones in one place.   We saw diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, aquamarine, opals, peridot, spinel, tourmaline, chrysoprase, garnet, chalcedony, pearls, morganite, moonstone, kunzite, tanzanite, topaz, citrine and more.   Expensive? Very!

One of the highlights of our day at AGTA was spending a little time with the famous Bernd Munsteiner and his son, Tom.  Bernd Munsteiner is one of the greatest gem carvers ever.  Tom has carried on the family tradition and his wife,  Jutta, is a master goldsmith who designs all of their jewelry pieces.   Maggie and I tried on a couple of their bracelets, which were eye-popping gorgeous.   Bernd even let us take pictures with him.  : )

On the second day we shopped the GJX.   Again, we found prices higher than we had expected and simliar to AGTA, but with more vendors from outside the country.


Third day: Holidome.   What a difference.  It felt like a gigantic flea market.  The pearls dropped from thousands of dollars a strand to two dollars a strand.  Certain items were of a lesser quality, but by doing some searching, we were able to find some nice stones for  excellent prices.  This is where I found some very unusual cabachons in peruvian opal and sugalite, which completely made my day.


What else did we do in Tucson?  Ate lots and lots of Mexican food!  Here is a photo of a unique entrance to one of the restaurants we tried.

We never even made it to any of the outdoor shows.  Maybe next year?