Studio Status Report

Bristol Board mock-up for the copper plates of my teapot, each piece will be pierced and then stitched together. I'm debating whether or not I should enamel them, I think the copper is growing on me. I've also broken nearly 5 dozen saw blades so far, that's embarrassing.
Copper sheet rose-cut pendant, like the teapot, each piece is going to be drilled along the perimeter and stitched together.

But anyway, here's the rundown...

Soldering station: Check

Jeweler's Bench and hand tools: Check

Vibratory Tumbler: Check

Flex-Shaft: Check

Kiln and enamels: Check

Fully Operational! Yes!

I'm back in the saddle! I made a promise to myself to work at my bench at least 3 hours a day, and so far I've stuck to it. Great progress is being made on my teapot and I've got some great production pieces started. I've been continuing the process I started at the end of the school year where I take sheets of enameled copper with holes drilled around the perimeter and then stitch them together with embroidery floss (e.g. my pink slotted box). I've been looking a lot at complex geometric shapes with names I can't pronounce (Truncated Cuboctahedron, Pentagonalconsitetrahedron, Icosidodecahedron, etc.) as influences, as well as traditional cutting styles for diamonds and gemstones (rose cut, square cut, baguette, etc.) I'm also continuing my florid victorian ornament fixation and piercing those motifs onto the copper plates of my teapot. More updates to come...

State of the Art

Oh my goodness, what a past few weeks it has been for me! Most notably, I relocated to New Brunswick, and I'm already plotting my escape. Don't get me wrong, the people I live with are great and it's cheap, but I can only take so many juicer frat bros who enjoy screaming about how drunk they are at 4 o'clock in the morning, before I snap and shoot up the place. I set up my cute little bench in our living room (see above) and I'm really looking forward to getting to work. It's strange though because the studio at school was a bunch of girls working and listening to Britney Spears and Hall & Oates and talking about girly stuff like power tools and hammers, and now when I work at home it's a bunch of guys sitting around playing Grand Theft Auto and talking about philosophy and World War 2. It's a strange transition.

In other news, a few other exciting developments. All three of the pieces I submitted to the Annual Members Exhibition at the Hunterdon Museum of Art were accepted, so I'm looking forward to attending the opening on October 18th. It's funny because I used to take ceramics classes at the Hunterdon Museum of Art when I was a kid, and now I get to show my work there! Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts invited me to participate in two exhibitions they're having in December and January, one is called "The Teapot Redefined" and the other is called "Heirlooms of the Future". It's a beautiful gallery and I'm really really excited at the prospect of showing my work there. I'm also presented with the task now of making a teapot, but I like having an assignment to think about, it's like I'm back in school again.

I also spent the majority of today setting up my new Etsy account. I have kind of been hesitant about selling my work on Etsy up until now, but I finally caved and set up an account. I think I'm going to focus a lot more energy on making production work these days, partly because I want to make some work that everyone is able to afford, and partly because it seems like a wise idea considering the state of the economy. I don't have much production work at the moment, but I photographed the laser cut earrings I made last fall and put them up on my site. My shop is called "The Single File" (haha) Go check it out!