Art & Soul: Day Two

I have loved Susan Lenart Kazmer's work for a long time, and I finally got to take a class with her - we were building containers, and it took me back to jewelry making skills I haven't used in years! I had to pull out the jewelry saw and the hammers . . .


And I got a refresher in using the torch . . . Here's Susan drawing a bead on wire. I actually annealed metal again - something I haven't done for close to 20 years. Fortunately, it's kind of like riding a bike . . .

Of course, this also means purchasing a bunch of tools so that I can make things at home (two big boxes arrived yesterday). I don't want to make things exactly like this (we made things that are very much in her style, and I really want to be yammering and hammering with my own voice) - but I do want to make things that use a lot of more traditional metal working techniques. I do like this container pendant I made, though:


There's a little bit of map tucked inside . . . and it hangs quite low. It's not supposed to be an earring, but it was the best way I had of displaying it - considering that I haven't actually constructed any kind of necklace for it!


I also made this little lentil pendant. The game spinner/clock hand/compass hand on the back actually moves and spins! I really need to redo the bail, though - that mangled wire wrap job just doesn't quite cut it! But see the little map inside?!

How cool is that!?