June Meeting- Drilling Rocks, Shells, Glass

l to r: Laura, Mimi, Karen, Caroline drilling and chatting. Dana's taking picture!

Using a diamond bit l to r: core drill bit, 1/8" bit for hole and for carving.

These holes went thru like buddah.

June 3rd we met at my house (Dana) and hung out on my porch drilling rocks, shells and glass. How fun! Caroline, Karen, Laura and Mimi came and brought a TON of stuff to drill. We used diamond bits under water(slightly, so as not to electrocute ourselves) and had success with most everything except some really hard shells which will take quite a while to drill through.

Workshop - 5.23 - Openings!

Loren Damewood is coming to teach in Ellicott City tomorrow - Saturday the 23rd of May.

There are still a few openings - if you are interested email me please:
janiceihg at hotmail dot com

If you are unfamiliar with Loren's work you can see it here:

http://www.golden-knots.com

We'll be working in some area of my house - low key - maybe in the garage or out on the deck - its cold work for the most part.

Hope some of you can make it!

Starfish Pendant

Our mini PMC workshop was fun and informative. I made several pieces using different techniques, since this was my first time using metal clay. I found the process slightly stressful, but upon completion am in love with the silvery whiteness of the metal after finishing. This simple starfish pendant is one of my favorites.

Thanks Mimi and Dana and all the other ladies for your help and guidence during our class.

Metal Clay Workshop- March 2009

Here's a sampling of our pieces drying on a heating pad.
Here's another view. It's amazing how little clay you get for mucho dinero!

These are Dana's pieces- the glass in the pendant piece cracked during firing- heat wasn't even enough!

Here's Sherry's finished piece- beautiful!

Sherry hard at work on her Trees at Twilight piece, above.

Sherry used metal clay paste to "paint" on small leaves, then dried and peeled them of to fire.

Mimi set us up such a nice area to work. Sherry's working hard, some of the rest of us are busy chatting! (l to r: Sherry, Ellen, Bodil, Mimi, Dana) Also not pictured- Karen, Caroline, Mary.

Mary's gorgeous shell pieces created with a hand-made mold.


One, two, three- action! Mary torch-fired then soldered on a bail. The possibilities are endless!

Stay tuned for the next post- more pics of pieces created in workshop and some finished jewelry pics!

A Bloom of Jellyfish

While I was snowbound, I finished up a limited edition series of seaglass jellyfish pendants. Here is a sampling of a few of my favs. The found seaglass is bezel set in fine silver, and then I added a variety of gemstones to complement the color of the glass. The little gems swish and sway just like the tentacles of real jellies.

Can you all tell that I just adore the beach!

February Metalsmith Meeting

Here's a shot of Mary's very compact and efficient workspace: Mary has an exquisite collection of chasing/repousee work- Wow:

Some paintings done by Mary Benton:

Our group: Some are not pictured (Dana-me and Karen) l to r: Mary, Sherry, Cari, Bodil, Ellen, Mimi.

Mary's display for craft shows- handmade from toy crates and hand-decorated trim, complete with hooks and lights:

What a great meeting today at Mary Benton's house! BIG thank you!

Etching Party!

Boy, what a fun little at-home workshop! Here's some examples of our etching work: We're hooked!
Here we are: Dana, Mimi, Karen and Laurie. Smiling after good results.

Mimi, Karen and Laurie in Dana's basement studio. Smiling because we're high on fumes.

I have some copies of a magazine article on etching. And I have notes written on it- let me know if you want me to mail you a copy!

Recent Work by Cindy

Above, a recent "Medusa" piece- chasing and repousee by Cindy. Below- look familiar? Her "Old Man" piece started during her demo! WOW!

Moving...moving...moved!

What does this picture have to do with metalsmithing? Well, I've FINALLY moved and the need to unpack so that I'm not living with a family of brown boxes has kept me away from my studio! What studio? It's still in boxes! Well, this is our lovely new fish pond and thought I'd share it with you. Look forward to hearing from me about our first Fall meeting soon!

:) Dana

What's in a name?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet....

So says Juliet according to Shakespeare.

But in our society - names do matter. Both personally and professionally. Many parents agonize over what to name their children and we even obsess over what to name our pets!

As I was looking into registering a new domain I began thinking about business names, add that to a great discussion by some of my friends as one gal was attempting to formulate her jewelry business name.....and it left me with a lot of meat to chew on.

One thing that I came across in my travles online looking at names which I thought would be pertinent to this group in particular was the idea of gender associated with business. Since we are all "ladies" I wondered if using our given name as our business name (which is recommended by a lot of people) would have particular pros or cons. I know a few women jewelers who use their two first initials followed by last name and I wondered if it was intentional due to gender.

Are women generally accepted in the industry? As much as a man? More so? Less?

So this post is really asking several questions:

What is your business name and how did you decide on it?

Do you believe the jewelry industry is gender biased?

Please use the comments to offer your thoughts.

~Janice