Emperor Sun - on a learning curve :-)

Here I am again, trying to learn a little bit of traditional metalsmithing skills and thinking how to marry them with metal clay :-). I really enjoy acquiring new knowledge and challenging myself. Recently, when I taught in Germany I took with me a book written by Andrzej Bandkowski, entitled (loose translation - the book is in Polish) "A class of making artistic jewellery". It's not really a "class", you won't find any real tutorials there either. It's rather a quite personal take on basics of jewellery making with a ton of great tips and tricks. In my spare time I read the book, and what I especially liked, were all kinds of box-like constructions. So this time I wanted to try building something more 3 dimensional out of sterling sheet, train multiple soldering and sawing.




Sooo... Once upon a time ;-) I sculpted this tiny sun, using fine silver clay. I fired it, and left it for later. I even made a mould of it, which I rarely do, and added bronze versions to a few pieces, but the original little sculpture still wasn't used.

Finally I chose a stone and made a rough sketch of a general idea, slightly inspired by Art Deco (As if you could see anything in this sketch ;-)).
I didn't want to do anything too complicated.

Then I made more detailed templates, and glued them on a piece of sterling silver sheet. Note to self - really, really, you should buy a printer and start using vector art programs again (or a protractor, compasses, ruler etc. YAY! I loved geometric contructions at school ^^). Sketching freehand, in case of something that is not "organic" or super "flowy"doesn't lead to anything good. All the irregularities and inaccuracy started here. If you don't have a precise template for sawing, your sawing won't be precise. Yup, learning on mistakes again.

Anyway - I used what I sketched, marked places where I wanted to drill holes with a center punch and drilled them.

And here are my two elements after sawing and some cleaning. It's the first time I tried to saw elements that weren't "organic", but a little bit more geometrical and I have to say that it's so much more difficult than sawing swirls, waves , leaves and other pretty things ;-) (you can see under the links some examples of my other sawing attempts).

Then I started building the boxes. I measured circumference of the round element and cut a strip of sheet to form a circle that had a  diameter and height I needed (more or less... next time I will REALLY measure things). I soldered two ends of the circle together, and then soldered it onto my round element. I also cut two more strips to form a crescent-like shape - the walls of the other element.

You can see in the photo that the strips are of different width. If I used a proper tool to make sure that they are equally wide I would definitely save some time... ;-) But, yeah, no... Learning. I am just too impatient and excited when I try something new. I just cut them freehand.

I formed a crescent shape out of the strips (it was quite difficult to get the same curve - I just used my hands and forming pliers - maybe there is an easier way... Again - coming back to the beginning - if my crescent shape was really made of two nice archs, I could simply use ring mandrel to get the right curve on the strips...). Then I  filed the ends of the strips (I needed the places where they met, to be pointy, so they weren't visible from under the open work crescent shape), soldered them together and then soldered them onto the shape itself. I also found somewhere (you never know what you can find in your workshop one day ;-) ) twisted, decorative wire, and decided that this might be a nice touch to the whole look of my pendant, so I added it to both elements.

In case you're wondering why silver is so clean - I just took all the photos after pickling - otherwise everyhing would be covered with a ton of flux residue.

Now my boxes needed bottoms, and my stone needed a bezel cup. I formed a bezel, soldered it onto a piece of sheet, and cut out the inside. The stone has a nice back, so I wanted to show it, but my cunning plan ;-) was also to use this piece of sheet from the inside, for the bottom of the round element. Of course, because I judged it by eye, it turned out to be too small, so I had to find another piece of sterling to cut out the circle... Seriously... (facepalm ;-) ) Measure, measure! It's not metal clay where I can take a little bit more and roll it out again.

Before the last soldering I also filed/drilled a few holes in the walls, to make it possible to join the two parts of the pendant and to be able to string it somehow later. Then with an easy solder I soldered the crescent shape on top of the part with the bezel cup. In case of the round part, first I applied some solder on the back of my metal clay sun, flattened it on sanding paper, placed it in the right position, and then at the same time I soldered the round shape onto the circle and sweat soldered the sun on top of the box.

When I made sure that everything is really soldered I cut/file off spare silver from the edges and made sure they looked seamless.




I set the stone, made some finishing, and it was ready :-). You can see the back in the other photo below. I have to say that making this piece was a great lesson.... of cursing in all languages I know :-D. Just joking (yeah ;-) ).

Some news :-)

Ok, so I guess it's time to say that I am so happy and proud to announce that I am a finalist in Saul Bell Design Award competition again :-). This time with a necklace. Thank you very much!








This necklace is called "Midsummer night" and was inspired by a celebration of the shortest night of the year in Slavic culture - Kupala Night. It's a festival of fire, water, joy, fertility and love. People gather around bonfires to dance and maidens plait flower wreaths, which are later thrown into rivers or lakes to tell the future or to be caught be a beloved man. It is said to be dangerous to swim though, because especially during this magical night you might encounter rusalkas - female water spirits. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerize them, then lead them away to the river bottom to their death. You can see three of these water spirits in my necklace, peeking out of the lake, surrounded by water plants and fireflies.
The necklace is made of fine silver clay, 18K green gold clay, sterling silver, labradorites and silk.







It's the third time I am one of the five finalists in metal clay category in this competition. My first lucky entry was my "Flower storm" bracelet (SBDA 2013). It was one of my first pieces made with Goldie bronze, and right now it's owned by Goldie's creator - Waldo Iłowiecki :-).

My second finalist piece (SBDA 2014) was inspired by Slavic folklore. It was Leshy - keeper of the forest. At the end it placed second and I was lucky enough to attend the award ceremony in Albuquerque, and The Santa Fe Symposium, which was really very interesting and truly inspiring. The whole thing was a wonderful experience and I can recommend it to anyone :-).

So, this year, my "Midsummer Night" necklace is in the final five, but of course I won't tell you how it placed, yet :-). I don't want to ruin fun of guessing for anyone ;-). It's also very mysterious this year, with no announcement of the finalists.  Even I don't know who else is in the final five in my category - besides Janet Alexander with her wonderful "Mom's Jewelry Box", who already announced her achievement on her website. I always love looking at the finalist pieces - there is so much eye candy there every year :-).

EDIT :-) So now , a few more people decided to share their great news, so I can congratulate again Janet Alexander, but also Terry Kovalcik, Holly Gage and Ivy Solomon! I have to say that it's a huge pleasure to be a finalist with so talented and accomplished people.

Rendez-vous with PMC Sterling :-)

Yes, I know, I am behind everyone when comes to sterling silver clay :-). I guess it's simply because we don't have PMC distributor in Poland (anyone interested? ;-) ), so I rather stick to Art Clay. But last year when I got Rio Grande gift certificate for Saul Bell Design Award, I decided to spend it mostly on something that is not so easily accesible in my country, so PMC Sterling and Argentium :-). I already played with Argentium a little bit (fun!), but sterling clay was waiting and waiting... Finally I decided to try it.
Sooo, my plan for this post is to write a little bit about how did it go ;-).

Generally - I like the texture of this clay when it's wet - it's super fine,  quite similar to PMC3 - a little bit like a bubble gum :-) (if compared to Art Clay). Long working time, darker colour than fine silver clay - blablabla everyone already knows these things -  a lot of really great tests were published in various places.
What surprised me was how dried clay behaves. This material is undoubtedly designed for carving, and I don't really carve. I file. So at the beginning I was super annoyed by the fact that this clay, even when it's dried, is a little bit "buttery" and it clogs files immediately. So, in a way, I was forced to change my way of working, especially for this clay, but you know what - at the end I don't mind it. I learned a lot.



Another thing that I don't like is high shrinkage rate - I really don't need my pieces to become smaller. I can live with 10% of fine silver clays, but 20% is a little bit too much. And it comes with a price ;-) - bigger distortion. It turns out that it's not a problem in case of more or less flat pieces (all the pendants were ok), but in case of rings it is an issue. I had to reshape all the rings that I made so far, to make them round again after firing. I'll have to try firing plugs, but I don't like using additional stuff in firing process.

Yeah - as for the additional stuff - after a few first firings that left some carbon marks on backs of my pieces I learned (thank you Terry Kovalcik and Ros Wood! :-) ) that it's better to arrange firing in such a way that pieces don't have any direct contact with carbon - so cover them with a stainless steel mesh or something like that. With those first pieces I also tested soldering traditional sterling to fired PMC Sterling, and it works ok.






It seems that yes, this clay has its cons - no doubts about that -but the strength - it makes up for everything, and that's the reason why it's definitely not the last time I am using it. I want to use it more, especially for rings, but first I have to solve the distortion problem.

Here is another example of PMC Sterling work, mixed with sterling sheet and wire (the stone setting, bail behind it etc.) - "Dream Keeper". I cut sterling sheet in a shape which fitted exactly in between the ornaments on the back of the pendant, so it was easy to solder it. Then I soldered prongs on top of it and a bail on the back. It worked nicely.





If you are curious, here you can see a few steps of making my "Drawing down the Moon" pendant (the first photo), inspired by a Full Moon ritual. Someone asked in one of the internet groups, where did I get the mould ;-))))))), so I just thought that it might be interesting to show the process at least partially.

Here you can see some progress of making the face. I work mostly in an additive way. Then I take away some clay in "strategic" places ;-) with a file. I don't use any fancy carving tools etc. People who attended my classes know that I have just two favourite tools - something for cutting and a pointy file - this would be all.

Some more details. I didn't do anything to the face from that point - I was quite happy with the expression. I am still learning how to sculpt human faces and there is still a long way to go, but I feel I am finally starting to think about expressions and not only "how to make a face that looks more or less like a face" ;-).

Details, details. It's like building a tiny model :-). Adding a little bit, filing off a little bit. It's not easy, and it's not fast, but I think it's worth it. I just love this complex, three dimensional look I can get this way.

And some more building and filing - the piece might look quite openwork and delicate, but you might notice that each element is attached to something, really firmly, at least in two places.

Almost ready. I just added a little bit of 18K green gold inside the eyes - I wanted to create this feeling of her being "filled" with the Moon, with this otherwordly shine in her eyes :-).
And it was ready for firing. It turns out that manufacturer's schedule works just fine in my kiln, so I fired all my PMC Sterling pieces in two phases - first open shelf 538 °C for 1 h, and then buried in carbon 815 °C. for 1-2 h (depending on the size of the piece). After getting some marks from carbon in my first firings I make sure that I have some ceramic paper under the piece and stainless steel mesh above it. I don't mind quite long firing time at all - especially if I work on a piece for a few days. But I understand that this might be annoying for people who make a lot of simpler pieces.

Because of the green gold addition, in this particular case I repeated the second phase of firing twice. According to the manufacturer (Michelle :-) ), it requires double firing. You can read more about this material here. And I guess that this would be all for today ;-).

A few updates on my upcoming classes

Not so long  ago I came back from Belgium, where I taught three different workshops - my first classes abroad  in 2015. It was actually the second time I taught at Inge Verbruggen's studio (first was July 2014) - she is a great hostess and a friend. We met for the first time during my workshops in Netherlands in 2013, and later during a retreat in UK. This is what I love about metal clay community - it makes the world a really small place ;-).

Sooo :-), in this post I just wanted to leave here an update on a few of my upcoming classes that are already (or soon will be ) opened for registration.

First place is Hamburg, Germany:
10th April - Twig rings
11-12th April - Herbarium pendants
To register contact Susan Diana Wilson

And then, later in the year, you'll be able to meet me in several places in USA:

1. At the Metal Clay Mojo Conference in Chester, Connecticut I'll teach my "Herbarium pendants" twice, as a pre and  a post conference class - August 18-19th & August 24-25th.
The contact person is Lis-el Crowley.

2. Then I'll visit Lara Ginzburg in Philadelphia area, PA. August 29-30th I'll teach there my "Herbarium pendants" and then again the same class August 31st & September 1st.

3. The last place will be Chicago, Illinois. At Jackie Truty's Art Clay World USA I'll teach my "Herbarium pendants" class - September 5-6th.


I'll let you know about my other classes abroad this year (in Europe) a little bit later. We are still in the process of arranging things :-).

And here is a class sample I made during my "Herbarium" workshops in Belgium, in February. It was a Valentine's day ;-).

Every time a piece is a little bit different, showing possibilties of creating different shapes, looks etc.
I taught this class in so many places, and each time I am amazed  by how varied are the final pieces made by the students - all created with the same set of techniques :-).
So, stay tuned and, hopefully, I'll see some of you, my dear Readers, during my workshops ;-).

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity

It's this time of a year, when I can proudly say:

"Hello, my name is Anna Mazoń. I'm one of 500 people who are involved yet again in an amazing initiative called Jewellery Makers for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity."

Actually I said exactly this sentence just a few hours ago, in an interview for  the Polish Radio External Service, so I thought that if I was already prepared to talk about this topic in English, I could write about it on my blog as well.
And believe me, it's really worth reading! I promise you LOTS of eye candy ;-). But first a little introduction.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (GOCC, in Polish: Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy) is one of the biggest, non-governmental, non-profit, charity organizations in Poland. Its main objective is protecting health and saving children's lives by providing medical equipment to public hospitals. Every year (since 1993) milions of Poles donate to the GOCC volunteers from all around Poland, who are collecting money on the streets of almost every Polish city. Each year GOCC specialists choose different health issue, ask hospitals what they really need to deal with it, make analysis and then, after the money collection, they buy needed medical equipment. Simple and effective. Almost everyone in Poland knows someone who was treated in a hospital unit equipped fully or partially by The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity.

It's already the fourth time when a group of talented people from Poland decided to create totally handmade, collaborative items to be auctioned off for The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity.
Each year our initiative grows - we make more pieces which raise more and more money. During our first year we made just 7 bracelets, each one consisting of a base and a set of handmade heart-shaped charms - each charm made by a different person. This basic idea is still the same - each project we make is created by at least a few people working together - but the size of our group and amount of projects definitely changed.

This year the group has 500 members, and overall we made more than 70 unique, really precious items.


So let me show you just a few of my favourite pieces created for this year's bidding. Look at this amazing necklace - it's called "Music of the Spheres". You can arrange it any way you want and wear as many elements as you want together, in all possible colour combinations. Someone calculated that there are 6832 ways of wearing it! :-). Each facet of this beaded beauty was made by a different person.This truly is a work of art and heart :-). You can bid it here.







Another beaded and embroidered necklace was made by 39 talented ladies. Not only from Poland - one of them is from USA :-). It's super sparkly but still very elegant and nostalgic. It's called "Rainy necklace". It definitely has this WOW factor :-). 
All the crystals used in this necklace are original Swarovski crystals - 84 raindrops - adorned with Toho beads. You can bid it here.








Yet another necklace, but made using a different technique - soutache embroidery - was created by a team of our soutache experts. It's called "Queen Elisabeth" and, in my humble opinion, this is a perfect name for it. It's so beautiful, regal and elegant... It is adorned with natural rubies and sapphires.
I really hope that you already get it, why I am so proud to know some of these talented and generous women and men.
Our model here is a great Polish actress Kinga Preis.





In case you don't like jewellery, we have also a lamp made of thousands of tiny white and silver beads, adorned with snowflakes and spirals - it looks like a dancing Snow Queen and its name is "Magic of light". It was made by 36 people working together. I think this one actually is my personal favourite. I could totally have it in my living room :-).







Or maybe you like.... horses? No, we don't have a beaded horse, but... in case you need a cool outfit for your four legged friend, this is yet another thing you can find on our auctions. It's called Al Shamaal - The Warm Wind. I have to admit that when I heard about this project for the first time I thought that it probably was just a joke. Now I can say that it definitely is anything but a joke! Beautifully designed and crafted by 60 ladies from Poland (and United Kingdom!), photographed on a very handsome and patient model.





Another beautiful necklace - "Golden memories" - was created using metal clay and coppersmithing techniques. All these sculpted circles were made by 20 women, during an amazing retreat in Bory Tucholskie - really beautiful part of Poland. Each little circle tells a personal story - just take a closer look.









Yet another example of a project made by 10 super talented ladies from our group - bracelets with insanely detailed miniature sweets :-). They are so life like and cute, that it is really hard not to eat them ;-). I have to say that I am also bidding this one. This is probably one of the most popular items on our auctions. These tiny charms are entirely made of different types of polymer clays.





We also have quite a few projects for men, inspired by different cultures. This bracelet is my favourite among them. It was inspired by ancient Greece and made by 10 generous women. I especially love the design burnt on this leather strap. Our model here is Sławek Uniatowski - Polish musician. Photo by gorajka.pl.






Maybe just one more ;-). This one is VERY special. This year our initiative has also an educational aspect. Younger generation - children of moms from our group - also decided to make a few beautiful things for the auctions. Small teams of girls and boys created together bracelets, key charms and beaded bookmarks. My personal favourite is this bracelet with super cute tiny owls. Probably the most important thing is that this way children learn, that by using their talents and creativity they can help others.



Ok, so let me show you what I made for this year's auctions. I took part in a project called "Wild Eagle" - it's a hand embellished leather, biker jacket, which was donated to us by a former Polish Superbike Champion - Adam Badziak. Our team added to the back of the jacket hand embroidered wings and the lovliest, steam punk stylized motorcycle. I made a pair of heart shaped charms to go with the jacket. It was a quite tough design challenge for me - I've never designed in this style before. Each of the charms is a stylized heart, but when they are put together, two eagle's claws form yet another stylized heart. In a picture below, you can see how I made them.

If you want to see our other auctions ( more than 70 exciting items), use this link:

http://tinyurl.com/itemswithheart



And these are my charms :-).

Ok, that's all I wanted to write today :-). If you read it all I am genuinely impressed! :-) I hope you enjoyed this little story.
P.S. I just saw a video from a backstage of photo shoots of our projects :-D I had to share this - it's wonderful. People who are the models are Polish stars :-). My little charms are also there - with a HUGE motorcycle :-D