coffee's jewelry

The Rain Chain that Splashed

2011-06-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

A while back a lady from Port Townsend asked me to makes a set of four matching hooks. She wanted to put two hanging baskets on either side of the entrance to her bungalow. She couldn't find anything in the local "big box" store that had any character. She was also very particular as to the length of each long hook.
It was a project that I knew I was going to have fun with and I was all over it. It was fairly wide open and really a hook is a very straight forward devise that easily succeeds. Conceptually I gravitated towards the idea of a vine. We used to have this native clematis vine that got into a holly tree and went crazy. It was ascetically beautiful but it was chocking the life out of the poor holly. We were forced to cut it back severely. But I still missed the way it looked. My new hook for the potted plants was to borrow that twisted vine look.
Trying to satisfy my customer...I made many of these vine hooks in various lengths and hung them one under the other suspended from the gutter on our house so I wouldn't forget to take them to the street fair the next Saturday. As soon as I hung the up and stepped back I realized that I had made a "rain chain". The lady with the bungalow was delighted and took all the hooks I had made.
Since this is the year that I decided that I was going to start keeping and using my own art in my own yard, I have made a bunch more of what we now call the "rain chain" link. I have been using these "rain chain" links all over the yard. Really, they don't do anything that a bent coat hanger wouldn't do...but they sure do look better. I particularly like them chained together and hung under the Maple tree out back like a vine. It's like a vine that never dies and never grows. And a vine that never dies is cool but (since our adventure with the native clematis and the holly tree) a vine that never grows is way better.

I have since discovered that if you open up the hooks at the ends...the links will fit over the outside of the rain gutter. This makes them absolutely fantastic for positioning bird feeders and the like so they are squared up in front of a window and close up enough so you can watch
those little scamps playing around. You also get the added advantage of being able to easily move them around without putting a bunch of drill holes under your eaves.
So just about now you are asking yourself...this has been a nice little story ...but what about the "splash" that was promised in the title? Well Dungeness Studios is in Dungeness, Washington and we only get about 9 inches of rain a year. So this "rain chain" works great for us. But I wanted to test it out in heavier rain conditions before offering it to other people as a "rain chain". So I climbed out on the roof and using the water hose I ran a bunch of water into the gutter to see how it worked with a real "toad choker" of a rain. It unfortunately, was a splashy failure in heavy rain. But it still works great here in the "blue hole" rain shadow and I love them as decorative hooks. We are always finding another way to use them and would love to hear how you are using yours. By the way, The finches love to sit on the different loops in the vine as they work their way down to their turn at the feeder.

The "Snail Army"

2011-06-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

One of my very first projects at Dungeness Studios was getting our garden shaped up for it's first season. For those of us that garden we know that the first year can be really busy and entirely too short. I wanted to get the lay of the land before starting this protracted endeavor so one of our first local trips was to the Hoh Rain Forest. There we were introduced to one of the Olympic Peninsula's more infamous inhabitants...The snail and his giant cousin the slug. My goodness you could throw a saddle in one of these bad boys and ride them home in a pinch. Well I had met the enemy and they were mighty. So I started my research of them.

It turns out that there is a widely held belief that if a snail or slug tries to cross over a strip of raw copper will cause some sort of galvanic response and the critter will turn around and find another course to it's meal. Being a jeweler I certainly had a readily available supply of copper and being a member of the junior league of scientists...I still have the secret decoder ring to prove it...I set up an experiment. I put both slugs and snails on top of a stump I use for forming copper and surround them with a triangle of copper strips. I then got myself a stool and a pair of magnifying visors and sat down to make my empirical observations. I am here to tell you that they didn't stop and turn around...they did try to arch over the copper...they didn't even flinch in the slightest. They just slimed their way on over to the other side. So much for that "Old Wives Tale" as Kari would say on the Television show "Myth Busters" it was "totally busted".

Now as it turns out, my plan B was to be very interesting indeed. I decided that instead of engaging this multitude in battle...I would celebrate their tenacity. I started making a little pieces of "garden art" that would pay a small homage to these stalwart denizens of the damp and decaying. I turned to red hot steel, the anvil and the hammer. I began forging one steel snail after another making about a dozen before I started to slow down. They were flying off the anvil due by a large measure to the simplicity of the form. I was happily applying a drawing skill that we often used in undergraduate art school. The drill was called economy of line. Basically it means to try to convey visually a concept using as few lines as possible. And so the basic image of my garden snail was reduced to just two lines. One of those lines was to also be the stand that set it into the garden. As these individual units began to pile up in the garden I came to realize that I was building a "Snail Army". And just like in boot camp...these new recruits looked very confused. Some looking one way while others were looking behind them. Some were even cross eyed. Some looked like they were toiling their way uphill while others looked to be headed helter skelter like a run-a-way train down hill. Then it came to me, I had to be out of my mind. There was no way that I was going to build snails and voluntarily install them in my garden. There had to be some kind of return on the effort. As my buddy Eddie would say, "It ain't gonna happen". I needed something...some task that this little army could help me with...some positive contribution to the whole.

As you probably know from previous posts...we live in a Rain Shadow called the "blue hole". It can be a heart warming to come home from a long trip through two hours of rain in the south to find sunshine as we round the bend and return to cabin 82. But only 9 inches of rain per year also means you have to be prepared for watering. "Taadaa" I'll teach these little devils to hold the water hose for me. Okay...I realize that holding a water hose is not exactly highly skilled labor but let's face it...they are snails. There's not a lot up there to work with. A few of the solders in the "Snail Army" picked up on this (now mandatory) skill and soon the entire corps was in step so to speak. Now we gardeners know there is a great multitude of sundry devises for watering a lawn or garden, but where the "Snail Army" has the strategist advantage is small jobs. Maybe you have a newly transplanted tree that needs watering in or just a tiny bit of weeding in your strawberry patch could use some softening, the "Snail Army" stands ever at the ready. Just hand them a hose and sit back with your glass of iced tea and wait.

the beach rocks...three stone necklace

2011-06-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since we started making the distinctive rings in this series, I have wanted to do a five stone necklace in the same style. I started building the necklace on Tuesday and quickly realized that it was going to be too heavy for what I was wanting. So the three stone necklace came to be.

It has all the smooth clean and tailor lines that were in the rings. I added a toggle catch to give it the versatility of being worn in two different lengths. I really like the weight...it feels like a substantial piece of jewelry without being a burden to wear. The colors...which may not show up all that well in this presentation, are a medium black beach rock in the center with very dark green rocks on either side.

I still want to make a five element necklace using beach rocks...it occurred to me while building the three unit piece that I could make some hollow "rocks" out of silver to use as spacers and help keep the weight down. I have some ideas about a more outrageous looking chain as well. I can hardly wait to see the next generation in this series.

New Earrings for May 2011

2011-04-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

The "Seafoam" pendent has been very popular with the people that visit our display at the "Port Townsend" Market. We have made it many times with a variety of different beach rocks that we have collected from various venues across the Olympic Peninsula. We have had many requests for more pieces in the "Seafoam Series".
The "Seafoam Series" is a celebration of how plain seawater can get churned up into a froth much like egg whites can be beaten into peaks. This froth can then be blown about and gather into remarkable large roundish forms embellishing itself with bits of driftwood, sand and shells as it tumbles along above the tide line. Pat and I first saw this phenomenon at Shi Shi Beach awhile back. The outside of these foamy objects can start to dry out and become quasi solids making a leap from the liquid state over to a quite dry and solid state. They can even begin to pile up on the windward side of the logs and heavier debris.

These dangle earrings are the new additions to the series...they are shown here done in sterling silver and Aventurine.
Aventurine is a dreamy semi translucent light green material that has little flecks of a type of mica called fuchsite. These little flecks reflect light back to the viewer giving the stone a shimmering quality. Although it can be found in other colors (orange, yellow, brown and even blue) we have chosen the green because of the beautiful hue of the sea on that totally fabulous day
we first noticed the foam at Shi Shi Beach. We certainly are looking forward to finding other materials (maybe an Aquamarine) that would look good in this earring.

Lake Sutherland

2010-07-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

We had a surprise visit from James A Wallace and Mary Lee Hu this week. Wally announced that they would only be here for a few days and he wanted to ruin his health fishing and by Jimmie I set out to do just that. I called my “always ready for a fishing challenge” buddy John Dash and we put together an outrageous agenda. The first afternoon was spent in his little boat setting ring nets for Dungeness crab in the Dungeness Bay and just how cool is that. And thank goodness for GPS handhelds...the fog was extremly heavy and it was right at twilight when we pulled the last net. We raced home...four blocks...dumped the boat...changed clothes and struck out to jig for squid at the Port Angeles city docks and maybe set a couple of shrimp pots to to make sure we covered all the bases. The shrimp pots turned out to be a sterling idea because the always allusive squid didn't show up for the party, but we at least had them shrimpies to show for what we had been doing til 1:30 in the morning.

We popped outta bed the next morning...for those of you that are buying the idea that we "popped" outta bed, I have a bridge I would like to sell you...and loaded the boat for a trip to Lake Sutherland. Our targeted fish was the Kokanee sockeye salmon. The weather was beautiful and the fish were willing. Mary soon discovered that the water in the boat kept getting deeper but thanks to her unending diligence and an empty Vienna sausage tin we stayed afloat out on the lake. The fishing was done with the most ridiculous rig I have ever put on the end on my line. The locals call it "Christmas tree lights with a wedding ring". It was a long line of four or five spinner spoons which went on for about three feet...follow by another section of line (about 1 1/2 feet) that had an array of bright orange beads separated in the middle by two gold bands with a ring of faceted crystals set between them which looked much like a channel set wedding band in miniature. No matter how strange the apparatus...within a few hours we all got our limit. We called home to tell the Pat and Cynthia to get ready for a seafood feast.

Everyone was fast to prepare the side dishes that we were well known for or at least we had a considerable comfort zone about pulling it off...shrimp fried rice...fresh corn in a butter sauce...crab on toast...artisan bread and a beautiful fruit tart...but we were all dragging our feet over commenting to the preparation of the main dish...the Kokanee salmon. All of us had considerable dose culinary pride on the line and we were all very tired from “ruining our health”... not to mention a large measure of libations. Then almost at the same moment in time three of us said “here...I'll do it” and the next thing you knew three new “main” dishes were presented. It was one of those magical events where everything came together at the same time. Baked salmon in lemon butter...pouched salmon in vinegar and pepper and steamed salmon with ginger and onion. We could not decide which was the best. Another great evening capped by a great meal.

"A Passing Summer"

2010-06-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

This is another encaustic jewelry environment piece. Out here on the Northern Olympic Peninsula there is a very small group of artists that get together every so often to exchange ideas and thoughts. We call ourselves “ A Fine Disregard”. We usually have a theme or a thought that we all translate into a piece of work. And that is the focal point of the meeting. “ A Passing Summer” was the theme a few months ago and this is what I did for that encounter with “ A Fine Disregard”.

The main branch like elements are made of hand forged steel. The smaller elements are made of copper. By some divine intervention...and I'm sure there are artists out there that know what I'm saying here. The bluing on the steel was very nearly the same finish as “liver of sulfur” on copper.

There is one small jewelry element that comes off the “environment” and you can borrow it for your personal adornment. When you are through using the broach it is returned to it home on the wall. I was lucky enought to get this piece into two shows this summer.

Quick Response Codes

2010-06-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wow the world is certainly a different place from thirty years ago. I remember talking to a code writer back then about how cool it would be if the internet would “catch on” and look at all the stuff out there now. We are already getting results from this code. People can stand down the isle from our booth at the markets and scan our QR code and being talking to us by the time they walk up.

New posting coming up soon.

Chardonnay/Beer/Champagne

2010-03-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

This posting is mostly for those people on FB that were asking how this project was proceeding.
Facebook was not playing nicely with me when it came to uploading images so I have chosen to present them in this format which seems to always work.

Encaustics are intriguing to me. I used to do off hand blown glass and just love messing with hot stuff. So the idea of making a mark and then floating that mark around inside molten translucent strata gets a gold star on the refrigerator in my book. I am a rank beginner in this art form and I make no inference here that I know what I am doing. But my loving the challenge so far. So here goes...

In this first image the cradle (24 X 18) is made of birch door skin and some old growth fir for stretchers in the back. The board has been heated and then primed with beeswax and then cover with a white wax medium to give me a clean smooth surface to start. I have then inscribed the surface with a stylus to cut in the bottle silhouettes. I then used an oil paint stick to force a pigment into the recessed incised lines. This is then heated with a heat gun to trap the pigment in the wax strata.

The next image shows the colors that have been added bit by bit and layer by layer. There is a fusing process that follows each application of wax. In essences you heat each layer and addition of wax to melt it into the surface below it. I have chosen to get everything a little extra hot which causes a “water color” effect. Although I'm sure a water colorist might take offense with that comparison.

In this last image the fused glass panels were made of old broken bottles that were then laid out in a borrowed kiln into rectangles and fused together. This was a very open arrangement and it has lots of open space between the individual pieces. The bottles were loosely grouped as chardonnay wine bottles, brown and green beer bottles and champagne bottles...hence the working title, Chardonnay/Beer/Champagne.

My plan is to next wire the glass panels in place with a soft copper wire. Much like the neon tubing gets wired onto an outdoor electrical display sign. And then a simple flat or semi-flat black frame.

The Tree Pendent

2010-03-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

I must admit that we have a fond place in our hearts for the rocks and pebbles that litter the shore lines of the Olympic Peninsula. There is an outdoor work table in the side yard that seems to stay covered with the bounty of our last trip to the beach.

This is the beings of a new steel garden piece. As it was evolving I began to realize that it was just a big...really big... piece of jewelry. In any case, I have decided that it was okay. And so I have re-categorized it as a “tree pendent”. I plan on putting a chain on it in the next few days. But for now I wanted to post it here to document it's start. You see it here laid out on the floor so I can figure out just where the support posts go to hold the beach rocks in place. It still has all the spot welds and forging marks unfinished on it. If you look close you can see where the rocks are numbered with soap stone so I can put the darn thing back together later.

The moment that I realized that it was jewelry was when I went to the trouble of welding the insert...all the twists and spirals, into the frame using plug welds from the sides. This is a clever technique I picked up from working with James Wallace aka “Wally” at the National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, TN. It makes for very clean, neat and very beefy connections which are easily hidden. It is off to the sand blasters for now. I am really looking forward to seeing the “Tree Pendent” completed and gracing the red maple just outside of the studio and smithy.

Black n Tan

2010-03-04T13:35:00.001-08:00

This was a piece made for a show called “Small Works Show” which was sponsored by the Blue Whole gallery here in Sequim, Washington. There has been considerable attention in the local art scene focused on the environment. “Black n Tan” uses a background of “re-purposed” corrugated cardboard. I glued up sections of the material and then cut that into strips, cut those into cubes and glued up the entire sheet. The pink material is copper and the silver color is aluminum. Ah... aluminum the “non metal” metal; I have always avoided it like a bad in-law. But it was recycled as well so it seemed appropriate to use it here. I can not recommend that everyone stop what they are doing and try aluminum out. So far I have found it best used in beverage cans, ladders, small boats and street signs.

There is one element of this piece that can be removed and worn as a pendant. On a triple cord it comes off as a necktie look. The cord is stored in the back of the wall piece. As a post script it might be noted that this piece caused comment because it was hung as a diamond among a wall where everything else was at ninety degrees. I took it down. It's venue will be elsewhere.

A Musical Sweep Pin

2009-12-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have forgotten just how much fun designing pins and broaches can be. The broach designer doesn't have nearly the functional restrictions that the ring designer has. I guess one could nearly do “anything” and then put a pin back finding on it and call it a broach.

This piece was a commissioned by a gentleman in Port Townsend, Washington. He had found this very singular piece of “turtle back rock” while beach combing. The way the matrix fades from top to bottom really fascinated him. He asked me to make a broach for his wife using textured sterling and maybe some moonstone pebbles. I added a dot of blue topaz to help “punch” up the blue in the moonstone. The “sweep” that the moonstone is mounted onto is made of classical sterling while the rest of the piece is made of argentium sterling. The classical sterling takes a dark patina much more dramatically than the argentium and I needed the darkness to make the “play of color” come out in the moonstone.

I'm afraid that I my training in art school was a bit formal and as such nearly all my pieces start as a drawing. As my undergraduate professor C.James Meyer put so bluntly many a time, the most valuable tool any artist has is the ability to draw.

And I have to confess that through the years...knowing where you are trying to go... is a big advantage to bumping along in the dark. Here to the right are some of the final sketchs I made before starting this project in metal.

"and water cuts rock revisited"

2009-12-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

This is the latest in the “and water cuts rock” series. It features a beach pebble that the people in Joyce, Washington call the “chrysanthemum rock”. I like the way the baroque pearls set off the irregularity of the beach rocks. This series has a special meaning for me (see older posts) and I am always thrilled when I see a rock tumbling along in the surf that seems a good candidate.

I do remember the moment I found this particular piece. I was so busy chasing it as it scurried back towards the surf in the receding wave that I broke a cardinal rule of walking in the surf zone. Never turn your back on the ocean. The next wave cut my feet out from under me and I took a good spill into the swirling icy foam. By the time I regained my footing Mama Pacific had reclaimed my bucket, sunglasses, walking stick and a good measure of dignity.

As I picked myself up and took stock of what had just happened I realized that I still had that little piece of “chrysanthemum rock” clutched in my fist. I slowly backed away towards dry land with the chuckling sound of the ocean slowly being replaced by the chorus of laughter from my friends on the warm sandy beach. Pat, Debbie and my buddy Ed said it was one of the funniest stunts I had pulled off yet…a one half turn with a nose plant finish.

Who is "Solarsally"?

2009-12-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

I have a 1957 Chevy pickup that my two boys Matt and Chris and myself have worked on for about 18 years now. There is always one thing or another to be done on the old girl but she just keeps on “keeping on”. We have spent many a night sleeping in her bed starring up at the stars with hot rocks from the fire wrapped in an old army blanket at our feet. We visited oh so many subjects talking about one thing or another, as the nights would wear on.

Originally she was called “Sally Greene”. The truck was from Eagle Rock, MO and was a deep powdery forest green. Sally was my grandmother’s name and the truck was green. We decided to use the extra “e” because…well…we could. Our fishing trips were often recorded in her flanks with one dent or another. Then the weekend after would be one of repair and repaint. Layer after layer the summers would wear on. Then one day came the inevitable…the engine rebuild.

Sally Greene had her engine rebuilt during a solar eclipse and that was not an "event slash coincidence" to go un-noted. So after she came back out of the shop…we repainted her and started treating her slightly better. Now she sports a flashy (almost tawdry) turquoise color and a very shiny finish, but make no mistake, this is still a lady o' the woods. She continued to made all of our fishing trips…but now we tried to find a kinder way to get her to the water’s edge. She became “Solarsally”, a true lady of the back roads and byways of Arkansas and Tennessee.

Today Solarsally lives in Washington State and this was her day to get a new rebuilt starter. She had a new clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing, and re-surfaced flywheel last week. I tossed in a set of new rear view mirrors and sound deadening pads. Oh sweet joy…she is purring like a kitten in warm arms. Albeit I have the busted knuckles to testify to the events I still love every moment I’m in this old truck.

" Wave Length " A new piece.

2009-12-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

This is a new piece that I just finished yesterday for the Sequim Arts Small Art Show. To qualify as small art the piece had to be 8” by 10” or smaller. I used an 8” X 8” square format turned as a diamond. I have recently been doing some research into the South Seas Stick Charts used by some Polynesian sailors. You can see some of that influence here in this piece I have named “Wave Length”.

I have used fir for the wooden parts. I severely stressed the soft summer grain with a sand blaster in the first “wave”. The second wave of wood has been gold leafed with a pine colored sizing in the background. While the third wave is a sheet of raised copper with a bit of the sawdust sprinkled onto the patina while it was still wet. This third wave is set with a “Tri-arc” broach with a black beach rock. The broach is removed and borrowed for your personal adornment and then returned to it’s “home” after you are through wearing it.

The idea of making a special environment for some of these jewelry pieces came from watching an individual literally throw jewelry into a cigar box when she was finished wearing a piece. Having spent a great deal of time and effort into conceiving and building the pieces, I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed at this on-going activity. So the idea of expanding the jewelry into a larger physical unit came into being.

I love the opportunity to continue an idea into a larger format and still keep some of the classical definition and criteria of the jewelry intact. Anyway…it was fun and quick exercise.

New earrings this week

2009-11-15T10:35:00.001-08:00

It was a fun week in the studio. The hands and the ideas were playing well together and there were no big problems to get in the way. Well... the portable hand wash station keeps leaking all over the studio floor but we can simply unplug that and it will wait for another day.

I have had these two pieces of turtle back rock material for several months now (see the image on the left). I was going to make another "and water cuts rock" pendant from them but I used a piece of chrysanthemum rock instead. I wanted to juxtapose some baroque pearls with the turtle back material to set off the "bumps". The idea of a pair of earrings gave me the opportunity to use twice as many pearls and the concept flew onto the sketchbook and things just took off on their own after that initial representation. Sometimes drawing an idea before it as had time to jell is like talking about a dream. The act of visualizing it changes it to the point that it is nowhere near what it was in your head. In this case nothing got in the way. It just went from an idea to a drawing and then into a piece.

The black basalt and red jasper earrings on the right are what I call "fifties streamline". I feel it harkens back to the look of a fifties corvette. It is what "streamline" was before the science of aerodynamics redefined the word. These earrings were a treat to put together. The mat surface of the basalt adds a purity and starkness to the overall design. They are now with their new owner at home in La Conner, Washington.

Sunland Garden Party

2009-10-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

We all had a very grand time getting to know each other in spite of the garden party being forced inside. There may have been an early dampening of the spirit outside but things inside were warm and hospitable indeed.

There was a lot of chatter over the new pearl and black beach rock pieces. It has turned out to be a stunning combination. I think the baroque freshwater pearls add a wonderful contrast to the weathered beach rocks. The luster of the Argentium sterling silver brings everything together.

A big “thank you” to Gin Friess and Karen Bulkeley for their help in making this delightful event possible. And a thank you to all that attended. We sincerely enjoyed meeting all of you. Next year we promise to have it earlier in the year so the “garden” part can actually happen.

A visit to Memphis, Tennessee

2009-10-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

Memphis has always been a special place for us to visit for a number of reasons. You will find the dining is great as Memphis has the best bar-b-q pork in the world...sorry Texas...sorry St. Louis...but there is excellent bar-b-q every couple of blocks here. We have had many favorites but Mrs. Paine’s on Lamar Avenue in down town and the ever-popular Central bar-b-q on Central Avenue in mid-town have got to be at the top of our list.

This trip was particularly neat because after over six years of missing him one way or another...we finally got Kim Roberts number one guy, Steve to do a portrait of us. He is a very gifted photographer that has been in the area for years. He has had the opportunity to make images of many a musician. You need but pick up a copy of RSVP magazine to see his work. I think he brought out the very best in Pat and I. It was a bit of insanity that made me strike a poise for the “Hemmingway” look in the image on the right. Oh well...I guess it was one of those things that I just had to do at least once. Please visit his website and seek him out if you ever find yourself in his hometown. http://www.steverobertsphoto.com/biography/index.php

And as always...The National Ornamental Metals Museum is a must see on any trip that gets near Memphis. Tucked away under the "Old Bridge" is a small collection of buildings from an old Veteran's Army hospital. These were set aside and restored to house a very special collection of people, talents and metals arts. Although the main focus is on heavier ornamental forged and cast metal pieces the grounds feature a wide and constantly changing array of metal sculptures. With the mighty Mississippi River rolling on just down the embankment as a backdrop, it is hard to find a more beautiful and spectacular setting at sunset.

The second week in October has always been "Repair Days" at the Metals Museum a moment (okay…it’s really a three day weekend that often gets stretched into four days) each year when metal artisans come from all over the country to “camp out” on the campus and repair items that the general public brings in. This rag tag army of volunteers works to the mantra that they will fix anything at all “but cats...cars and broken hearts”.

It rained this year…it always does…but you couldn't have found a more heart-warming group of people if you tried. On Saturday night after a hardy meal and toasts to the ones that were not there, the restraints came off and spirit of the weekend came to a crescendo during the live auction. Holly Fisher of Smartshop Metal Arts Center, Kalamazoo, MI was the main auctioneer you can see her as the “iron queen” in this image. She is always a big hit and can easily whip the audience into a frenzy with her quirky nature and sharp wit. She seems to always have just the "right" thing to say about each item. But even this seasoned crowd was temporarily taken back...you see the bidding had slumped for a moment and the tempo needed to be recaptured...Holly off-handedly suggested that “Logan” take off his shirt to model a stunning hand woven silver necklace that was on the block. Well he

did…and the necklace received a very nice bid…but it took a few moments for some of us to…shall I say…catch our breath. I must say after all these many years of attending "Repair Days" I am still not totally prepared for the goings on. Later there was what has got to be one of the largest preparations of the dessert “bananas foster” that I have ever seen to top of the formal offerings for the evening. That by no means that anyone "camped" on the grounds really retires. The party just breaks down into many smaller groupings. So as the crackle and snaps of the several impromptu campfires send columns of “stars” into the night sky another “Repair Days” began to wind down. Did I mention it was a weekend like this about fifteen years ago that made me realize that I needed to learn more about blacksmiths and the iron arts? Jewelry by itself was never going to be enough again.

Wing on Wing

2009-09-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

These earrings and matching pendent are my tribute to the sailing maneuver often referred to as “wing on wing”. It is a down wind set that is both beautifully symmetric and deceptively calming and still as the vessel glides thru to seas at very nearly the same speed as the wind. It is ironically also one of the more tense sets for the captain. The slightest change in the wind can cause the boom to “sweep the deck” as it snaps to the opposite side. Only the keenest eye and constant vigilance by the captain to the wind and sail can avoid a mishap.

Both the earrings and pendent have been “roller printed” with fine brass screening to bring out the canvas detailing in the 18 karat green gold sail. The other sails and the rest of the pieces are hand constructed of argentium sterling silver. The “mast” in this series is solid metal that has been turned to create the round tapers you see here.

“Wing on Wing” is also available in all argentium sterling silver both as earrings and pendent.

Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival 2009

2009-09-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

Always a delight to attend, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival was held this last weekend in absolutely beautiful weather. My wife Pat and I helped host an exhibit by Michael Berman at the Pope Building waterside of the harbor. This exhibit, which also included "Transatlantic Passage", was called “Wooden Boats and the Sea”.

Michael Berman is a talented marine photographer with an uncanny knack for capturing those quintessential moments in a sailboats’ run. His exquisite images frame some of the West Coasts finest wooden boats with the magnificent coastline of Washington. On occasions I have been fortunate enough to pilot the craft he uses as his photographic platform. This leaves him free to bound from side to side, fore and aft taking images as he calls out piloting instructions. It is no easy task to be in the right place at the right time among these canvas and wooden behemoths of the seas.

I sailed a “day sailor” many years ago and love the science, math and engineering involved in sailing. Piloting Michael’s craft and seeing these wondrous schooners from his point of view has rekindled my interest in sail power. The pureness of form and the romance of the sea together with the regal ness of these grand old dames of the maritime are emotional investments that demand a revisit by me. I look forward to what new pieces of jewelry these new references will inspire.

the beach rocks garden art..."beach stacks" hose guards

2009-08-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

the beach rocks garden art..."beach stacks"...these are the hose guards that we make to keep the garden hose out of your plantings when you move the hose from place to place. They make the cutest little squeak when they spin. I will be posting more about how these are made as well as additional images in a few days. The “beach stacks” are our little tributes to those cairns that you often see people building at the beach. But, in this case we have drilled a hole through the middle of each rock so it will spin on a long secure stake when the hose touches it. This causes the hose to glide by, accompanied by a chorus of squeaks and avoid the garden. We have topped each stack with what we call an “improbable”. That’s because it is very improbable that you could get a rock to stand like this without some serious help. As always, the beach rocks are collected from various places on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.
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"and water cuts rock"

2009-08-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

This Saturday’s Port Townsend Market was of particular interest to me. I was able to introduce a piece I call “and water cuts rock”. It is a bit of a play on words as many of my titles are these days. It recalls the old game of “paper, rock, scissors” but it is a tribute to the fact that given enough time…a river of water will cut through a mountain of rock. This simple geological fact still fascinates me.

The argentium sterling silver in these pieces has a texture called coining. The highlights from this texture remind me of the shimmer of sunlight on the surface of rapids. The beach rocks have been cut in to two pieces then tilted and separated by a wedged shaped space. The pieces are reassembled using the “post and pad” method. This means that both side of the beach rock has been drilled to receive a post of argentium and it is also attached on a pad. This is the preferred method for securely attaching fine pearls to findings and it seems appropriate here as well.

I found it gratifying that about 25% of the visitors went to these pieces first. Both pieces are on they way to a new home in Tacoma, Washington. I have several other beach rocks already prepared for this same treatment, one of which is a turtle back rock. I can hardly wait to see how they turn out.

"the beach rocks" Argentium sterling silver rings

2009-08-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

I have started making a line of straight forward “the beach rocks” rings. They all have a round wire shank and a fully closed back made of argentium sterling silver. The bezel is made of fine silver. I have gone to great effort to make the finish on the pieces as fine as possible. The result is that people that handle them often use the word “buttery” to describe them. These rings feature beach rocks found along the Olympic Peninsula here in Washington State. The backs of these beach rocks have been ground flat to make them much more stable in the mounting. But other than that, they are just the way the ocean offered them up on the shore.

The ring in the middle of the above photograph is set with what the people on the “West End” of the peninsula call a “turtle back jade”. It is a relatively rare find to see one this size, as they are usually found much larger. It is well to note that this beach rock has little to do with the gemstone “jade” apart from the color.

2009 Sequim Arts Artist Tour/Lavender Festival

2009-07-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

Wow what an intense three days. Lavender Festival 2009 was a huge success for us in spite of the festival coinciding with this year’s second biggest and longest windstorm. We had four days of 15mph plus winds all day long with Saturday’s winds gusting to 28 mph. Oh well.

At least nothing serious was damaged and …well it didn’t rain. An early bit of good news was that because I got up so very early each morning to get ready…I eliminated two of my garden gophers. Those fellow gardeners out there will quickly realize how gratifying a morning that can turn out to be.

The rest of the good news is that we were blessed with a steady, constant and inquisitive group of visitors. The Sequim Arts Artist Tour is all about allowing visitors an opportunity to visit a working artist’s studio and see the environment in which the art is conceived and produced. Many of the artists had demonstrations and all had open studios.

Ours, Dungeness Studios introduced a new group of pieces we called the “Coin Series”. This new group features very heavy texturing on various areas of the earrings. I have always heard of this type of texturing referred to as coining. It is often seen on the side of metal money pieces to detect if anyone has attempted to “shave” any material off the coin. We have modified the technique to bring out some sparkle. It reminds me of the play of sunlight over moving water. This series of earrings also includes colored gemstones like “Madeira citrine, peridot, tiger eye and rhodolite garnet.

2009-02-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

I first went to art school to be a furniture designer. I dearly loved the warm sensual look of carefully oiled and hand rubbed wood and the idea of creating an object that interacted so closely with the human experience intrigued me.

Things seem to be going along fairly well and although I still had not found my “voice” by any means at all…I was still slowly evolving into a look of my own. I had devolved a small fledging vocabulary of lines. I was just beginning to see the lay of the land before me when I started to notice a disturbing common physical trait among the instructors and visiting artists I was studying under. They all seemed to have bits and pieces of their hands missing. Nothing really horrific but the end of a digit here and a long scar along a finger there but it was a definite common thread among these individuals. They would belly laugh and joke amongst them selves about how they almost lost a hand in the 12 inch planner or how the grinder had “snatched” the wood chisel out of their hand and impaled it into their chest. Well those images along with the incessant high-pitched scream of the power tools had me looking for other artistic avenues to express myself. Wood working for it time honored image of being an extremely laid-back art form was way to fast lane for the likes of me.

After my wood working experience I had a brief but extremely intense sojourn into the world of one off glass blowing. Glasswork is still the most “romantic” art form I have ever encountered. I wanted to be drinking red wine, eating cheese, hard breads and fruit from a red and white checked bandana the whole time I was in the furnace room waiting my turn at the dance before the oven. Working with hot glass those days meant having someone that cared about you showing up every few days to make sure you were still okay and to refill that bandana. I’d still be there to this day but for President Jimmy Carter getting into a “pissing match” with the Soviet Union over us selling them wheat and who was going to sent teams to the Olympics games in Moscow. This international conflict resulted in a dramatic spike in natural gas prices. The sky rocketing cost of fuel had the university shutting down the ovens in just a few days. By the time six months had gone by and the price of glass melting fuels got back to normal I had found my way into the jewelry studios. Which at that time were called the metals labs.