Tory Hughes

New Brooches 10.2

admin — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 03:49:37 +0000

Winding things up here in my studio as final details for the Paradise City Arts Festival come together. Photos for you show an overview of work laid out for the Open Studio Party. Then brooches I haven’t posted here yet. Enjoy, and come by the show this weekend. Booth 207, PCAF, Northampton Mass. See you soon!

And part of my display table at the Open Studio this past Sunday.

Best to all, and see you soon!
Tory

New work 9.25

admin — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:39:13 +0000

Hello you all! My studio is a buzzing beehive of activity getting ready for Paradise City in two weeks. Today, rather than many brooches, here are three necklaces to show you. For everything you see here, there are ten new things that will be at the show. Come say hello, booth 207.
Paradise City Arts Festival~ Northampton Mass, Oct. 6, 7, and 8
Or! Come to my open studio Sunday September 30, from 4 – 7 pm, in Santa Fe.

This tribute to Polynesian plant life shows off mokume gane techniques. Papeete is Tahiti’s big city. Near Polynesia, you lucky creature? I’ll be teaching polymer in Australia next August and September. Variations on mokume, translucencies and other luscious approaches! Sign up now: please contact Roz Eberhard at the Sydney Jewellery School. For workshop information, please sign up for my newsletter, to the right of my blog.

And back to the fog-covered, sun-shimmering hills of San Francisco, for another SeaCliff necklace. San Francisco is the home of my heart, my imagination. The feel of the light bouncing off the ocean and bay, the vibrancy to the air, ahh.

SeaCliff is an ongoing series: in each, jointed elements hinge in layered translucent colors and iridescent textures. I’ll post explorations as I go along.

Congratulations to Bruce Pepich, director of RAM, who was selected as an ACC Honorary Fellow for his contributions and over 25 years of dedication to fine craft in America! Bruce was farsighted in establishing a major museum collection of polymer art at the Racine Art Museum, from which came the Terra Nova show and catalogue, and the Polymer Symposium last fall. RAM’s acknowledgement of the importance of polymer as an art medium will encourage and catalyze artists for years to come. Become a member of RAM- they are truly a wonder-filled museum.

One last note: whatever your affiliation:
>> Make sure you are registered to vote, and go do it!

See you soon, and more jewelry images to come your way in a few days. Best wishes for all your creative endeavours- Tory

New Work, 9.15

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:41:44 +0000

Fall has arrived in northern New Mexico. Nights are cold, and the fragrance of piñon and cedar smoke waft through the evening air. Days begin crisp, and warm up later – but with a forecast for heavy snowpack this winter and the aspens just beginning to turn on the mountains, we are ummer has finally relented and wandered off to the south.
Meanwhile, the Paradise City show coming up in three weeks has been consuming my waking moments. Having done so many shows earlier in my career, it’s a treat to get back in the groove of working for a show. Delightfully so. The Brooch Form possesses me at the moment. Here are a few current favorites-

Kailash 5 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 5.25″ x 1.” x .25″

Cygnii 5 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 1.5″ x 1.5″ x .25″

Cygnii 7 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold, crystal 2012 3.25″ x 1.25″ x .5″

SeaCliff 33 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, silver, crystal 2012 2.5″ x 2.25″ x .5″

Trio of Kilauea Brooches, polymer, acrylic 2012 approx. 3″ x 1.25″ x .25″

Cygnii 10, polymer, acrylic, gold, silver 2012 approx. 3.25″ x 1.” x .5″

Rigel 1, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 approx. 5.25″ x 1.25″ x .5″

Back to the studio. If you are in Santa Fe Sept. 30, please drop my my Open Studio Party to celebrate this body of work. Sorry, no sales, I need the work for the show the next weekend.

Lumeria: New Work, Summer 2012

admin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:12:40 +0000

As Santa Fe’s high season continues, and the blessed monsoons have come to cool and moisten the high desert, I’ve been getting deep into the creative process as I get work together for the Paradise City show in October.

Cygnii 1 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, glass 2012 3.25″ x 1 x .25″

The Aquarelle Collection is now named ‘Lumeria” and includes three new series of brooches and necklaces. New brooches from the series Cygnii, Kailash, and Kaulea are shown here.

Cygnii 2 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 1.5″ x 1.5″ x .25″

Cygnii is a series exploring light and iridescence directly. The name comes from a star.

Cygnii 3 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, 2012 1.5″ x 2″ x .25″mmmmmmmmmm

Cygnii 4 Brooch polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 3″ x 1″ x .25″

Kilauea 1 Brooch polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 2″ x 1.5″ x .25″

Kilauea 2 Brooch polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 2.25″ x 1.25″ x .25″
mmmmmmmmm

Kilauea is on the north shore of Kauai, Hawaii. Translucent depth and intention are my goal with these, and they are remarkably hard to photograph well. As are the Cygnii pieces.

Kilauea 3 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, silver 2012 3.25″ x 1 x .25″

Kilauea 4 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold, glass 2012 3.25″ x 1 x .25″

The last new series Is Kailash. A sense of potency, enigma, and pure form are what interests me in these. There are other references, feel free to add any guesses or comments below.

Kailash 2 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 2″ x 2.5″ x .25″

Kailash 3 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 3.25″ x .75 x .25″

Kailash 1 Brooch, polymer, acrylic, gold 2012 3″ x 1.75″ x .25″

I’m having a celebration of new work September 30, Sunday, from 4 – 7, to show those here all the work I will have ready for the show the next weekend. This is not an open studio, no retail will be happening. Rather this is an open house to share this body of work and much more with you. I’m looking forward to teaching you those sumptuous, exotic Trebizond Secrets, but Lumeria techniques will not be taught for quite a while. Come generate your own potent pieces instead. Best wishes to you from under the cottonwoods by the Santa Fe River- Tory

Tory’s Open Studio Shindig: July 28+29, and August 2, 3+4

admin — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:11:59 +0000

Hello all- You are invited!
It’s been very busy recently around my studio. Amidst the rest of the news, and lots of new work which I will post separately for you, I’d love the pleasure of your company at my open studios this weekend and next weekend. Dates and the studio location are on this invitation. Hope to see you, it will be great fun!

Secrets of Trebizond Revealed, part 1

admin — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:32:45 +0000

Special ArtRanch Missive for you

Over the next few months, master artisans from the hidden workshops of Trebizond will teach their esoteric polymer-lore to a few lucky people, here in Santa Fe in my studio. Bring lunch, everything else is included.

Image Me This 2

Image Transfers and Translucent Layering with Polymer Clays.
Particularly for 2-D artists, mixed-media and collage artists, and book artists.

A range of ways to transfer imagery onto polymer:

then adding these thin or thick elements to your work. Imagine your layered worlds, translucent pages shifting meaning and evocation as you embed imagery….

Polymer is very adaptable and versatile,

and can be shaped after an image has been applied. Hijinks Ensue.

THURSDAY, July 12

The ArtRanch Studio- 1519 Upper Canyon Road

9am to 3pm (to avoid the heat)

All materials included. Bring your lunch. $85

Amber Talismanic Containers

Learn to make a vessel of polymer amber with inlays of other recreated materials: a special container, a talisman for your own myths.

You’ll create a shape and surface that have meaning to you,

you’ll add other materials like glass, metal, perhaps feathers or fibers,

you may add texts inside or carve outside.
Richly embellished and relevant surfaces.

We’ll cover both the technical aspects of making a container, with feet and a lid:

and also finding and adding personal content to your art, in all senses of the word.

MONDAY, July 16

The ArtRanch Studio- 1519 Upper Canyon Road

9am to 4pm

All materials included. Bring your lunch. $120

Amber Talismanic Containers~Recreate amber, inlay with coral, turquoise, metal, and more. Infuse with meaning.
Monday July 16 10-5
$120 includes everything

Mythic Hinged Pendants

>> Uniquely-created pendants encode your hermetic tales of personal meaning and potency. Formerly, sages spent incense-infused hours determining your appropriate symbolism. Now, your personal participation in this creative process ensures that deep significance pulses from the pendants you wear. As the hinged sections move gently, their message whispers to you. You’ll marvel at the difference when you create your own myth…

Mythic Hinged Pendants:
Saturday June 23th, 10-4
$85 includes everything.

Recreating Imperial Jades

>> Entire villages of clever-fingered carvers and polishers dedicated themselves to creating unique jade pendants and bowls for the empress and imperial concubines. You can learn their unusual techniques and magically recreate your own royal jades, in glowing translucent colors of greens, teals and lavenders. Enrich your own imperial surroundings ~wear your jade beads back to the palace Sunday evening!

Recreating Imperial Jades
Sunday June 24th, 10-4
$80 includes everything.

Big Colorful Beads

>> From the sparkling sunkissed beaches at the farthest reaches of Trebizond’s trading realms, succulent tropical baubles of textural color arrive on long strands around the throats of dancers, singers and other joyous people. A special treat, the island artisans bring you techniques for spontaneous pattern play. Create your own paradisiacal color pallette and set of baubles, and dream of plumeria and wild ginger as you wear the colors of the islands.

Big Colorful Beads
Saturday July 7, 10-4
$80 includes everything

YinYang Creativity: 2nd Milagro Hacienda Retreat in October

admin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 01:40:58 +0000

Well hello you!

You’re invited to this year’s 2nd Annual Milagro Hacienda Creativity Retreat.

This year’s theme is YinYang::CreateGenerate.

Simply-

Jump into the heart of your artmaking.

Come back up with gold.

You know how you have these absolutely amazing ideas? and you can see them in your mind? but every time you try to get them out you can’t make it work, then you get sooooo frustrated? And doubt your idea? Have you perhaps gone through this more than once?

If you said yes, this retreat is for you.

We’ll focus on the core of your artmaking process.

And you’ll learn how to take your amazing ideas all the way into finished reality.

Create the idea. Generate the object.

After all, my dears, this is 2012. It’s time we go all the way, yes?

At the Milagro Hacienda this year, arrive with the most exciting yet frustrating ideas you currently have.

Leave with solid plans, and part or all of your piece finished.

I watched this happen with my most recent masterclass student. Her sudden leap into a new, brilliant, and decisively personal body of work was thrilling to see. Neither of us could have said what would happen, but I knew something amazing would appear. Not because of me, but because when you set your intention and follow your own path, your road will appear as you risk and rush into what is most important for you.

At the Milagro Hacienda, you’ll be in the heart of your creative process.

Dancing between practice and experiment, work and dream, concept and reality, black and white.

The heart of YinYang. Creativity endlessly ebbing and flowing from form to form.

Or, like Rumi put it, “God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box”.

Create the idea. Generate the art. The art leads to a new idea, the idea to new art.

Oh la!

Practical details:

• October 22-27, Monday morning to midday on Saturday.

• $1395 total fees, travel from the airport, most lunches and dinners.

• Housing: I’ll work with you to line up the right place for you, and you pay them directly.

• Limited class size: 8 people absolute max. Everyone gets room, time for power tools, space to hang things on the walls or from the ceiling.

• Held in Santa Fe at at my studio; short artist field trips one day.

• $500 holds your space. The remainder is due by September 29.

Send us a check:

1519 Upper Canyon Road, Santa Fe, 87501

Or pay with Paypal.

Please contact me with questions: victoria@toryhughes.com

ps: The NeoYinYang brooch above is from my VR series, an evolving series of pieces for a very specific client. I approached this work with the concepts I’ll share with you at the Hacienda, for the process and the results.

pps: if you’re really stuck, but know there’s good art in you just yearning to see the light of day, then work with me individually.

The first half-hour is free. We get to know each other and make sure we fit.

Schedule one with me now: email me victoria@toryhughes.com to set a time.

And all best wishes to you, as you create your own life!

Tory

Treasure Necklaces, Dancing, and You!

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:58:00 +0000

Ha! Artists live longer with clearer minds: just get out there and dance! This recent article from Stanford, based on a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, writes that

“Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter. A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one’s mind can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing also increases cognitive acuity at all ages.

The table of figures in the article listed these tested activities against a reduction in your mind’s acuity
“Bicycling and swimming – 0%
Playing golf – 0%
Reading – 35%
Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week – 47%
Dancing frequently – 76%.”

When I get involved in intricate stringing in a necklace, like this newest Treasure Necklace, “Peruvian Spring”, developing those intriguing and always-changing patterns of beads has always felt like puzzle-solving. I love crossword puzzles, especially those fiendish cryptic styles. And since I’m very kinesthetic, making these necklaces has always felt like I was dancing back and forth across the curves of the necklace, improvising patterns and establishing unexpected relationships between colors, textures and shapes. Balance, move, adjust, add, balance, turn, and on and on. Of course my feet are not so involved, but the rest of my body and mind is, and benefits as a result.

My dear artist-pal and dreamer Victoria Rabinowe got me dancing again- it’s brought great joy back into my life. Bead artist Babette Cox gave me her gorgeous silver-enhanced lampworked bead for this necklace.

So why are you sitting here reading this? Go dancing!

Afterwards, come to my jewelry trunk show this weekend, where this brand-new sweetie and others will be available for you.

I’ll have new and special things in my studio that will not be on my gallery shop, so remember, 12-5 Saturday and Sunday if you’re local.

Mambo-ing for good luck, healthy minds, and creative lives for all of us-
Tory

Come visit my Jewelry Open Studio May 26+27

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:47:16 +0000

Hello all-
You’re invited to my jewelry trunk show this weekend!
Saturday and Sunday May 26+27, from noon to 5pm

Showing at my studio:
• Stunning, shimmering necklaces that arc and move.
• Luminous contemporary brooches.
• Evocative hinged pendants redolent of ancient cultures.
• Witty, engaging postage-stamp brooches.
• Colorful, playful beaded necklaces.
I’ll also be selling objects, vessels and artists’ books.

Summer’s Day Jewelry Show and Open Studios

Saturday and Sunday, May 26 and 27, from 12 noon to 5pm

1519 Upper Canyon Road, Santa Fe

Visit our leafy oasis and art complex,
and take time to chat with us and see what inspires us.
Shop for jewelry and objects
that express your personal style.

Bring your friends and have a day out.
There’ll be cool refreshments and bonbons; please carpool if you can.
Please join us under the cottonwoods for a magical summer day!

Tory

A Little Bookishness: Presentation, March 3

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:34:37 +0000

Come join me-
> On Saturday, March 3, I’m presenting my work in book arts and polymer/mixed media in a free two-hour meeting of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group – BAG. My polymer books recently returned from a four-month show at the Racine Art Museum, part of my work featured in “Terra Nova- Polymer Art at the Crossroads”.

> On March 17 and 18, I’ll be teaching two different one-day classes:
- ‘Image Me This’, phototransfers and polymer for book arts, Mar. 17
- ‘Antiqued Surfaces and Dimensional Elements’ in polymer and mixed media, for book arts. Mar.18
Both these classes are limited to 8 people, so there will be lots of space and attention for each participant.
Details on the presentation and on the workshops below:

Presentation ‘A Little Bookishness’: Tory Hughes Artists’ Books
1pm Saturday Mar. 3 Free presentation at the BAG meeting.
Santa Fe Community College Board Room
Presentation and slide show with examples and objects
contact Helen Baldridge wsbaldridge@comcast.net

One-day Workshops in Polymer for Book Arts

“Image Me This”
phototransfer processes in polymer, for books, postcards and other flat surfaces
Saturday March 17, 10-4
Tory’s studio: 1519 Upper Canyon Road, 28, Santa Fe
$75, includes everything.
Please pre-register and pay me to confirm your spot in this workshop

here- Joss Postcard: phototransfers. below- turquoise RedBook

“Antiqued Surfaces and Dimensional Elements”
patinas, embossings, antiquing,
making and using molds, and more, in polymer
Sunday March 18, 10-4
Tory’s studio: 1519 Upper Canyon Road, 28, Santa Fe
$75, includes everything.
Please pre-register and pay me to confirm your spot in this workshop

Questions? Email me at victoria@toryhughes. com.
Call me at 505-301-9142.

To register for classes, you can sign up at my presentation on Saturday, or email me.
Looking forward to seeing you, Tory