Art & Soul: Day Three

I had the chance to take another jewelry-making class, this one working with Precious Metal Clay . . . it's a clay-like binder mixed with fine silver . . . you can shape it, stamp it, texture it, mold it, do all kinds of loveliness with it . . . then fire it and polish it, and you have jewelry that's 99% pure silver. Quite lovely, and more pure than even sterling silver. Our instructor, Lisa M. Call, was delightfully enthusiastic, and you can see some of what's possible with PMC by checking out her website, or by reading the book The Art of Metal Clay by Sherri Haab. If you're local to Portland, you can also pick up PMC and supplies for working with it at Simon Golub and Sons jewelry supply at 2820 SE 8th just north of Powell.

Here are the pieces I made . . . I still need to drill the one on the left so that I can make it a pendant . . .the one on the right I just need to hook into some chain . . .


And speaking of chain . . . this particular class included making Byzantine chain with Scott David Plumlee. Now, making chain is not exactly my cup of tea . . . I find it a bit tea-di-ous. But the class was fun, and I actually succeeded in finishing this bracelet! Scott's even got a full tutorial on making the chain on his website, here.

Shiny!!