Marie, my dear friend whom owns The Stamp Act, and I are in the works to develop some really cool new classes.  We will be introducing some new BronzClay classes in the next couple of weeks, keep checking our calendars or sign up for our newsletters.

The Stamp Act class calendar

Broken Branches class calendar

Here are pictures of our first BronzClay pieces :

We were amazed at how many pieces we were able to produce with a 200 gram packet of BronzClay.  Last night was our first firing., we still have 2 more firings to go.   If you have Bronzclay and are not sure how to program your kiln, Mardel of Cool Tools has a wonderful video on her website on how to program your Paragon SC-2 kiln.

For a firing schedule for the BronzClay, here is Mardel’s instructions.

Bronzclay was released to the market in July 2008 at the PMC Conference.  It is still very new and changes are sure to come. Last night I fired the pieces using the guide to fire at 500 degrees every hour and then hold for 2 hours at 1550 degrees.  The firing took about 5 hours in total.  This morning I was like a little child on Christmas morning, I could not wait to open the metal container and find my new pieces.  I highly suggest purchasing a metal mesh colander to pour the coal and bronze pieces into.  It was not easy digging through the coal to find the very tiny pieces.  I also suggest doing this outside so you don’t get any black coal dust in your studio.  You will also need to designate separate files for your BronzClay.

Here’s a list of must have tools:

Your favorite Metal Clay Tool kit

BronzClay – is only for sale at the time being at Rio Grande.  It comes in 2 sizes 100 grams and 200 grams.   Soon you will be able to purchase it from Cool Tools and Whole Lotta Whimsy.

Coal and firing container or coconut and firing container

BronzClay Pan Removal Fork – I could only find this at Rio Grande.

Fire proof gloves

3M Sponge Sanding Set

Pink Nail File

3M Polishing Papers

Textures

And you are on your way to some fabulous BronzClay.  Keep a look out for our new classes in the next couple of weeks.  We’ll have a BronzClay Basics Class, BronzClay Hollow Forms, and a BronzClay Altered Book class.

We are proud to announce that you can find our Broken Branches jewelry line at The Stamp Act in Marshfield, MA. You can also find our recycled window frames with pictures of the Cape in the gallery. This is the first time we are selling our recycled window frames.

This is the frame and photo of Chatham for sale at The Stamp Act. We’ll be adding two more frames in the next couple of weeks at the gallery. We also make custom window frames and can mat any size image. For custom work, please email us at marissa@brokenbranches.com.

This frame is currently in our family room. I love looking at it every day. It reminds me of our wonderful vacations on the outer cape.

This is one of the frames we made for our families a couple of years ago. This is Kevin’s frame. Jim did the custom matting.

You’ll find art from many local artists including: hand-made cards, framed photographs, jewelry, and other fun items. Kelly Kimer bought several rings and framed photos when she was in town. The gallery is awesome. Even though we are in the store weekly, there is new art constantly being added. Be sure to stop by and support your local artists! Jim has even been seen taking a quick nap in the gallery next to the fire place.

The Stamp Act will be having a grand opening for the gallery shortly. I will keep you posted on the date and time. They will also be hosting artist openings each month.

Have a great long holiday weekend. I’ll be working on my journals I made in Kelly Kilmer’s classes over the last two weeks. I even managed to start organizing all my ephemera. You might even find our family kayaking this weekend in Hingham harbor.

Andrew is an amazing artist. He has an eye to turn the ordinary into beautiful works of art. Over the last couple of months Andrew has been posting images he’s digitally altered.

Here are some of his more recent posts of digitally altered art and photos:

Altered fungus

Rendered art

Altered flowers

More flowers

And more flowers here

I love all of Andew’s art and his use of colors.   This is my interpretation of a digitally altered butterfly.  This is the butterfly before:

After:

More on our week in Truro.  We pulled into the driveway for the apartment.  It’s a spacious cape with the print press classrooms on the first floor.  Everything at this school is top notch.  Whether you are here as a teacher or student, the campus has everything to offer you as far as space, equipment, and inspiration.  For me the inspiration was seeing the shed behind the house.  The roof had an overhang that allowed students to paint outside, but be protected from the sun….so cool.

Next we entered the apartment.  At the stop of the stairs is a life size altered doll made of wood and other fragments of metal. I’m sorry I did not photograph the inside of the apartment.  The walls were filled with art.  The kitchen and family room had tons of homemade pottery and art books.  Part of the family room was three older desks in a row over looking the outside.  I parked all my paints and collage media on the drafting table.  I was only in the house for 5 minutes and I already felt inspired to paint and work in my journals.  There was just something about this place that was peaceful and encoured your inner artist to come out.

We had a wonderful roommate, Mitch Lyons.  Mitch teaches clay monoprint classes all over the world including Greece and Tuscany.  I peeked in on one of his classes and I was so jealous….I want to take his class.  Everyone was pulling the coolest prints from their clay slabs.  Mitch is also know for his broomstick method of adding textures and colors to clay form….this is a must dvd for any potter.

On Monday, our dear friend Marie from The Stamp Act, came down to visit.  We were going to work on our journals, but after the rain cleared up, we had sunny skies and decided to take a trip into Provincetown, one of my favorite places on the Cape.  Here are pictures of Daisy and Jim pretending to be Dorothy from the Wizard Oz.  There was a line of people waiting to take pictures of Daisy.

Marie mentioned she had a favorite house off Commercial Street that had the coolest sculptures, gardens, and stone wall.  The stone wall had amethyst crystals, crystal globes and other geods embedded into the wall.   Here are some pictures of the house and a window of a shop that sold altered clocks.

This is a question we have been asked by many since I have not updated the blog in a while. We got back a week ago from teaching a wonderful PMC class for 5 days at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill.

The class was for beginners to advanced students. The first day we did introductions and then a demo on the basics of working with PMC. The second through fourth day we did hollow forms, draping, rings, and stone setting. The students had a great time with hollow forms. The last day was for Keum-boo, patinas, and finishing. After the first day I knew this was going to be a great group. It was an amazing class.

Meryl had previous experience with PMC. She makes amazing pieces that look like mini sculptures of nature. I’ll let you know when Meryl starts to sell her jewelry, I’m telling you, it’s amazing! Below are some pictures of the PMC Meryl made in class. The rose is set with a dichroic stone, to the right is a draped pendant that looked like an octopus, and the lower right is a hollow form.

Joe is a metal sculptor. He was enthusiastic and really into the class. He made some really cool hollow forms. We’re hoping Joe will update his blog with pictures of some of his sculptures…hint…hint…

Joe had a great with with Keum-Boo. I think he Keum-Boo’ed almost every piece of PMC on the last day. Joe also had great results with the liver of sulfur patinas.

Celine had an open adventurous approach to PMC. She would like to incorporate her sculptures of animals with PMC. Celine was a lot of fun in class. We even had an in-depth discussion about Airstream campers. Celine made several pendants, hollow forms, and a drum bead. Again, this was a great day for patinas with liver of sulfur.

Last but not least, was Susan. She owns Jobi Pottery and Gallery in Truro, MA. She makes beautiful pottery using slips molds. We bought a starfish and pinch bowl. We loved the simple minnow design. Susan was a lot of fun to have in class. She made beautiful pieces of jewelry. She had some great vintage buttons with her that added some cool textures to her jewelry. I’m sorry Susan left before I got a change to photograph her pieces…..maybe she’ll email me pictures.

I’ll keep posting from my adventures over the last week, including my 5 classes with Kelly Kilmer.

My studio is usually a mess right up until 15 minutes before a class.  I recently bought my jewelers bench from Warg Etc.  I love it.  I feel inspired to create new jewelry every night when I get home from work.  It’s amazing how much the bench has organized the studio.  Here’s a peek into the studio with my new bench.

Last week I was reading Tamra Gentry’s blog.  She mentioned in her blog that she is selling some of her hammers.  I have a collection of hammers.  I have them displayed on my wall in the studio like art.  I love looking at them.  I have almost all of the Fretz mini hammers.    I bought Tamra’s Peddinghaus Embossing hammer.

Make sure to check out Tamra’s jewelry on her website to see all the amazing stones she uses in her jewelry.

This is a picture of all my hammers.  Most are displayed on the wall and a couple more a waiting for some more wall space including my mallets.

I am a certified trash picker.  I was at The Stamp Act on Sunday, while Jim taught the viking knit class.  I was not even in the door 10 seconds and I saw wonderful treasures of old McCall’s magazines in the trash…..wow…..hold on…..what are they doing in there?  Must be a mistake!

Gloria told me, the girls went through them and cut out what they wanted the night before.  I had a blast.  I spent 4 hours cutting out images and laughing hysterically at the ads.  Especially the old ads for deodorant for women.  “Use this rub on deodorant to prevent dress rot!”  What a riot.

This is a blog I read often.  http://annsart.blogspot.com. Ann uses a lot of vintage photos and ads in her work.

Jim loved the old Bell Telephone ad.

Here are some of the other images I collected.  Some day when I have free time, I’ll make some collage sheets to download.

I received Charles Lewton-Brain’s book, Foldforming, today from Amazon. I am in love with this book. I am have been wanting to learn how to add veins to leaves by using fold forming techniques, but Charles Lewton-Brain has taken fold forming to the nth degree. His step-by-step instructions in the book are so easy to follow. He will be teaching this summer at Metalwerx in Waltham, MA. I wish I had the time/ money to go. It’s a week long class starting August 6th. Charles Lewton-Brain has published many articles ranging from Fold Forming, to Patinas for Small Studios, to Small Tools for Jewelers. These are wonderful articles to add to your library. You can get many of these articles one on CD. He has also written many articles on Ganoskin. Here’s my fist attempt at fold forming. Nothing is filed yet or sanded. I had a blast hammering away at the metal. I think this was the most I’ve ever used my torch. I cannot wait to get into the studio to make more pieces.

I will be teaching a 6 week class this Fall at Metalwerx in Waltham.

Thursdays, 6-9pm, 9/25 thru 10/30

Have you ever wanted to design and create your own jewelry? With Precious Metal Clay (PMC) you can do just that. This class is for both students who have taken a basics class as well as beginners who are motivated to learn a whole variety of jewelry making techniques using PMC.

Students will review basics of working with metal clay including texturing; filing, firing, and finishing but also extend beyond the basics to include:

· How to achieve different textures using Celie Fago’s technique of Polymer Clay Tear-Away sheets

· Creating your own molds in order to repeat patterns and forms

· How to construct rings, hollow forms, beads, draping, stone setting, and keum-boo

· Various ways to polish the metal including tumbling, hand polishing with 3M polishing sheets, and flex shaft attachments.

This is an 18 hour class held over 6 weekly sessions (3 hours each). If a make-up class in necessary, it will be held on November 6, 2008. The class and materials fees covers one 28 gram packet of PMC+ (additional packets of clay will be for sale by the instructor during class) and in-class use of instructors tools, textures, finishing supplies, and kiln – everything needed to create your one of a kind jewelry.

Students will be required to either bring their own PMC+ slip (estimated at $32.00) or purchase a container from the instructor for use with making rings, hollow forms, draping, and stone setting. Students may either bring or purchase from the instructor PMC Sheet (estimated at $13.00) and/or PMC 3 16 gram for stone setting (estimated at $30.00)

Joy Raskin is a great friend of ours.  I’ve mentioned Joy in a previous post.  She is an amazing jewelry teacher.  She LOVES animals.  When Joy comes to visit the cats and our Chihuahua, Daisy, flock to her.  Our persian, Mickey, cannot get enough of Joy.  She pets him for hours.  We joke that Mickey needs to go on antidepressants when Joy leaves.  Joy likes to sleep in, but when she’s here the cats have her up at the crack up dawn….wanting attention.

Joy has been down to spend the weekend with us, several times over the last couple of weeks.  When Joy is visiting I usually get a private lesson in stone setting.  The last time Joy was here I was totally excited.  I had the stones lined up, my bezel wire, solder, etc.  I thought everything was perfect…..just as we were getting into soldering, the acetylne tank emptied.

I was able to set up 8 bezel settings.  Some with backs others backless.  This past weekend Joy was over and with her guidance I finished the settings.  I now have an amazing bracelet.  It’s big, but I love my jewelry to make a statement.  I had a lot of fun texturing the settings.  I used my new Fretz hammers.

This is my new favorite bracelet:

And here are 2 pendants I set:

While Joy was here, she was getting ready for two upcoming craft shows, Guilford, CT (July 17 – 19) and Sunapee (Aug 2 – 10).  Joy made what seemed liked 100′s of earrings.  They are all amazing.  I would have a hard time just buying one pair.  Joy has a very unique way of forming her ear wires….you just have to have a pair!  Joy also wove an amazing whisk……her utensils are unique and wonderful pieces of art.  I wish I had a picture to share with you.

Til next time…..