Remember me?

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind! My good friend Lindsey was married off, my cousin successfully chose a wedding gown and bridesmaids dresses, and I met metal clay guru Celie Fago and learned all about "Bronz Clay".

I spent 3 days in beautiful Bethel Vermont with the wonderfully talented and generous Celie and her (equally gifted) apprentice Jennifer Kahn. I shared my work table with two other bead shop owners! (Nicole of Not Simply Beads in Plymouth MA www.notsimplybeads.com, and Pat of Colorful Creations Bead Company in East Longmeadow MA www.colorfulcreationsbeadcompany.com). We were able to talk shop while we played with clay, so I've got all sorts of new ideas for the store and for classes. I've got to do more experimenting!

The bronze was pretty interesting. It's very similar to silver PMC, but different enough to make me glad I took the class. The firing schedule alone was well worth the trip. It's a tricky and imprecise process. A nine hour firing time! And the clay has to be buried in coal-based, acid-washed activated carbon (I don't know what that means either). This causes the bronze to come out of the kiln with a gorgeous rainbow patina. The colors come off if you brush the brass with a steel brush, but I didn't want to remove any of the effect! I did one little hydrangea leaf that came out the perfect shade of sage green. The other aspect of Bronze Clay (BC) that was hard for me to get used to, was the fact that you don't need to keep any of the filings! The stuff is CHEAP! There were pieces that broke, and rather than try to fix them, I just chucked them. GASP! Because the BC oxides so qucikly, trying to make a slip of the shavings would be a waste of time and engery. The oxidation renders the slip useless, and prevents the clay from adhering. It's much more difficult to attach two pieces of BC than it is with PMC. However, 300 grams of clay is a LOT OF CLAY! I felt the freedom to make things as big as I dreamed, and as much as I wanted. The first day, I felt frozen. I couldn't think of what to make. I wanted to conserve all this beautiful terra-cota colored clay and make some stunning show-stoppers. Then I realized the true volume I had to work with, and at that point went balls to the wall (by the way, that's not even a dirty expression. It comes from pilots; their controls have balls on the top of them, and when they are going full spead, the push the control (the "ball") to the furthest position (the "wall") hence "balls to the wall"...kinda like when I put my car into fifth gear...but I digress) By the time I'd used up all my clay, there was no room in the kiln to fire it! So now I've got to get all the equipment so I can fire it here. But I've got some fired/unfired pieces if you're curious to see them. I'll try to take pictures, but I've got a lot I want to try to do today, so we'll see if I get to that. What I noticed about the un-fired pieces since I brought them home, is that they've begun to oxidize somewhat, and they smell TERRIBLE! I'm not sure what that's all about. I swear it's not me.