Vicky and Milton

Vicky and Milton are my Mother and Father-In-Law.  Milton died in 1994 and Vicky passed in May.  They were New Yorkers who sought a better life in Baltimore where they moved in the 1950’s.  My Sister-In-law still lives there and my husband had to relocate there a couple of weeks ago to take care of her because she is very sick. I wanted to make something special for her. 

The picture above is Vicky and Milton on a day trip to Bear Mountain State Park before they got married. She was seventeen and he was barely in his twenties. It was during World II and he had a tour of duty in the Pacific still ahead of him.

I made a polymer clay transfer of a photograph with translucent clay and sandwiched it between two sheets of glass. Then I cut and soldered on channel lead and jump rings for the chain hanger and the heart. I put a patina on the channel lead with gun blue.

I hope she likes it. She is not on the Internet, so it will be a surprise.

Some Web Sites I Like

For interesting takes on Metalsmithing and Metal Jewelry,  check out the work of David Paul Bacharach, Barbara Briggs and Connie Fox’s wonderful site, Jatayu

To learn to make just about anything, check out Instructables and the Ready Made Magazine web site.

No matter what kind of art you’re into, you’re sure to find something that interests you on Wet Canvas.

Happy Surfing!

More Bracelets

Here more results from a bunch of bracelet experiments from about four or five years ago. I made the tile bracelets after watching Gwen Gibson’s bracelet video and the cuff bracelets after taking a class with Donna Kato. I learned the technique for the beads in the pink bracelet in a Margaret Maggio class.

Early Bracelets

I love to make bracelets and I look everywhere for inspiration. Here are some bracelet experiments from a few years ago I made after plowing through The Splendor of Ethnic Jewelry.

My New Hat

     Life has its ups and downs.  Sometimes a girl’s just gotta get herself a new hat.  I got this great hat from The Hats You Want Then I decided to dress it up for the summer with ribbon and some fabric flowers. I love it because it is crushable, packable and so very me.

Bob’s Urban Garden 2008

I wrote about my neighbor Bob’s Urban Garden last year.
Since then, he’s built a wooden Koi pond complete with solar lights that keep it lit at night. Three of the Koi fish from last year are back and bigger (literally!) than ever. They have smaller Koi fish and two turtles to keep them company. Bob’s added a new ceramic fountain, Lilly pads, and an additional wooden tub of flowers in front of our house to give it badly needed curb appeal. Loki the cat is still around checking under cars for hapless pigeons. Barbara the Macaw had a good time mugging for the camera. While I was taking pictures, several people stopped by to admire.

Enjoy the slide show.

Ancient Patinas

     Here are some new  twists on  polymer clay surface techniques I have been working on.   You can see some earlier incarnations in the Keepsake Memory Book I demonstrated on HGTV, and my work in Ellen Marshall’s Polymer Clay Surface Design Recipes. More to come.

Life’s Rich Fabric

I have boxes of old family photographs that bring back memories every time I look at them. But the women in my family preserved the family history  with different materials.  They sewed, knitted, crocheted, tatted, and quilted.

In my living room an afghan my maternal grandmother Emma crocheted is draped over a chair. Over another chair is a patchwork quilt my paternal grandmother Mattia pieced together from her bag of fabric scraps collected over the years. My mother Rosemary, who is still living, was a marvelous seamstress and I treasure her Singer Slant-O-Matic from the early ’60’s. Clothes she made for me still hang in my closet, and I have scads of towels and aprons she embroidered.

My mother-in-law Vicky, who died earlier this month, was also an accomplished seamstress. She made beautiful jackets for a few lucky women in the family (including me) from vintage velvet, lace, and her stash of fabric scraps. I wear mine on special occasions. I was fortunate  to have  inherited her sewing machine.  I will remember her every time I use it. 

Here are some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ways of Remembering

   One of the goals of my blog is to examine history, personal history and the bigger kind, to  see how it impacts our lives, art and creativity.   We tend to think of history as something that happens far  from us-maybe we catch some of the ripples-but we believe that unless we are very important people or happen to be at a particular place in time, we are never a part of history or a witness to history.  We remain unaware of the effect history has in shaping our personality and lives.

     I started to examine all of this when I began to delve into the story of my family and  interview war veterans about their experiences.  I knew when I spoke to them that I would never get the whole story.  How could I?    It’s terrible to remember such things much less give them new life by saying them out loud, and  to a person without a shared experience.  Few of us would dare make ourselves that vulnerable.

      But it was on this this journey that I began to understand how  much of my creativity, my need for a rich fantasy life and my personality comes from my childhood, which was shaped in large part by  my father’s personality. I knew he served in World War II, but not much more.  Then I came upon this quote from the last chapter of The Lord of the Rings.  J.R.R. Tolkien was a World War One veteran and  there is a controversy on whether The Lord of the Rings  was influenced by his war experiences.  This quote erased all my doubts and  clarified so much of my father’s personality for me.  This, in turn,  helped me to understand myself better.  

     “But,” said Sam,  and the tears started in his eyes, “I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.”

     “So I thought too, once.  But I have been deeply hurt, Sam.  I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.  It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them… [Keep] alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more.  And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part of the Story goes on.”

Frodo speaking to Sam Gamgee, in The Grey Havens, last chapter of The return of the King,  the third book of the Lord of the Rings.

     I could see from living with my father that he was “deeply hurt,” and began to understand why.    I also began to understand how my personality, creative and otherwise, developed as a way to cope with his.   The whole process is, of course, much more complicated,  but this should be enough to give you an idea.

    On this Memorial Day Weekend 2008, take some time to examine how the experiences of your family members influenced your life and creativity.    The answers are not always obvious and you have to dig deep.   Do not be afraid to dig.  Prepare to be surprised.

 

 

 

Synergy One Last Time

It’s been  a rough week.  More on that later.  But for now, be sure to check out the latest issue of PolymerCAFE.  I have an article there on the Synergy conference, but there are lots of great projects articles too. My favorite is the Blue Bowl by Keith Brown AKA Canespinner.  Definitely worth your time.