Chardonnay/Beer/Champagne

This posting is mostly for those people on FB that were asking how this project was proceeding.
Facebook was not playing nicely with me when it came to uploading images so I have chosen to present them in this format which seems to always work.

Encaustics are intriguing to me. I used to do off hand blown glass and just love messing with hot stuff. So the idea of making a mark and then floating that mark around inside molten translucent strata gets a gold star on the refrigerator in my book. I am a rank beginner in this art form and I make no inference here that I know what I am doing. But my loving the challenge so far. So here goes...

In this first image the cradle (24 X 18) is made of birch door skin and some old growth fir for stretchers in the back. The board has been heated and then primed with beeswax and then cover with a white wax medium to give me a clean smooth surface to start. I have then inscribed the surface with a stylus to cut in the bottle silhouettes. I then used an oil paint stick to force a pigment into the recessed incised lines. This is then heated with a heat gun to trap the pigment in the wax strata.

The next image shows the colors that have been added bit by bit and layer by layer. There is a fusing process that follows each application of wax. In essences you heat each layer and addition of wax to melt it into the surface below it. I have chosen to get everything a little extra hot which causes a “water color” effect. Although I'm sure a water colorist might take offense with that comparison.

In this last image the fused glass panels were made of old broken bottles that were then laid out in a borrowed kiln into rectangles and fused together. This was a very open arrangement and it has lots of open space between the individual pieces. The bottles were loosely grouped as chardonnay wine bottles, brown and green beer bottles and champagne bottles...hence the working title, Chardonnay/Beer/Champagne.

My plan is to next wire the glass panels in place with a soft copper wire. Much like the neon tubing gets wired onto an outdoor electrical display sign. And then a simple flat or semi-flat black frame.

The Tree Pendent

I must admit that we have a fond place in our hearts for the rocks and pebbles that litter the shore lines of the Olympic Peninsula. There is an outdoor work table in the side yard that seems to stay covered with the bounty of our last trip to the beach.

This is the beings of a new steel garden piece. As it was evolving I began to realize that it was just a big...really big... piece of jewelry. In any case, I have decided that it was okay. And so I have re-categorized it as a “tree pendent”. I plan on putting a chain on it in the next few days. But for now I wanted to post it here to document it's start. You see it here laid out on the floor so I can figure out just where the support posts go to hold the beach rocks in place. It still has all the spot welds and forging marks unfinished on it. If you look close you can see where the rocks are numbered with soap stone so I can put the darn thing back together later.

The moment that I realized that it was jewelry was when I went to the trouble of welding the insert...all the twists and spirals, into the frame using plug welds from the sides. This is a clever technique I picked up from working with James Wallace aka “Wally” at the National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, TN. It makes for very clean, neat and very beefy connections which are easily hidden. It is off to the sand blasters for now. I am really looking forward to seeing the “Tree Pendent” completed and gracing the red maple just outside of the studio and smithy.

Black n Tan

This was a piece made for a show called “Small Works Show” which was sponsored by the Blue Whole gallery here in Sequim, Washington. There has been considerable attention in the local art scene focused on the environment. “Black n Tan” uses a background of “re-purposed” corrugated cardboard. I glued up sections of the material and then cut that into strips, cut those into cubes and glued up the entire sheet. The pink material is copper and the silver color is aluminum. Ah... aluminum the “non metal” metal; I have always avoided it like a bad in-law. But it was recycled as well so it seemed appropriate to use it here. I can not recommend that everyone stop what they are doing and try aluminum out. So far I have found it best used in beverage cans, ladders, small boats and street signs.


There is one element of this piece that can be removed and worn as a pendant. On a triple cord it comes off as a necktie look. The cord is stored in the back of the wall piece. As a post script it might be noted that this piece caused comment because it was hung as a diamond among a wall where everything else was at ninety degrees. I took it down. It's venue will be elsewhere.

A Musical Sweep Pin

I have forgotten just how much fun designing pins and broaches can be. The broach designer doesn't have nearly the functional restrictions that the ring designer has. I guess one could nearly do “anything” and then put a pin back finding on it and call it a broach.

This piece was a commissioned by a gentleman in Port Townsend, Washington. He had found this very singular piece of “turtle back rock” while beach combing. The way the matrix fades from top to bottom really fascinated him. He asked me to make a broach for his wife using textured sterling and maybe some moonstone pebbles. I added a dot of blue topaz to help “punch” up the blue in the moonstone. The “sweep” that the moonstone is mounted onto is made of classical sterling while the rest of the piece is made of argentium sterling. The classical sterling takes a dark patina much more dramatically than the argentium and I needed the darkness to make the “play of color” come out in the moonstone.

I'm afraid that I my training in art school was a bit formal and as such nearly all my pieces start as a drawing. As my undergraduate professor C.James Meyer put so bluntly many a time, the most valuable tool any artist has is the ability to draw.

And I have to confess that through the years...knowing where you are trying to go... is a big advantage to bumping along in the dark. Here to the right are some of the final sketchs I made before starting this project in metal.

"and water cuts rock revisited"

This is the latest in the “and water cuts rock” series. It features a beach pebble that the people in Joyce, Washington call the “chrysanthemum rock”. I like the way the baroque pearls set off the irregularity of the beach rocks. This series has a special meaning for me (see older posts) and I am always thrilled when I see a rock tumbling along in the surf that seems a good candidate.

I do remember the moment I found this particular piece. I was so busy chasing it as it scurried back towards the surf in the receding wave that I broke a cardinal rule of walking in the surf zone. Never turn your back on the ocean. The next wave cut my feet out from under me and I took a good spill into the swirling icy foam. By the time I regained my footing Mama Pacific had reclaimed my bucket, sunglasses, walking stick and a good measure of dignity.

As I picked myself up and took stock of what had just happened I realized that I still had that little piece of “chrysanthemum rock” clutched in my fist. I slowly backed away towards dry land with the chuckling sound of the ocean slowly being replaced by the chorus of laughter from my friends on the warm sandy beach. Pat, Debbie and my buddy Ed said it was one of the funniest stunts I had pulled off yet…a one half turn with a nose plant finish.

Who is "Solarsally"?

I have a 1957 Chevy pickup that my two boys Matt and Chris and myself have worked on for about 18 years now. There is always one thing or another to be done on the old girl but she just keeps on “keeping on”. We have spent many a night sleeping in her bed starring up at the stars with hot rocks from the fire wrapped in an old army blanket at our feet. We visited oh so many subjects talking about one thing or another, as the nights would wear on.

Originally she was called “Sally Greene”. The truck was from Eagle Rock, MO and was a deep powdery forest green. Sally was my grandmother’s name and the truck was green. We decided to use the extra “e” because…well…we could. Our fishing trips were often recorded in her flanks with one dent or another. Then the weekend after would be one of repair and repaint. Layer after layer the summers would wear on. Then one day came the inevitable…the engine rebuild.

Sally Greene had her engine rebuilt during a solar eclipse and that was not an "event slash coincidence" to go un-noted. So after she came back out of the shop…we repainted her and started treating her slightly better. Now she sports a flashy (almost tawdry) turquoise color and a very shiny finish, but make no mistake, this is still a lady o' the woods. She continued to made all of our fishing trips…but now we tried to find a kinder way to get her to the water’s edge. She became “Solarsally”, a true lady of the back roads and byways of Arkansas and Tennessee.




Today Solarsally lives in Washington State and this was her day to get a new rebuilt starter. She had a new clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing, and re-surfaced flywheel last week. I tossed in a set of new rear view mirrors and sound deadening pads. Oh sweet joy…she is purring like a kitten in warm arms. Albeit I have the busted knuckles to testify to the events I still love every moment I’m in this old truck.

" Wave Length " A new piece.

This is a new piece that I just finished yesterday for the Sequim Arts Small Art Show. To qualify as small art the piece had to be 8” by 10” or smaller. I used an 8” X 8” square format turned as a diamond. I have recently been doing some research into the South Seas Stick Charts used by some Polynesian sailors. You can see some of that influence here in this piece I have named “Wave Length”.

I have used fir for the wooden parts. I severely stressed the soft summer grain with a sand blaster in the first “wave”. The second wave of wood has been gold leafed with a pine colored sizing in the background. While the third wave is a sheet of raised copper with a bit of the sawdust sprinkled onto the patina while it was still wet. This third wave is set with a “Tri-arc” broach with a black beach rock. The broach is removed and borrowed for your personal adornment and then returned to it’s “home” after you are through wearing it.

The idea of making a special environment for some of these jewelry pieces came from watching an individual literally throw jewelry into a cigar box when she was finished wearing a piece. Having spent a great deal of time and effort into conceiving and building the pieces, I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed at this on-going activity. So the idea of expanding the jewelry into a larger physical unit came into being.

I love the opportunity to continue an idea into a larger format and still keep some of the classical definition and criteria of the jewelry intact. Anyway…it was fun and quick exercise.