Winter/Spring Workshop Schedule

Feel like learning some fun metals techniques?  Here are the workshops and classes I'll be teaching over the next few months!


Enameling for Jewelry and Beyond

Students will learn basic techniques in enameling, such as sifting and kiln firing. We’ll apply these techniques (plus a few other fun things) to everything from pendants and earrings to items for the home - think drawer-pulls and light switch plates!

8 Tuesdays - Jan 10 - Feb 28
6:30-9:00pm
Visual Arts Center of Richmond - Richmond, VA

 

NC Black Co. Micro Raising Workshop

Raising is a process for forming sheet metal into vessel form using the metal's natural response to hammering. Students will explore methods for creating miniature vessel forms. These methods can be used to create sculpture and jewelry as well as vessels. Students will focus on samples in copper and will create a raised vessel by the end of the class. All tools are provided.  Some metalsmithing experience is helpful, but not required. 

Two 1-Day Workshops

February 4 - 10:00-5:00

February 5 - 10:00-5:00

Cape Fear Studios - Fayetteville, NC

3-Day Workshop

March 22-24 - 10:00-5:00 each day

Radford University - Radford, VA

Jewelry Fabrication Weekend Workshop

This is the perfect introduction to creating jewelry the traditional way, by starting with sheet metal and wire. You'll learn about the basic tools of the jeweler: a jeweler's saw, pliers, hammers, and the torch. We'll cover techniques that will enable you to create beautiful wearable jewelry, such as rings, bracelets, and pendants! We'll work with copper with sterling silver, and will provide all the materials, tools and equipment. No experience necessary - all you need is enthusiasm!

Feb 18-19 (Sat-Sun) 
10:00-4:30 both days
Sawtooth School for Visual Art - Winston-Salem, NC

Galvanic Etching and Champleve Enameling

Galvanic etching, or electro-etching, is a process that uses electricity rather than acid to etch metal. Students will learn forming techniques for their specific pieces, and then we’ll move into champleve enameling, a technique that involves wet-packing enamel powder into the recesses created by etching the metal.

8 Tuesdays - March 13 - May 1
6:30-9:00pm
Visual Arts Center of Richmond - Richmond, VA

Using the Hydraulic Die Press in the Jewelry Studio

Explore the fascinating realm of forming metal with a hydraulic die press. You can easily add dimension to your metalwork with the hydraulic press. Being able to easily create multiples of a simple form is one of its greatest assets. Students will learn to create original dies in acrylic sheet or other material, then use these dies to make puffed metal forms that can be altered using various techniques and textures. You can make multiples for a series of jewelry pieces, each one with the same outside silhouette but finished differently. The possibilities are endless. Basic Jeweler's Saw skills are helpful, but beginners are welcome.

May 19-20 (Sat-Sun)
10:00-4:30 both days
Sawtooth School for Visual Art - Winston-Salem, NC

The Year in Pictures

January First.  Beginning of a New Year. 

And you know what?  I GOT this.  I am all over it. 

2011 was crazy and scary and amazing.  I worked my ass off, and I feel like I am finally moving in the right direction.  Yay!

I took the last few days off to work on some personal projects that I just haven't had time for with everything else going on.  I spent hours this past week going through all the photos I have taken this year, editing and cropping, and just loving reliving all those moments.  Now, I am my mother's daughter, so I pretty much always have a camera glued to my hand.  And I'm a sucker for sunsets and oceans and clouds.   But I'll try not to get tooo carried away.....

January:  I sent in my portfolio for my graduate school application.

Then Mark and I moved to Richmond.  This is the first day of setting up the new studio! 



February: Buster came into our lives and we all enjoyed exploring Richmond together.

March : I revamped the look of my jewelry business, CopperTide.

April: Worked on tool designs and Micro Raising Workshop development with NC Black Co.

May: Chuck and I taught our first Micro Raising Workshop

at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.

Then I went to the SNAG conference in Seattle and worked the 

NC Black vendor booth with Andrea and Les.

June:  I launched my new Reef Jewelry line.

July : Traveled to Colorado with NC Black to do a vendor booth at the CoMA Conference.

August : My first outdoor "craft show," the Watermelon Festival in Carytown.



Then took a little time off for the beach, and got to see a hurricane pass by the SC coast.  Amazing.

September : Mark and I launched our new business, CopperDog Studio.

October: Taught my first enameling workshop at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.

November : Started teaching an evening course at The Visual Arts Center, then got some more beach time for Thanksgiving.



December : Made lots of jewelry, dog tags, and festive confectionery delights!

So here's to 2011!  It was a hell of a year! 

2012 : BRING.IT.ON.



Oh, That Tricky, Tricky Ego...

One thing I struggle with sometimes is comparing myself and where I am in my career with my colleagues.  I imagine this is fairly common within all fields, but I think that perhaps those of us who consider ourselves artists take it maybe a little more personally because we have such close personal ties to our work.  When I read something about one of my contemporaries, maybe someone I went to school with, for instance, and they're having a moment of great success, I'm happy for them (really, I am), but I can't help comparing what I'm doing with what they're doing.  I mean, yes, I feel like I have some amazing things going on right now, but I always feel like I should be doing more, especially in my own jewelry and metalwork. 

photo by Lauren Carroll

Last year at this time, I was working feverishly on my portfolio for my grad school application.  I felt mostly good about my work, and felt like I was moving in the right direction. I only applied to one school, VCU, and it was really the reason Mark and I decided to go ahead and move to Richmond.  When I found out I was third on the list when they realized that they only had the funding to bring two new students into the program, I was disappointed to say the least.  But I decided to reapply in a year, and in the meantime work on my portfolio, pursue my jewelry business, and continue working for my friends at NC Black Co. 

Well, here it is, two months from application time again, and I have so many things going on, I haven't had time to work on my portfolio all year.  I have ideas and sketches for some great pieces, but I haven't made them yet.  And I have to ask myself, why is that?  Why are these other pursuits taking precedent over my portfolio work?  Well, the answer is clear, they're just more important to me right now.  A year ago, I felt like I was moving in the right direction, but this year has presented so many other opportunities, from working on my businesses, CopperTide and CopperDog Studio, teaching in workshop settings (teaching was really the main thing that inspired me to go back to school in the first place), both with NC Black and on my own, plus all my work with NC Black Co. outside of teaching.  I feel like now I'm really moving in the right direction, and it's almost as if breaking from all these pursuits to go back school right now would be counter-productive. 

But I was still torn.

I had a conversation with my friend and teaching partner, Chuck Kennington, about all my feelings on the subject, and he said something that really struck me, "Don't let your ego make the decision for you." 

Yes, I felt defeated when I didn't get into grad school last spring, and there is a part of me that wants to prove that I can.  I want the prestige, and I want the respect of my contemporaries.  I sometimes get the feeling I am looked down upon because I don't yet have my MFA.  But really, what does that matter?  It's just a piece of paper, after all.  The other NC Black teaching team, Andrea Kennington and Les Bryant, are proof that it may not matter all that much.  Andrea has her MFA in Metals from ECU (where I got my BFA) and Les is completely self-taught.  He has taken workshops from masters, but has no degree.  And yet they're doing the same job.  Andrea even told me flat out that having her MFA hasn't opened any doors for her.  You go out there and you open those doors yourself.

Hmmmmm.......... 

So after talking with Chuck and Andrea and Mark of course, and lots of thinking and weighing of options, I've made the decision to put grad school on hold indefinitely.  I'm not totally ruling it out as a future possibility, but it basically comes down to the fact that I just don't need an MFA to do what I'm already doing.  So there's that.

So even though I'm happy with my decision and the way things are progressing in my career, it doesn't mean I don't still feel a twinge of jealousy when I hear that this colleague got into a show that I wasn't accepted to, that one got her own solo exhibition, and this one got published in a major industry magazine.  I'm happy for them, and I respect their work and know that they deserve these things.  But dammit, I want it, too!  So I will just have to turn this little streak of green into inspiration to make time, work harder, and get my work out there, recognized, and respected!

Ready??  Go!!!

The Alchemist

I recently read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho for the first time.  I have no idea why I never read it before, but it's something every artist and every person who is trying to persue their personal legend should read.  Both Mark and my dear friend Lindsey recommended it to me, and I'm sooo glad!

Lindsey and I were talking one day about our job and life situations.  She is a friend from art school, a college roommate actually, and a very creative person.  She recently quit her job to go back to school to pursue a dream that she had always had.  I, however, did not quit my job, but was laid off two years ago.  But rather than rush out and take the first crappy McJob I could find (to be fair, even crappy McJobs have been hard to come by the past two years), I began working for my friends (NC Black Co.) in my field, and began pursuing my dream of being a full-time artist and living an artful life.  Sometimes things happen for a reason.  As the book says, "we must be prepared to have patience in difficult times, and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we might not understand how." 
Coelho says that in order to pursue our dreams we must first overcome four obstacles.  First, we are often told from the time we are children that everything we want to do is impossible.  Our dreams become buried in layers of prejudice, fear, and guilt, and can become nearly invisible, but they're still there.  If we can hang on to the dreams and overcome this obstacle, then comes a second: love.  We're afraid we're hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dreams.  But we have to realize that those who love us genuinely wish us well, want us to be happy, and are prepared to accompany us on this journey.  Once we've accepted that love is a stimulus rather than a reason to not move forward, we're up against the third obstacle: the fear of defeat.  This is particularly terrifying because those of us who fight for our dreams suffer much more when it doesn't work out because we can't use the excuse that we must not have wanted it that badly anyway.  But defeats will happen.  It's just part of the game.  As Coelho says, "The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times, and to get up eight times."  After overcoming all of these obstacles, there comes the fourth: the fear of actually realizing the dreams we fought for our entire lives.  We actually feel guilty for getting what we want because we see all those around us who have failed to do so, that we feel we don't deserve to get what we want either.  We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, and all the suffering along the way, all the things we had to give up.  This is the most dangerous of all because it has a "saintly aura about it, renouncing joy and conquest."  But we must believe that we are worthy of the things we fought so hard for, and that this is the reason that we are here in this world.

And all of this from the introduction?!?  Love. 

The book itself is actually a novel about a shepard boy who meets an old king who tells him about following his personal legend.  The boy sells his flock and buys a ticket to Africa to begin his pursuit, and soon loses all he has.  He has to stop a few times along the journey for various reasons, and he finally meets the Alchemist, who helps him to see things more clearly.  The boy never gives up, though he is sometimes distracted by all the obstacles of life, but he is always, in some way, in pursuit of his personal legend. 

I love this book.  It is so inspiring to me at this point in my life as I try to figure out the best way to pursue my dreams and be the best person I can be.  When I feel myself getting discouraged or frustrated, I think about the message of this book, and it puts me back on the right track - or at least back in the right frame of mind. 

Seriously, go read it.  Now.

VisArts Enameling Workshop

Last weekend I taught a Basic Enameling workshop at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.  It was my first workshop there, and I had a great time.  The facility is very nice, fully equipped studio, friendly people, organized administration, fabulous students! 

Mark and I moved to Richmond this past January, and knew basically nothing about the city.  Someone suggested that I look into the Visual Arts Center as a place to work and to meet some interesting people.  I made an appointment last Spring and pitched my proposals for classes and workshops for the Fall session, and came to find out that VisArts was fully equipped for enameling, with four kilns and lots of old enamels, but they had had no one to teach it in years.  Lucky for me!  I proposed two enameling workshops and an etching and enameling class.  I was able to make my Basic Enameling workshop run with only three people, but I don't think my next workshop, Alternative Techniques in Enameling (Nov. 12-13) is going to make this session.  Oh well.  I already have five people signed up for my evening class, Galvanic Etching and Champleve Enameling, starting in a couple weeks (Tuesday evenings, Nov. 15 - Dec. 20, 6-9pm).  So that will be a lot of fun. 

Anyway, back to the Basic Enameling workshop.  Prior to the workshop, I went into the VisArts studio and made colors samples of all the enamels they had to offer.

I made handouts including some basic info and facts about enamels, descriptions and how-to's with the techniques we were covering, and some tips and tricks that just make things a little easier as you're going.  I made samples of all the different techniques we'd be trying, which were surprisingly a lot, given that this was a basic enameling workshop.  And honestly, it was a lot of fun to revisit those techniques that I don't often use.  In my first enameling class, we were presented with a whole lot of basic techniques like this, and then were asked to take this knowledge and make a piece of jewelry.  Well, that's all well and good, but there were so many different things that I wanted to try, I ended up trying to use several on one piece and it came out looking rather muddled.  I remember wishing we had been given some extra time just for making samples of each technique to try them all out and see what we liked before jumping into a piece of jewelry. 

So that's what I asked my students to do.  The first day, I did demos of several basic limoges techniques, and then the students did their own samples.  After lunch, I showed them a few basse-taille techniques, and they were free to make some samples of basse-taille or anything else they wanted to explore.

Since we only had three hours to work on Sunday, their homework assignment that night was to come up with a piece that they wanted to make based on the techniques we had covered.

Greg made a beautiful landscape tile:

Gwen made a gorgeous leaf-shaped pendant:



I thought everyone did a wonderful job, and we all had a lot of fun!  I hope to see them again in future workshops and classes.  Can't wait for my next class. 

Thanks VisArts and students!



Blogging Slacker!

My, my, my... what the little blogging slacker I have been!  Here it is, the end of October, and I have not posted all month!  I may have had a few other things going on, though.....  here's a brief (ok, mabe not so brief) summary of my 4 jobs + life:

My main business focus has been CopperDog Studio.  I've been using what I've learned so far in my Marketing course to apply it to getting this business started right.  Unfortunately, I am only 5 lessons deep in a 12 lesson course, but I'm learning.....  I got the website up and running.  For those of you who have been following, we decided to go with Big Cartel as our host, and we have already made more sales than I've ever made from my CopperTide site through Other People's Pixels.  (I think I will switch that one over when review time comes up in a few months.)  So, that's going.  We made samples of each style of tag we offer, and came up with a clever display... on a dog collar!

We sent a similar display with order forms, etc. to Brother Wolf Animal Rescue in Asheville, NC.  My friend Nicole works there, and is advocating for us.  We hope to have a good relationship set up with them soon, with 10% of the proceeds from sales made through BWAR donated back to them.  We also hope to set up similar sitiuations with other rescue groups.  This display set is going with us to the dog park this weekend to try our hand at person to person sales.  A little marketing tip on placement there.  The people are there, thinking about their dogs, so just place this right in front of them and start a conversation.

So there's all that for CopperDog, plus filling orders, etc.

CopperTide has fallen a little behind while getting CopperDog up and running, but I've made a few items, and I'm applying for holiday shows.  Check.

Job #3 is with NC Black Co.  I have been down to NC a couple times in the last month or so to work with them.  The first trip was supposed to be just a quick one to take photos of their new hammers for their website and for a catalog.

Well, that turned into a weekend trip with my teaching partner, Chuck, to Gatlinburg, TN to deliver tools to the store at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.  And we got to see some of the glory that is Gatlinburg.  Wow.  That place would make me want to vomit if it wasn't for Arrowmont.  But since this amazing craft school is there, it just makes the rest of the insanely weird tourist trap tolerable, and even hilarious.  It was a great time.  I love my job. 

So anyway, I took some photos when we got back to NC.  Edited them, and sent a CD of images to Grobet for their catalog.  Congrats to NC Black on the Grobet parnetship, by the way!  It's so inspiring to see a small company of talented people finding success!  I'm so fortunate to work with them and call them my friends!  I took another trip down to see them mid-month to take more photos for ther new website - this time, photos of the people behind NC Black.

And we spent some time working on plans and samples for a new workshop offered by NC Black, Etched Anticlastic Neckpieces.

Which brings me to Job #4 : Teaching.  Last weekend I taught an enameling workshop at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.  That was a great time with great students.  The workshop will get its own post tomorrow.  But I just wanted to mention it as another thing I have going on these days.  This was the first time I had taught this particular workshop, so planning was involved.  And that includes writing a handout and making samples, among other thing.  But I really enjoyed it, and look forward to teaching more at VisArts.  In fact, I have an evening class in Galvanic Etching and Champleve Enameling coming up, starting November 15, so I guess I better get on the preparations for that!  Plus, I've been writing class proposals and sending them in for Winter/Spring classes at VisArts and Sawtooth School for Visual Art.  Whew!

Sometimes it's hard to get my mind all organized around everything.  Especially when you throw in life stuff.  Mark and the pets and I have a lot of fun (somewhere in there), but there's still shopping, chores, and cooking to be done.  And there's that looming portfolio situation, and a big decision to be made with that.  But I won't get into that right now.  So hopefully it's understandable why I've been such a blogging slacker lately.  I do plan to get back on that.  And start one for just CopperDog Studio.  So I'm off to check things off my lists, add more things to them, and make Halloween cookies.  Nope, I'm not sorry.  There's always time for Halloween.   Cheers!

Websites and the Whatnot

Last week I introduced our new business, CopperDog Studio, to my blog readers and to the world of facebook.  I also put some tags up for sale on etsy.  We have sold two tags on etsy... to a friend, but still, our first sales, so yay!

This week I have been focused on building a proper website.  A friend suggested Big Cartel as a good host for artists as a selling platform, so I tried it out.  They have several levels of involvement: the "gold" level is free, is somewhat customizable, but only lets you have 5 products.  I went with the next level, the "platinum" level, which is $9.99/month and lets you have up to 25 products, "full" customization, and several other better features.  However, the "full" customization is really only for people who know HTML and CSS coding language.  I do not.  In fact, I'll be honest, I had never even heard of CSS until this week.  Now you might think I'm a web dummy.  Yep, I'll admit it.  I took a computer art class in college, and that was only 10 years ago, but CSS was not very widely used if it was even around at all back then, and we just barely touched on HTML after we played with Photoshop and Illustrator for most of the semester.  (I do love me some Photoshop!)  Well, after doing some research, I was able to learn enough to be able to embed a mailing list sign up form directly onto a page of my website, and I considered this a major breakthrough.  However, I have yet to figure out how to do it on facebook.  But speaking of facebook, Big Cartel has a facebook app that allows you to link directly to your store from your facebook fan page.  Major points for BC there.  I'll get to the points thing here in a minute.  I was really frustrated with all this CSS business, knowing that every time I wanted to change something beyond the super basic stuff, I would have to mess with that again.

So I was considering other options.  I use Other People's Pixels to host my CopperTide website, so I'm familiar with their control panel, and it's really user-friendly.  OPP is great as portfolio display site, but not so great with the sales.  They also offer lots of customization options that you don't have to know coding language for.  So I thought I would build a website there, too, and see which one I like better.  They also offer a 14 day free trial (after which, if I decided to keep it, it would cost $16/month or $160/year).  A little more expensive, but I didn't have anything to lose by setting up a trial.  On my end, OPP is much easier to use, but there are also some things I don't like about their set-up.

So I made a list comparing the two:

Big Cartel

www.copperdogstudio.com

- home page = product views

- when you open a product view, there can be up to 3 images for the same product which you scroll through

- product description is displayed in a narrow column that makes it seem incredibly long and tedious - even though it's all important info

- clear about "add to cart" on each product

- you can add as many items to your cart as you like

- allows me to add shipping costs for one piece and then for additional pieces

- weird format for links -they're all tiny over on the right side

- i was able to embed an email list sign up form, but you have to follow a tiny link on the right side to get there

 

Other People's Pixels

http://awilli16.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html   <----- this would change to the above address if I chose to go with this host (this is a free trial)

- no product views on home page, just 1 image of my choice

- when you open a product view (from the nav bar) you only get one image per product

- product description is still a narrow column, but not as narrow; uses a scroll bar on the screen rather than scrolls the whole screen down, so you see the image the whole time

- not so clear on how to "add to cart" (by clicking on the different color price link)

- you can only buy one item at a time

- does not allow me to add  shipping costs, I would have to send the customer a revised paypal invoice

- good nav bar at top of page, clear on what is where

- i was not able to embed an email sign up form, but i was able to add links to do so on both the home page and the contact page

As I had spent hours and hours immersed in website business, I felt like I had lost a little bit of my objectivity, so I asked a few friends with some marketing savvy their opinions from both a marketing standpoint and a customer's viewpoint. All but one said they preferred the Big Cartel site.  Pretty much, I knew BC was the way to go after reviewing my list, but it's always nice to have some feedback.  If this was just a place to display the work, I would probably stick with OPP, but as this is a business and the focus is driving sales, we're going with Big Cartel.  One of my friends even said that from a customer standpoint, everything was clear on the BC site, but he would probably get frustrated and leave the OPP site and buy his tag elsewhere.  Not what you want.  That was just the kind of feedback I needed - thanks, Paul. 

So I have a lot to learn about CSS code, but I would rather have to work more on my end than lose sales because the site is not user-friendly to buyers.  It might not look quite as pretty right now, but the more I can learn about CSS, the more I'll be able to customize it and make it awesome!

I would love to hear your opinion, too!  Check out both sites -

Big Cartel : www.copperdogstudio.com
Other People's Pixels : http://awilli16.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html

Let me know what you like and what you don't - the more you comment, the more information is out there and can help other people trying to figure out what to do with their websites.
.
I found another article comparing Big Cartel with Etsy and Storenvy.  I've never used Storenvy, but it might be worth checking out, too - since it's free!

Who do you use to host your site?  Is your focus on sales or display?  Are you happy with your website?

Check back soon for more updates!  Thanks for reading!