07 December 2010

sketchbook project & etsy & aarghh

Boekentoren
No, the blog hasn't been forgotten or misplaced, but as for a change this year I have been a wee bit busy, going back to college, volunteering at the Sint Lucas library and all. But it's been great, so far! Lots of work: class, researching in the little specialist libraries all over the Blandijn next to that pretty Boekentoren (right >>). Now the deadlines for papers are coming up, and exams in January it has its share of the stressies, but... ooh it feels good to be back. So long I don't flunk, of course. Argh! See? Stress.

I will feel better after January's exams so I know if my study method works. The subjects aren't too hard, but I fear my brains being rusty. LOL. We'll see. Wish me luck!

The Sketchbook Project: 2011That means I haven't been back at the studio, but I've done some little things here at home, in Ghent. Like the Sketchbook Project! An initiative by Art house coop in Brooklyn NY. The goal was to fill a moleskine sketchbook, working in a theme you could choose from a list. 
I'm quite self-conscious about my drawing and painting abilities, so I thought it would be good for me to participate and see what happened. Drawing didn't work out, so I painted. And cut. And then I drilled. And sawed, stamped, painted some more, sewed, and was done with it. I had such a great time! Nothing like drastically altering a once pristine sketchbook.  ;-) It has become a little freak... 
My theme was Night time stories and I used a quote by Breton, from his first Surrealist Manifesto, about the poet Saint-Pol-Roux leaving a placard outside his door whenever he went to sleep. The placard said: "the poet works".

DSC_5134 

DSC_4980


17


torturing the poor thing:
sketchbook project WiP

:::: see the whole project on flickr.

The sketchbook is being sent back to Brooklyn where it will go on a tour in the US!  The neat library system (each sketchbook has a barcode) will keep all artists up to date of how many times their sketchbook has been borrowed.

And in other news, I'm back on Etsy! You can find some of the creations of last summer:

"lunar essence"
lunar essence

"green goddess"
green goddess

"a delicate balance" earrings


a delicate balance

And the website & blog have received their yearly dusting. I even went as far as to add a webpage about me/my creations. It's not an artist statement really, but it's a start.

11 October 2010

Tweeting & tumbling from the Wiener Werkstätte

Josef Hossfeld for the Wiener Werkstaette

Twitter logo origins revealed! Goes back to 1906! :-D

I visited the Wiener Werkstätte exhibition at the Zilvermuseum in Antwerp this weekend.

It was ok.

Of course seeing works of Josef Hoffmann (and others), the collection of silverware designed for the Stoclet and the Wittgenstein family was fantastic, but I wasn't too happy about the set-up...

The glare of the spotlights was rather annoying (and nothing says clean and sterile like a spotlight! Why not use natural light?! Especially for Art Nouveau/Jugendstil, which is such an organic style), the display cases were very big and the objects small, so it was almost impossible to get a close look. I love to see how the objects are made, what techniques were used...and with such detailed and small work it's best to be able to see it from real close by so you almost have to squint! And what really put me off were the fake flowers in the exquisite vases. Come on! That's ridiculous. I guess they had to bring some color to the sterile and monochrome set-up, but the result was rather funereal.

Anyways. The works themselves were inspiring enough! loved the square mazes, the stylized patterns and the delicate chasing/repoussé (like the little bird) and the set semi-precious stones (mostly lapis, carnelian & malachite).

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I've started tumbling! I've been at it since this summer, but wanted to give it a test ride first before I let you know. It's a blogging service, especially handy to share all sorts of content: quotes, links, pictures, film, audio,... A neat way to share all sorts of little things that I encounter on the web & that inspire me! If you like to follow it you can subscribe, or maybe you do already by following the friendfeed. Or not. ;-)

23 September 2010

summer pendants & autumn plans

Well, I'm home again after spending some time in the studio in August-September. It was much needed, and awesome. And as always, way too short. I could easily do with a month or so more studio time, just to finish what I've started...

But time's up and I have to keep my creative self in check... School is starting again next week and there will be no time for doodling. I can't believe I'm going back to college! (yes, again...) The time is finally here, and I'm giddy. :-D

And to celebrate, I'm doing a workshop in October with the talented Lotte De Mey on stone setting! Check out her unique pieces on Penelope's Verbs and her paintings (this is her portfolio). I adore her work and I'm really looking forward to the workshop!


And now for some pictures: this is what happened in the studio this summer!

A green goddess talisman:

green goddess

Pebbles:

3 pendants

A delicate balance in pendants  & earrings:

a delicate balance

a delicate balance

a delicate balance

...Do you remember this ring?

growing ring

It has been sprouting crystals lately:

tube ring

...and something else all together, can you guess what this is?!

can you guess? :-D

tube ring

The Napjesdrager in details

before firing//after firing//light shining through//light shining on...

napjesdrager WiP

Napjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager: detailsnapjesdrager WiP

Napjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager: details
Napjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager: details

napjesdrager WiP

Napjesdrager: detailsNapjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager: details

Napjesdrager

Napjesdrager: details
napjesdrager WiP

09 September 2010

a delicate balance // pebbles

How would you balance an egg? And several tiny glass spheres?

a delicate balance: WiP

I allowed myself some play time in the studio last weekend and this came out of it. Of course I didn't have quite enough time to finish it yet but I couldn't wait to give you this first glimpse!

a delicate balance: WiP

The glass spheres balance on 1mm mandrels...just like that necklace with the sprouts I designed in class and I used the last bit of that same silver wire I had molten & pulled. They were fun to make! Juggling with molten glass... :-D

The colors are equally playful: white/black and yellow/orange/red/blue/green in both pastels and transparents, all mixed.

They're going to be pendants & earrings.

The Pebbles now have a different personality: subtle and serene.

pebbles

Preferably with a little ball chain...

I collected all the neutral colors I could find in my studio, all the variations of white glass:

pebbles in all the neutrals I could find:

1 -Vetrofond odd Belgian lace
2 -Vetrofond odd Seashell
3 -Effetre light ivory
4 -Effetre pearl grey
5 -Vetrofond Odd Pink Swirl
6 -Effetre Uranium yellow pastel
7 -Effetre avocado
8 -Effetre sage
9 -Reichenbach CoE94 Sahara
10 -Lauscha Milky Way
11 -Effetre Tongue pink
12 -Vetrofond Odd Ivory
13 -Effetre silver pink
14 -CiM Ginger
15 -Effetre pastel pink
16 -CiM Butter Pecan
17 -Reichenbach CoE 94 Champagne
18 -Effetre white (with stringer to the left) CoE 104
19 -Reichenbach CoE 94 Florence Opaque

In the end I didn't use no.7 and no.9, as their color was a little too pronounced. So I made a bunch of tiny beads...

pebbles

They will be pendants and brooches.

a delicate balance: WiP

07 September 2010

The Napjesdrager comes to life

(also on flickr)

Here it is, my Napjesdrager, in a long overdue (and just plain looong) post, from sketch to kiln-formed result! And quite picture-heavy, sorry about that.

Napjesdrager
I worked on this project for about a little more than 3 weeks in August, from sketch to finish although it had been sitting in my head at least since 2003! Ideas have their way with me, not wanting to leave and nagging me until I give in and (try to) realize them...

Back then I didn't have a clue about lampworking yet. I dreamt of stained glass windows in the style of C. L Tiffany, E. Burne-Jones and M. Chagall, and wondered how awesome it would be to mix the colors on the glass sheets themselves (instead of having to use existing colored and patterned sheets).

I had a 40x40cm transparent Effetre glass sheet that would be my canvas for the Napjesdrager, a face/mask with leaves. I wanted to include murrine and all sorts of lampworked elements like curvy/wavy stringers, marbles and pebbles and later on also stars and buds. As if the murrine were pointilist dots and the stringers the stroke of a brush.

Napjesdrager
Most traditional Green Men have fierce looks with their eyes and mouth wide open but I wanted my spirit to be a serene and contented one. More like a Green Buddha. And at night I had the help from a little moth fluttering all over its face! The book on the right is the "Geïllustreerde Flora van Nederland".

Napjesdrager
On a walk through the woods nearby (Ronse, where my studio's at, has lots! What luxury we have there...hiking trails practically starting at our front door!) I gathered leaves from all the napjesdragers I could find, and pressed them.

Napjesdrager
Filled the leaves with water color...

Napjesdrager
And decided to color the alder leaf (on its chin) purple, the same color it had turned after pressing and drying it.

Napjesdrager
I had made a bunch of murrine beforehand and seperated them by color. Each leaf has its own color code, and so began the time consuming work of placing each little bullseye or star design on their leaves. I took care not to place them too close to one another, so they had a bit of space to flow into when they were fused and so they would keep their round(-ish) form.

Napjesdrager
Some lampworked wheels and buds were needed, and of course I managed to drop & break one just before I glued it on. D'oh! You don't want to know how much I drop and break and lose in the studio (don't speak me of jumpy silver findings and precious stones! They seem to have plotted against me.). The speckled stone floor (you can see it in some of the photos below) doesn't help much either. So I swear a lot when I'm in there. That gives some relief. ;-)

Napjesdrager
The glue I use is just child-safe craft glue. It burns away in the kiln quite neatly, although there can be some devitrification with the smallest murrine.

napjesdrager WiP
Almost done with the leaves... Only one left to go! The murrine are on the small side, from about 1mm to 6mm diameter. Commercial murrine come typically in fixed sizes, but in pulling my own, my designs benefit more from the organic effect of variable sizes.

napjesdrager WiP
Phew, all done! Finally I could start on its eyes, mouth and stems (from bent and wavy stringers like the one of the left), and glue on the stars and buds.

napjesdrager WiP
Now what would I do with the background? I had pulled these bent stringers in colors I used for the murrine for a groovy 70's style vortexy thing, but discovered the leaves alone weren't strong enough to mark the face/mask. I had been rather hasty in designing the panel and had overlooked that tiny detail...oops.

napjesdrager WiP
So I decided to trace its face with cut glass rods. It made him a bit more alien and vaguely Humpty-Dumpty, but hey, I liked it. :-p

I tried out a more wall-papery background, but feared it would draw too much attention away from the fine murrine, so finally I decided on just a few stringers.

napjesdrager WiP
And so it looked before heading off to the kiln... Fusing would change the design profoundly and I was curious to see how the lampworked elements would take it.

And then it came back...







F^$#%§!!!!!

Napjesdrager


 Oh NoooOOOOOOOoooooo my baby it had cracked!!!

Was it compatibility? The heating schedule? Yeah, luckily it was just that. The cracks had happened early in the fusing process, you can tell because the rims of the cracks are rounded and have melted a little. So the temperature had raised too quickly. I had modified the schedule I used for the tiny squares, lowering the heating t° rate a bit (180°C/h) and soaking it longer in the annealing state, but apparently I should have lowered the heating rate drastically at probably 40°C/h.

My mistake.

But that isn't the end of the story. Yes, I'm an idiot for not checking the heating schedule any better, but overall for a first "big" fusing project it did go pretty well, and I now have a schedule I'm more confident in. It was an experiment, something I made just for me...and secretly I'm relieved it is imperfect now, so I don't have to sell it and can just keep it with me in the studio. It amuses me how attached I am to my projects! I can't part with them, although it wanes after a while, when new projects find their way in, but at first...I'm pretty possessive. LOL.

I'm looking if I can design a standard on which the bottom side can be mounted, and the top panels can be hung. Maybe a welded steel construction or so, if I can find someone who can do that.

Poor Napjesdrager...but also: that lopsided eye just gives it more character.  Not just serene, but a tough little bugger it is now! Being cracked and still smiling...

The Effetre sheet played nice (it is said to have compatibility issues and not really fit for kilnwork), all the different lampworked elements worked well and it gave me lots of techniques for future projects: maybe using just those curved and wavy stringers in an Art-Nouveau inspired panel, or a dazzling mosaic-like work with just the cut transparent rods, and of course, lots more projects with  murrine. It's like pointilism but even better, because I get to design the dots themselves...From far off it's just a colored form, but you can get closer and closer to discover the details.
On my to-do list for this year (my "good intentions") is creating letter murrine, so I can add text to the forms as well. So far I've made an "A". Well, it's a start. :-p

Next post I'm showing you some of the fused details of the Napjesdrager, who I feel is the first in a series of masks and guardians.