Jewelry by Mirinda

Babies, Babies

2011-04-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

I've been AWOL from the blogosphere since last fall. Apologies to anyone who might have visited and come away disappointed (though that could happen even if there HAD been a blog entry).

I've been making jewelry but less productively than usual. And, disappointingly, the Chateau Dumas workshop did not fill up quite enough for me to give the week-long class this summer, along with veteran PMC teacher Janet Harriman. We're hoping to make it happen next summer, maybe with a few twists to appeal to the French and British, as well as Americans. We're going to add bronze clay for sure. Stay tuned for Chateau adventures 2012.

My biggest news, and the event that has rendered everything else pale by comparison, is the birth of my first grandchild, my darling little Clara Jean Danser who is now more than two months old. When I'm holding this newly minted human being with the silky skin and the sweet smell, the rest of my world falls away, and she completely fills the screen. What can I say? I've become another besotted, adoring grandmother who thinks her grandchild is the most beautiful and intelligent (yes, at about six weeks, Clara started smiling in response to our smiles) in the universe.

I'm working on a fingerprint pendant for Clara's mommy Shelley, my lovely daughter-in-law. I'll design the PMC pendant and inscribe Clara's name with a new lettering kit I ordered from Cool Tools, and then I'll get a fingerprint on another piece of clay to add to the base pendant. I'm still working out the design but I have the process down. I'll post a photo when it's finished.

Here is Clara at her two month birthday!

Curses, Foiled Again by HTML

2010-10-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I thought I'd add Barbara Tyroler's beautiful photo to my Website home page. Piece of cake, right? Turns out to be a quagmire of code that I cannot bend to my will. Even though I didn't make the change go live, it somehow got there on its own. Now the home page banner is askew and not lined up with the rest of the page. What you see above is what I want, but Dreamweaver doesn't want it and has woven me a nightmare. Help! After hours of trying, I cannot fix it, nor can I take it back to its original. I need an HTML genie. Really.

An Eventful Summer

2010-09-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

Where to start? How about our trip to California in July, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco, with various stops in between, to San Simeon. I fell in love with the rugged coastline, the foggy beaches and the marine life. The highlight was a whale watching trip out of Monterey on a research vessel with a marine biologist. The krill were abundant, and they drew the great blue whales and humpbacks. Heading out into their feeding grounds, we could see their water spouts (blows) and were overwhelmed to see so many, everywhere we looked. We could tell the difference between the blow of the great blue versus that of the humpback. The great blue sends up a huge column of blow at least 30-40 feet; the humpback has a smaller blow that rains down in a heart shape. We saw the great blues surfacing but the most exciting part was seeing two humpbacks breach and having two curious humpbacks approach our boat, almost within touching distance. I had my camera and all that came out of my mouth was "holy cow, holy cow." It was a moment I'll never forget, a rare and touching gift to get that close to such a magnificent creature. It changed me in ways I'm still coming to understand. We joined Greenpeace while in CA. How could I not if I value the majesty and intelligence of those whales?

To top off the California trip, I went to the International PMC conference at Purdue University and had the opportunity to meet my heroes in the jewelry world and learn tips and tricks from some of the best. Robert Dancik's presentation on cold connections was inventive: he used larger-than-life props made of cardboard and other objects so everyone in the room could see what he was talking about. Way to go Robert! I made new friends and felt connected to the world of PMC in a new way. If you're a PMC artist who didn't make the conference, I'll be posting some of the tips I learned at the conference.

Then reality hit with my brother's out-of-the-blue diagnosis of a very aggressive form of cancer, so life turned inside out and we are rallying together as a family for his mega-surgery on September 29th.

Also since my last post, I've discovered I'm going to be a grandma - and it's a girl. I'm swooning over the first ultrasound photos, one with a clear profile. She's adorable already!

In between all these family events, I have managed to eke out time in my studio and create some new work.

Most exciting is that I have been juried into the Grovewood Gallery, on the grounds of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. They want to introduce my line of jewelry in April when there's more space becoming available in the gallery. I've been wanting to branch out of the local area and this is a great start.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my connections with FRANK and the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts. Sofia's in Carr Mill Mall also does well selling my jewelry, a different line I create for clothing boutiques.

Alas, we couldn't get the France workshop this fall to fly. We had several registrants but not quite enough to make it a go, so we're shooting for next June. It turns out to have been a good thing for me personally with my brother's illness and wanting to be home to support and help out. So watch out for details coming on next June's workshop in otherwordly Chateau Dumas.
I'll be bringing Janet Harriman as co-teacher - a talented artist and experience teacher.

Big Corporate Brother is Watching ME

2010-06-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

From the annals of the far-fetched: I have an etsy store (the online shopping free-for-all) and one of my postings is titled "Coco Chanel Revisited," because I made a quadruple strand necklace with some vintage chain and pearls. It is not a copy of any Chanel product, but I thought it looked Chanel-ish, hence the title. As it happens, etsy notified me that it had received notice from Chanel Inc. that my listing constituted copyright infringement, and so etsy removed the listing from my shop. I had no idea I was such a huge threat to a multi-national corporation. That's life in the theater of the absurd.

Here's a photo of the offending necklace. Bad necklace!

Asheville Gallery Hopping

2010-06-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

My husband Vic and I spent a couple of nights at an Asheville B&B last week and two days of visiting galleries...Blue Spiral, Haen, Bender (the most luscious glass pieces ever), and the Grovewood Gallery near the Grove Park Inn. It was an inspirational trip in every way. I saw great jewelry designs, glass, sculpture, painting; it was my kind of playpen. Though I'm generally not a huge fan of landscapes, I was taken with those of Lynn Boggess, whose work made landscape painting fresh and new for me.

When I got home, I learned that my first encaustic collage sold at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, my co-op gallery. Given that I, like a lot of artists, am mortally insecure about my work, it was affirming and is goading me to launch into new work. I just bought and watched video by Daniella Wolf on all aspects of encaustic art, so now I'm thoroughly primed. But that doesn't mean I'm not also on fire about doing jewelry. They will both have to coexist and one may inform and inspire the other, which is the best of all possible worlds.

Tomorrow night is the opening of FRANK'S "BEE" show, so I'll be there to mingle and see how folks approach my work. I entered a pendant with a fine silver bee sitting on honeycomb inside a hatbox shaped shadow box and it sold even before the show opening. I also have an abstract encaustic collage in the show, which qualifies, because it's made of beeswax.

Busy All the Time and Having Way Too Much Fun

2010-05-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

I got major inspiration from reading and re-reading Kate McKinnon's new book on sculptural metal clay. The techniques she introduced inspired three new pieces, with many more residing in my head and waiting to materialize.

I've been working on bee-themed pieces, both encaustic mixed media and jewelry, for FRANK Gallery's "BEE Show" that opens in June. Encaustic is eligible, because it is in large part beeswax. The encaustic technique is one that dates back to ancient Greece where shipbuilders used beeswax to caulk joints and waterproof the hulls of their boats. Pretty soon, the Greeks were painting the prows of their warships, sealed in wax I must presume, and scaring the beejezuz out of the Trojans. Jasper Johns was the only 20th century artist to use encaustic, but now it's enjoying a resurgence, and I can understand why. I find it compelling and addictive, because I can layer just about anything in the wax. Multiple images, paints (oil only) and fabric, paper, etc. can be secured in multiple layers.

So, I move between my jewelry and painting/collage studios (both upstairs in my house) as I work on pieces. It satisfies the ADD (or OCD) in me.

Today was one of those interesting synchronicity (for lack of a more descriptive term) days. I've had a necklace, made of sterling, large white freshwater pearls, and rutilated quartz briolettes, languishing in the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts for the past six months. It's a gorgeous piece, and I couldn't understand why it hadn't sold. Well, today, two women wanted the same piece. Alas, the second woman came in after it was already bought by the first. She had looked at it the day before and went home to think about it. Any other time she would have had first dibs, but not today. Interesting, huh? Anyway, I promised to make a similar piece for her if I can find more of the large briolettes I used in the original.

It's a joy to be doing what I'm doing and to have the freedom to pursue my creative work, which isn't always lucrative but is always satisfying.

It's Been Ages!

2010-05-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Apologies for being absent from these pages for so long. My only excuse is that I've been busy - healing and making new work.

I was thrilled to be juried into a new art gallery in downtown Chapel Hill, called FRANK (except in the logo, the "A" is red and upside down, cool). My first check came today, and four major pieces sold in the first month, so I'm happy.

I have a featured artist show this month at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, so I was working toward that show as well. In addition to jewelry, I included two of my new encaustic collages. Encaustic involves applying beeswax (mixed with damar resin) to a wooden or paper surface and melting the wax with a torch or heat gun. I've fallen in love with encaustic, because I can make multiple layers of wax and embed color and images into each layer. It has so many possibilities I've yet to explore. You can see some of my collages and my two new encaustic pieces on Fine Art America, Website is www.fineartamerica.com.

Now, about France and my workshop there: The June workshop is a no-go, because there just weren't enough registrants. The European economy may have had something to do with it. But, I am scheduled to teach at Chateau Dumas in September, from the 11th - 18th. So if you want to learn how to work with precious metal clay (PMC) in a truly unique and gorgeous setting with three French meals a day included, then this is the course for you. OUI!

Along with the knee rehab and my jewelry and collage work, I took a brief trip to Boston the weekend of April 23rd to attend the memorial service of my dear friend Susan Tifft, who died of cancer on April 1st. She managed to live two years beyond expectation out of sheer grit and willpower. Her memorial service, at Harvard's Memorial Chapel, was beautiful and an opportunity for those of us who loved her to mourn together.

So, as you can see, I've been busy with all that life can throw my way, most of it great. I'm in a happy place with my creative work and fired up with new ideas waiting to find form and expression. I will not let so much time elapse again between postings.

Four Plus Months to France and Counting

2010-02-01T18:14:00.000-08:00

It's a little more than four months until I teach a PMC (precious metal clay) immersion jewelry class at Chateau Dumas, a 19th century French chateau located in my favorite part of France - the southwest, about an hour's drive from Toulouse. Dates are June 12-19.

Lizzie Hulme, the lively, lovely, entrepreneurial "lady of the manor" has been advertising the course in France, the U.S., and the U.K. Details and registration information, if you're interested, can be found at the chateau's Website: www.chateaudumas.net.

I designed the course to work for all experience levels. Even if you've never touched PMC, you'll be able to come away from your week in France with several pieces of your own designed and hand-fabricated jewelry. Your stay would be from Saturday, the 12, through Saturday, the 19th.

The jewelry course runs Monday through Friday of that week from 10 a.m - 5 p.m. daily, with time left over for local excursions and indulging in great food and wine. The resident chef will tempt you with three squares a day plus local French wine; the swimming pool awaits; formal gardens beckon; the countryside is the closest thing to heaven on earth that I've found.

Go ahead; sign up. You know you want to!

I'm Baaack, With New Hardware

2010-01-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

I know, I've been AWOL for the past two months. December was, as usual, crazy. But the good news is that my jewelry sales from the Hillsborough Gallery and Sofia's were especially good. I like the idea that women in many places and in various walks of life are wearing my creations.

Then came the new year, and I started 2010 by getting a new right knee. Yup, total knee replacement - a procedure not for the faint of heart or for the impatient. I went into the hospital on January 5th and placed my life and future mobility in the competent hands of my trusted orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Phillip Clifford.

The hospital stay was not uneventful. The pain narcotics I was getting somehow danced a jig in my brain and loosened my grasp on reality. It was about 3 a.m. on the second night of my hospital stay when I looked at the clock, decided it was 3 p.m. and that I needed to get going. So, I proceeded to rip out my IV, hobble into the bathroom on my walker (mind you, it's a premier no-no to get out of bed without a nurse by your side), strip, and "hop" into the shower. That's when the pain hit me and I must have been complaining loudly, because the nurses burst into the room and when they saw me, said, "what do you think you're doing?" I don't remember this, but I'm told that I replied, "I'm getting a shower so I can go and see my sister." That's when the nurses moved me to a room beside the nursing station so they could keep an eye on me.

It took another 24 hours for the stuff (hydrocodone I think) to work its way out of my system. Trying to eat under the influence was an adventure. I'd get the fork full of eggs, or whatever the tasty morsel of the moment was, to my mouth and then would doze off only to awake and find the fork still sitting at the entrance, not even having gotten past my teeth. At lunch, I managed to get food into my mouth but would forget to chew. My husband was there by that time and made it his job to remind me to put fork to mouth, put food in mouth, chew, and swallow. This was not an automatic response on my part. He had to stay vigilant.

Now, it's been three weeks since my surgery and I'm just getting back to my studio for brief periods of time. I have turned out a few pairs of resin earrings and have plans for some totally new work. I'm in out-patient physical therapy and am working diligently to get back strength and flexibility. This rehab stuff is like having a full time job. Six weeks of PT should get me back to walking the dog and spending long hours in my studio.

For the time being, I'm designing and making a few pieces. I've been juried in as a consignor at the new Franklin Street Arts Collaborative, called FRANK (with an upside-down "A") for short. So, I want to have some new work to take to this new gallery by the end of February.

I Think I Like Bronze Clay

2009-11-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

My first batch of bronze clay pieces came out of my kiln a couple of days ago. Since then, I've been working the pieces into jewelry and Christmas ornaments. I've discovered that I can get stunning colors in the bronze (since none of the pieces emerged from the kiln with interesting colors) by torching the pieces just around the edges. As I put my torch to the first piece, moving the flame in a circular motion around the piece but not directly on it, I watched with amazement as the piece transformed from a guinea hen to a peacock. Golds, purples, reds and blues started to emerge. Wow! I'm hooked. I like this stuff. I'm gonna make more.

Working with Bronze Clay

2009-11-12T19:04:00.000-08:00

I took a bronze clay workshop in beautiful Beaufort by the sea the weekend of October 24th. In its raw state, bronze clay is icky. It looks like brown poo and is dense and sticky. Working with it was a bit like wrestling with gummy worms. Anyway, I managed to use up half a package making pendants and earrings. When they went into the kiln, no one could assure me how they would come out at the end. Bronze clay is finicky. It sometimes cracks in the kiln for unknown reasons and the colors you get can vary from dull rusty nail to rainbows. Several pieces came out looking like they needed help in the polishing and burnishing department, but one piece was born with glorious colors and didn't need any make-up to enhance its beauty.

The workshop, with Janet Harriman, was informative and fun. When a bunch of creative women get together it's going to be interesting, and this group was no exception. We yakked and laughed and traded stories and tips while we worked. I'm posting a photo of my piece with the best colors. Some of the others worked out well, too, after some finishing. And then there were a couple of duds. Nevertheless, I was inspired enough to buy the activated charcoal, a firing pan and the few other things I'd need to begin working with the bronze clay as well as the fine silver. Onward!

Chateau Dumas

2009-11-12T18:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm still getting used to this blogging business and I failed to include some photos of Chateau Dumas where I'll be teaching PMC next summer. Let's see if I can get you some visuals. Lizzie, who owns the chateau, has asked me to come back in September of next year to teach another week-long class. I didn't hesitate to say yes! Two trips to France in one year will be a new record.

Teaching in France Next Summer

2009-10-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Since I'm a dedicated Francophile, I'm over-the-moon excited about teaching a PMC (precious metal clay) master class at Chateau Dumas, a stunning, honest-to-goodness 18th century French chateau in my favorite area of France - the southwest, about an hour from Toulouse. The class is scheduled for June 12-19. I'll post photos soon. In the meantime, if you'd like to see what it looks like, go to www.chateaudumas.net.

Show co-stars

2009-10-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

To my left is Linda Carmel, a terrific painter, and to her left is Pringle Teetor, glassblower extraordinaire.

It was a rainy show

2009-10-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to those who turned out on a rainy Friday night for the opening of my show. The rain kept some away, but those who came were surely hard core - in the best way. The show runs through October 24th, so get on over to the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts before it's too late!

I have a show!

2008-03-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

I've been away from my blog for too long. There's so much news to share - and new work - that I hardly know where to start. Well, yes I do. I'll start with inviting you to the opening of my show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts on September 25th from 6-9 p.m.