All the Essentials in one Day

Creative Glass in Volketswil has an active school of glass.  I am lucky enough to have a place in their up-coming class run by Renate Berner entitled All the Essentials in one Day.  I am really looking forward to it!

March Madness

Where I come from in the US, the month of March is overtaken by a sort of dementia centering around basketball tournaments.  Ever since I can remember, the term "March madness" has crept into the vernacular with annual regularity and pervasiveness.  Now I see it even has its own list of references in Wikipedia, where it says the expression could be related to any one of several basketball competitive events.  It can also be connected with an annual spending frenzy in Canadian government whose fiscal year ends 31 March.

March madness has taken on new meaning for me since beginning my present teaching post at Ecolint.  Since my last blog entry, school demands have been great and I have had no time for blogging, beading or jewelry making--with the exception of one day.

On 6 March, Tanya, Lucy and I returned to the workshop of Michel Dubouchet for another day of lampworking.  Though I came away feeling like I made a lot of really ugly beads this time, I can say that I learned a lot:

• I mixed a couple of different colors of class, made my own rod with them and then made three beads.  
• I made a couple of flowers, one of which is actually rather nice, the other, very ugly.
• I learned that when using vermiculite, one must wait long enough before submerging the bead or one will end up with a distorted, pocked bead.
• I got better with dots and manipulating them.
• I got better with dimpled and symmetrical shapes.
• I tried to use metal flakes in several of the beads and not knowing what I was doing, burned the metal and created some very dark, murky looking beads.
• I made some bigger beads.
• I worked with different sized mandrels.
• I got better at encasing.
• For the time being, simple is better.

 

Wow! What an honor!

On the first day of March, I logged on to the Art Bead Scene blog to see what the March monthly challenge might be.  When, what to my surprise, my February monthly challenge entry had won designer of the week!  Amazing!  I hadn't even posted a photo of the necklace here on my own blog!

With these beads

Hooray!  I finished my necklace using a couple of my first lampwork beads, some fused silver and my first ArtClay Silver charms.  I certainly learned a lot along the way and enjoyed every minute of it.

Here are some details...

The charm on this pendant was inspired by a treasured antique button I have that belonged to my grandmother.

 One of the things I was determined to do was to make a toggle clasp out of the ArtClay Silver.

There are jasper beads from a necklace I bought in the early nineties at an artisan market at La Fusterie.  The silver beads are from a bracelet I bought on a trip to Paris that had come apart and was irreparable.  I have enough materials that I intend to make a pair of earrings and a bracelet......

Baby Steps

Took some photos today of those first lampwork beads (made 13 February at the day-long workshop Tanya, Lucy and I had as part of my birthday celebration) so that my family could see them.  Here they are, such as they are, a record of baby steps.

 

Now, here are the beads of the master, Michel DuBouchet.  He most generously let each of us take home a handful of beads that he had made.  Tanya took them all home with her and annealed them.

It was a wonderful day!  Now I can't wait for the next session on 6 March!

Beading Babes' Day Out, finally arrived!

Today Tanya, Lucy and I had a wonderful time chez Michel in Thonon where he coached us in making lampwork beads.  Our eagerly awaited session was amazing!  Here are a couple of photos of the action.  The beads have all happily gone home with Tanya where they will be annealed in her kiln!  More photos to follow.

Thank you, Tanya, Frank, Lucy and Thomas for a fabulous birthday present!

 

 

Donations for an India evening

One of the students I am supervising for her Personal Project has organised an evening to raise money for crêches in Kodaikanal, India.  As part of the evening, she will be auctioning off art work donated by students and teachers. I decided a while ago that I would contribute some jewelry to her effort.  The Morning Frost necklace from the previous post started it all off.  The pieces that follow are the rest of my effort.  I learned a lot while working on them all and hope they are sold for good prices for the fund-raiser.