Reef-tastic

The new Reef pieces are now in my etsy shop!  Yay!

Annnnnnnnnd... I just found out that I got accepted to have a booth at the Watermelon Festival here in Richmond in August.  Oh my, slight bit of panic there since I had applied back in April and still hadn't heard anything (and technically I still haven't - I just saw that my check had been cashed so I emailed the people and they said nothing had been sent out yet, but yes, if my check went through then I was in) and I had assumed that it was a no-go.  Way to go with that, guys.  She also said it was a new system they were trying this year, and it had some major kinks, so hopefully I can chalk it up to that and hope that the whole thing isn't a disorganized mess.  A friend did tell me, after I had applied for this by the way, that she would highly recommend doing only juried shows, which I will probably agree with.  But as my first outdoor festival, I'll be happy if I make the booth fee and setups costs back.  So here we go.  I have so much to do, and I'm a little overwhelmed right now.  But I will get on a schedule and make it happ'n cap'n! 

I found some info about setting up for festivals which I will share right here:

What Makes a Craft Show Successful?

A Newbie's Guide to Tents for Craft Shows and Festivals

Free EBook : Prearing for Art and Craft Show Success

So let me know if you have any suggestions or resources.  And I will share what I learn in this whole process.  I'm sure it will be crazy.  But hopefully in a good way.

Sneak Peek

Here's just a li'l sneak peek at something I've got going on - new coral reef inspired enamel jewelry!  Stay tuned for more to come!

Seattle, Just for Fun

I'm always inspired by shapes and colors and things I see around me, so when I'm in a new or interesting place, I generally have my camera in tow.  Now that I've finally gotten most of the business stuff from the SNAG Conference out of the way, I just wanted to post a few fun photos that I took while I was in Seattle.

Seattle in a very cool city with a lot of great things to look at.  I did spend a lot of time at the conference, but I stayed at the home of my friends Ben and Annie (Annie, unfortunately, was out of town that weekend.)  But Ben took me around and showed me some great Seattle sites I might not have seen otherwise.  Thanks, dude!

Here are a few from Pike Place Market (the market of fish-tossing fame).  I was digging the colors inside:

 

This was in a neat artsy section of town called Ballard:

Love the troll under the bridge!  That is a real VW Bug he's crushing.

This was a lovely rocky beach called Golden Gardens Beach right on the Puget Sound:



And of course, I had to get in a couple Space Needle shots:

All in all, a pretty fine trip!  It's great to be around so many talented people in such a beautiful, inspiring city!

SNAG Conference (Part 3) - Photography Tips & Tricks

As promised (though a mite delayed), here are some photography tips and tricks I gathered at the Professional Development Seminar at the SNAG conference in Seattle this year.  There were several great speakers, so to properly give credit to everyone, I will divide the info into sections by speaker.

Doug Yaple - Photographer
- when doing product photography for art, the artwork itself drives the decision on how to represent the work. (i.e. if you have natural organic inspired work, you may want to photograph it in that sort of setting, displayed on dirt or stones, or hang a necklace over a branch, etc. - this applies to advertising, not photographing work for exhibitions, etc.)
- it is critical to position the work so that it tells the story.  (highlight the most important aspect of the work)
- bring out important textures
- background is very important to showcase the piece
   - it must highlight the piece but not distract from it
   - body forms can work to display jewelry and wearable art
   - creating shadows can emphasize certain elements
- take several shots and explore from different angles (you might be surprised what looks good in a photo vs. what looks normal in person)
- don't overlook getting in tight to access something critical.  (details are great!)

Christopher Conrad - Product Photographer
- work with good light - natural is the best
   - a room with large picture windows is perfect
   - do not mix different kinds of light
   - no flourescent or incandescent lights
- build a softbox for direct light (frame with pvc, cover with thin vellum or ripstop nylon
- always use a tripod
   - this allows for slower shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures (smaller apertures = greater depth of field)
- don't use a high ISO - lower ISO's reduce "noise"
- be optically square to flat geometric objects
- don't fill the frame, crop images later
- for knockouts (isolating images), adding a drop shadow in photoshop adds a ground to the object and eliminates the "floating" look.

Roger Schreiber - Comtemporary Craft Photographer
- ask yourself, "who is your audience?"  this will indicate how you should photograph your work
   - everything that falls within the frame has an effect on the viewer
   - for advertising, use energy in the background
   - for juries, isolate the image
- when you're setting up for photographing work, make sure to allow yourself enough time
   - think about models if you're using them - clothing, hair, make-up
   - make a list of everything you need, props, etc
- think about the photograph even while you're making the piece (if you start the thought process early, you will think about what are the best angles and details, etc. that you want to include in your shots)

Suzanne Ramljak - Editor of Metalsmith Magazine
- make sure you have a shot that establishes your work for what it is
- acknowledge our media-saturated culture - you're in competition with all the other images out there
- remember that reprouctions on the web are never perfect and will look different than the original
   - you have to just accept that and put your best image out there

Marthe Le Van - Editor for Lark Books
- the body is the best surface for photographing jewelry
   - indicates scale and drape
   - gives life to the work - makes it dynamic and dramatic
- traditional American Craft photography has used a gradated background with careful lighting, but now a white background is becoming more and more popular
- Scandinavian images are using and dynamic models, which creates a very striking image
   - this has the effect of presenting the piece as more wearable and more accessible
- remember that on gallery websites and search engines, you often just have one tiny image and your name to grab people's attention and get them to browse through you work.  use something dynamic!
- have a style for all of your photos to follow to make them work together
   - black or white backgrounds tend to grab readers because they make the piece stand out.



So thank you to all of the above artists for all of your great information and tips!  That definitely gives me a lot to think about when photographing my work.  And it points out some mistakes I have been making with lighting, etc, too.  So I hope some readers will find this helpful as well.  Let me know of you have some other tips and tricks!  I'd love to hear from you!  Thanks for reading!

SNAG Conference - Seattle, WA (Part 2)

At the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference this year, I attended a professional development seminar that focused on the topics of Niche Marketing and Photographing Your Work.  Just thought I would share a couple of highlights from the seminar here.

Niche Marketing was the part that I was really looking forward to, but while they had good speakers who talked about the niches that they were able to break into, there was not a whole lot of information about how to go about establishing yourself in your niche or really much on marketing at all.

The first presenter was Hilary Pfeifer with her alter ego Bunny with a Toolbelt. 

I got this image off her etsy page.  Super cute custom cake toppers.  (Plus it made me think more about persuing the wedding niche with my copper cone boutonnieres.)

Then there was Emiko Oye who makes jewelry out of legos!  Also delightful.

She had some good information to share:

- You want good professional quality photos.

- Balance your exhibition work with your production work.  People will see your big exhibition work and maybe can't afford it, but might be inspired to buy something from your production line.  (I thought this was great advice and definitely something to try to remember, because I know I can get so caught up with one or the other depending on my current situation that I will forget entirely about the other for a while.)

- Be accessible.  Be online, but also in galleries - you will get a lot of exposure online, but people also like to touch the work, try it on, and see the craftsmanship with their own eyes - things that you lose on the web.

- Get involved in your community.  You'll make great connections for future opportunities.

Then there was Deb Stoner who found her niche in eyewear.

Her advice was this:

- Teach what you know.  Become the expert in your niche.  (Hers is a great niche because there are only about two other people known for making custom art eyewear, period.)

- Curate a show. (Now this is not really realistic for emerging artists like myself, I think you have to be rather established in your field to even consider this as a possibility, but I could be mistaken.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here, and I'll get in on that!!!)

- In addition to doing work for jobs (for money), make time to do what you love.  It will keep you interested and it will keep your work and your teaching fresh. 

So definitely some good advice from some very interesting and talented artists, but not a whole lot of info on making your work fit into a niche.  So I found this blog posting  4 Ways to Make Your Products More Niche, and I think there's some good information in there as well. 

So check all that out, and I'll be back later on to share some info about photographing your work.  Until then, thanks for reading!

SNAG Conference - Seattle, WA (Part 1)

My, my, my... I have gotten behind again.  I wanted to post last week about the micro-raising workshop that Chuck Kennington and I taught May 21-22.  (No rapture, yay! That would have been rather inconvenient.)  But I ran out of time to post with only 3 days to handle business and pack for my next adventure, so that is just going to have to wait for a few days because I just got home from Seattle, and I'm really excited to post about the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference. 

This is an annual conference and gathering of metalsmiths from all over North America, and each year it's in a different city.  This year, Seattle.  Cool city!  It's really great to be able to be surrounded, not only by hundreds of artists, but specifically metalsmiths, enamelists, jewelers, and craft professionals.  I was able to connect with some old friends as well as meet a lot of new and interesting people in my field.

Making plans for this year was a little crazy.  Usually people stay at the hotel that hosts the conference with a group of friends sharing a room (because these are nice hotels).  My plan had been to stay with my NC Black crew, but their plans were altered, and they weren't able to stay at the hotel due to various circumsatances, including the fact that they drove across country and had a thule trailer attached to the car for all their equipment, and that could not be parked in the garage.  Great.  So I called up my friends Annie and Ben who live in Seattle, and made arrangements to stay at their house.  This all went down about 3 weeks prior to the conference.  So I got my plane tickets, rented a car, and headed out west solo.  Scary!  For me anyway.  But it all worked out.  I flew in on Thursday morning, and that night there was a "pin swap" meet & greet session to kick off the conference.  I had made 15 pins for swapping, and unfortunately, I don't have a good photo of them to post.  But they were tiny copper cones (made with NC Black tools of course) with hand-dyed wool plumes poufing out the tops.  I liked them.  And in return for these, I got all kinds of neat handmade pins!

Of the names I know (it helps if you put your pins on business cards!), I got pins from Kristi Kloss, Lessley Brooke, Melissa J. Russell, Nancy Tiska, Kim Howell, Jennifer Wall, Kathryn Osgood, Kim M. Baxter, Erin Swietnicki, Callie Shevlin, and Maggie Smith/Quirk Gallery.  Well done!

Among lectures, artist spotlights, and various other activities, I also helped out in the NC Black Co. vendor booth doing demos and helping to sell tools. Here's a photo of our booth featuring the always fabulous Andrea Kennington and the delightfully dapper Les Bryant.

and the featured hammers:

omg, <3

That was a lot of fun.  Les and I were also filmed by Jay Whaley and Greg Berg of Whaley Studios in San Diego, doing demos - anticlastic bracelet for Les, and micro raising for me.  I'll post a link to that when it's up.  I imagine they just got home, too.

I'll be back later today or tomorrow to share some info I gathered at the conference.  But for now, there are other tasks that need attending.  Thanks for reading!

Hammering It All Out

I am getting super-excited about my up-coming micro-raising workshop at the Sawtooth Center in Winston-Salem!  I'm team-teaching with one Mr. Chuck Kennigton of NC Black Co., and we really made a lot of progress with our tools last week.  I can really see it coming together.  Finally!

I was at the NC Black homebase Wednesday through Friday of last week.  Wednesday evening was mostly shop-talk, but Thurday we really got to work.  I had designed a raising stake for small-scale work based on a combination of two different stakes we had been using in the studio.  So we needed to make a prototype and test it out.

Stake heating and bending:

Grinding and Polishing:

So you can see, these tools are made with love, and very much by hand.

We made two different sizes, 5/8" diameter and 1/2" diameter.  Then it was time for the test!

It works!!!  Muahahahahaha!

So we made ten of each size.  One for each of us for practice, etc. and eight as a teaching set for this and future workshops!  We will also have stake holders to keep said teeny stakes snugly secured in a big ol' vise, as shown above, as well new super-sweet raising hammers designed by Chuck.

So we've got everything squared away.  Tools are made, kits are assembled, and we're on our way!  Sawtooth will be the first of many of these micro-raising workshops!  Stay tuned for a schedule of up-coming workshops and check out the schedule for the other workshops offered by NC Black Co, Micro Shell-Forming and Engraving.

I'll be back later this week with updates for the CopperTide jewelry business, so check back!!!  Thanks for reading!