My 60th birthday is coming up the end of June. I'm having trouble dealing with that. Just knowing I'm sixty is hard to believe. I'm getting old. I was listening to NPR interview a woman in her 30's who had some illness she was getting over. She had physical testing that showed she tested out as a 60 year old woman. She couldn't believe her physical condition was so deteriorated. I couldn't believe it either. I didn't know I was that bad. ~sigh~

I've always wanted a big birthday party so I decided last year I was going to throw myself one. I wanted to have it at a Driller's game. I have no idea why I picked that. It just seemed like a good venue. I didn't have to plan entertainment or a menu. Or decorations. It's the lazy woman's way. I had planned on booking it last fall so I could make sure and have it on a night there were fireworks but I procrastinated and all those nights were booked. I was lucky to find a Saturday night open on the July 4th weekend when a lot of people will be out of town. Better than having it on a 110 degree August night. But then it will either be raining (doubtful) or it will be 110 degrees on July 6th, the night of the party (probable).

I just ordered Save the Date cards today when I should have been working. They were 50% off so it was the perfect time to order them. I have to pay for 100 people so by golly, I'm going to invite more than that. I decided to include people's kids and the kids will probably drive me up a wall. Except for my grandkid, Guy. Or if my cousin's kids come.

Here is the picture I put on front of the Save the Date card:

I'm sure people will think it is weird that I put this old, silly pic of me. But who cares, I'm sixty. I can do what I want!

The card made me put a picture on the back which I didn't want to do but I couldn't go on without so I added this:

I think I was a pretty cute little girl. I cropped my brother out. I thought it would look strange if I put the picture of him with me on the card. People might think it was Harvey because people can be so dense.

Gallery Jewelry

MA Doran Gallery is a gallery that has been in business as long as we have lived in Tulsa. There are two women that run it and we have bought numerous pieces of art from them. During the recession they started carrying art jewelry as a way to earn extra income and I have bought several pieces of funky jewelry.

My former studio-mate, Lorie, started selling her jewelry through their gallery and has been quite successful. Because they have such a high quality gallery it's always been a dream to be an artist showing work there. So far, none of my jewelry has been good enough to sell until I have started fusing 22K gold to Argentium. Lorie bought a pair of my earrings and wore them into the gallery and they liked them so that has encouraged me to take in a sample of some of my work.

I'm really nervous to take my jewelry by. It's really putting myself on the line. Putting myself out there. Rejection can be hard. Plus they charge 50% commission. I will charge $165 for each pair of these earrings which is quite a bit of money. Their clientele will pay that much and they agreed that is a fair price.

I was shopping in a clothing store next door to Lorie's studio. The owner knew I made jewelry so I showed her some pictures of these earrings and she wanted me to bring them by. I don't know if she wants to carry them or buy a pair. It was nice though!

Creative Process

How do I create a piece?

It's a lot of staring into space with a glazed look on my face. Really. Something starts rolling around in my brain and possibilities start to form. I can look at a component on my bench and try to decide what can be done with that piece. Maybe its a piece of wire, a metal shape, a gemstone or a string of gemstone beads that gets me dreaming.

I love when my favorite jewelry magazines come in the mail or electronically. Some of them have simple projects that gets you thinking of something more sophisticated. Most of them have artist's work that leave you breathless with "how in the world did they do that!". My favorite jewelry books are the "500 Rings, or Bracelets or Earrings, etc". That gets my thinking cap working. (One of my elementary teachers would tell us to put our thinking caps on. I remember vividly what my thinking cap looked like. Kind of like one of those EEG caps)

My jewelry friends are an inspiration to me. They will suggest changes or challenges to my work. Or they will ask opinions of their own work which are creatively stimulating to me. My best ideas are actually my co-workers suggestions. That probably makes them their ideas, but they are all so generous they let me think that they are really mine.

My gemology teacher, Veronica Moody, taught us to take anything, hold up our hands to it, block part of it off and see the design in it.

I'm not a planner. I don't meticulously plan out a project. I usually haphazardly start hammering a piece of metal to see where it goes. Metal has a life of its own even though it is inert. The hammer moves the metal, it stretches it, compresses it. Fire softens it and the metal starts to move on its own as it heats. You start all over with the metal, stretch and compress it some more. You can't always tell how each piece of metal will react. I think there are metal fairies that live inside and change the crystalline structure just to confuse me. I surely can't get matching pieces of metal though sometimes I need to, such as when making earrings.

The need to create is strong. It is overwhelming sometimes. I enjoy going to work each day. I may not get a piece finished every day or even every week, but as long as I am working (sometimes I work on multiple things) I'm happy. When my mother was in her 70's she would work all day, then come home and stay up late painting. I hope I'm doing that until I'm 100. Well it might be hard to hold a hammer...

12 Pound Terror

While Allie is studying and partying in Europe Harvey and I have been left with taking care of her two dogs Presley and Duke. Duke is 75 lbs and Presley is about 12 lbs, but they are the most destructive dogs.

Our backyard looks like a moonscape most of the time from their digging. The only time it doesn't is when Harvey has painstakingly covered up the holes with fresh dirt. We are not talking about a few holes. We are talking about the entire back yard.

Presley is an escape artist. He actually rips holes in our 10 year old fence and gets out. He's so little it just takes a small hole. Harvey, again painstakingly nails a board up to cover up the hole and the next day, guess what? Yep, another hole.

Sometimes the neighbors call or bring him back because he's terrorizing their squirrels by barking maniacally. I know he will come home eventually when he gets cold, hungry or tired. Sometimes I will grab him, carry him in to the house and before I can shut the doggie door he's outside like a shot and back through the hole even though he's been out for hours. I'm waiting for a hawk to get him. I guess Alexandra won't be too happy about our doggy care skills then, will she?

Because having three dogs in our house was a bit much with a big dog I did ask a friend to board Duke. I still get to see him most days. He seems to love living at his new home. He gets lots of love and treats. Plus he has a big dog house with a heat lamp shining down on him. Who wouldn't love that? I'm not sure Alexandra will get him back because my friends are falling in love with him. He's about the best dog you could have (except for digging). If only he were just a little smaller. But then Presley is smaller but he's a little s*#*t.

Addendum: just finished this post, stopped to feed Guy, the doorbell rang and there stood my next door neighbor with Presley. I promised to send Harvey over to fix his yard where Presley had just been digging. In the meantime Guy dumps all of his sweet potatoes in his lap.

Jewelry sales

I love working with metal. I work nearly every day. Chasing, hammering, soldering, anticlasting, raising, and the list goes on. I have lots of product . Unfortunately I don't like selling it. It puts yourself out there on the line. It's business and I just want to create. It's pricing, display, and well, selling. 

Last week I was invited to show to sell my work at a new business that had already had several shows. It was to introduce a new partner in their business. I worked hard finishing new pieces, cleaning and marking and setting up. Lots of worrying. She had invited all her friends and they were interested in her jewelry. I ended up trading a pair with her and selling a pair to another partner and buying a pair from the other. I broke even. I had fun hanging with my friends. And  now I'm set up and ready for my next show!

I don't have a mailing list. I need to get one. I've already had a show where I invited my friends and they were generous and purchased my jewelry. Maybe even some sympathy buys. I don't want to keep just inviting my friends. I'm not quite sure how to go about getting a mailing list except by having more shows and having a sign up sheet. Hence, more shows. 

I could also wholesale my jewelry to stores but then I have to go prostitute myself to stores and sell my work to them. I went to a jewelry store in Owasso last week but the minute I walked in I knew my jewelry was not a match for his store. He was a nice guy and we both decided it wasn't a good match. 

I'm excited that a local gallery saw some of my earrings and liked them so I will be taking more of them by to see if they are really interested in selling them. I hope so! 

I have to get over myself! I'm not so precious and my ego isn't so fragile that I can't take the heat. I would rather whine about it. Everybody hates whiners. So go get busy, Cheri

Babbie spends the night

Jennifer was spending the weekend with her "wine night" girlfriends in Kingfisher so we invited Guy and Greg to come spend the night. Because we all got to our house kind of late, it was too close to Guy's bedtime to go out to eat so Alexandra drove to the liquor store for beer and to Chili's for food. Then we played cards.

Gramps and I were going to keep Guy in our room but I kinda failed getting him back to sleep when he aroused right after Greg put him down to sleep in the pack n play in our bedroom so he decided Guy needed to go upstairs and sleep with him. (That was a long sentence) Guy paid him back for not getting to sleep in Gramps and Gig's room by getting dad up five times in the night. Good for you, Guy!

We spent a relaxing day of watching Guy, changing poopy diapers and watching Greg try to set up our new Apple TV. As of this writing it is still not working. We found out though that the reason our WiFi was spotty was that our old WiFi was still hooked up along with the Uverse Wifi, which means that for ten years or so we have had competing WiFi's. Now our wireless is speeding fast.

The best part of the day was when I was playing with Guy on the floor while he was lying on his back and I casually asked when we could expect Guy to roll from his back to his front. He's five months. Within about 5 minutes he proceeded to do that. I was excitedly saying, "Greg, Greg, look, look! He's rolling over!!" Of course he only did it once, as if he was saying, "Well, duh, Gigi, I can roll over if I want to, I just don't really need or want to."

Pre-Christmas Rush

Oh, the weather outside is delightful, and the outlook is 40% for snow on Christmas Day. I'm sleepy and tired today. I'm stressing out wondering if I'm going to finish Greg's bowl for Christmas. I make jewelry for my girls and Lou every Christmas. It's a lot of fun and they seem to like it.

Greg doesn't wear much jewelry and I would be afraid to make him something in case he wouldn't like it. I haven't made him anything. This summer I took a raising class. That sounds funny because I already "raised" him. I decided to make him a bowl for Christmas.

Raising is taking a flat piece of metal and hammering it on metal stakes until it curves and forms a bowl. There is a lot of hammering, blood (as in hammering your digits), sweat and tears (as when you poke a hole in your bowl). I tend to hammer so much I thin the metal and I get small tears in them. I try to mend them by soldering the tear closed. If I just left the bowl plain that generally works but I took another class by the same teacher and he teaches how to chase on vessels. It's impossible to chase when you have a hole in the vessel. You have to fill the vessel with a microcrystalline wax so that the vessel will have the strength to hold up to the hammering with chasing tools. So if you have a hole, the hot wax will dribble out the hole. I know, because it happened to me. Not fun...

Chasing is done by using small tools and hammering on the bowls that are filled with wax. You make indentations that look like areas are recessed and other areas are higher. Then you texture them. Or you can make "pictures" such as olive branches or ivy. Again, I go over areas so much that I thin the metal and I punch a hole through the metal, then I cry which is what I did on the first vessel I did for Greg. In order to save time I purchased a spun vessel. It is amazing what machines can do. It's all magic to me. You will hear that word a lot from me. If I don't do it or understand it, it is magic. There are machines that take flat pieces of metal that spin until they form bowls. I then chased on that bowl so I feel I kind of cheated on Greg's. Here is the state his bowl is in three days from Christmas:

This picture shows the impression seen from the inside. The bowl is made from copper. I will be using liver of sulfur (nasty, bad smelling stuff) to patina the outside to a dark brown, darker brown than this photo looks.

This is one of the sides. It doesn't show the levels of heights. There is texture covering the outside of the vessel. I now need to straighten out the top, the wavy lines (which are caused by my chasing), solder on a silver wire, patina the outside, and shine up the copper on the inside, and cover in paste wax. So, I have several hours of work left. The thing I am worrying about is soldering on the silver wire. That will be hard. All told I will have put in 12 - 15 hours of work. Just a guesstimate. I really, really hope he likes it. I will take some good pics of it when it is finished and post it on my blog and on Facebook.