Crafting an Artful Life

The Blog Has Moved to My New Site!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 May 2017 15:39:00 +0000

My new website is up after months of work, and my blog posts are now accessible from there. Please check it out and read the latest post there.

Meta-Schadenfreude

For Mothers Day today, my son gave me a gift certificate from my favorite garden store, my husband gave me AirPods, and a hacker group in Turkey hijacked my brand new website. (Rest assured! No evidence of hacking anyone's data on the site but mine.) Instead of enjoying my garden with my AirPods in my ears, I spent more than half the day trying to fix the website problem with no luck. After 25 hours of waiting on tech support, I finally figured out how to fix it myself in less than 20 minutes. [read more...]

Shoes and Self Consciousness

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Rio Grande has recently released a video on my Eastern Repousse Tool Sets that we filmed when I was there teaching last January. It's exciting to see it out there on YouTube at long last since this is a topic we've wanted to feature for a long time. As with all things Rio, everyone I worked with was exceptionally professional, helpful, and just plain fun to be around. Good workshop hosts are like that; they make it easy for me to do my job, so I can make it easy for the students to learn a whole bunch of new and challenging stuff. I'm extremely fortunate to travel and teach lots of places that do just that.

People I meet, who've seen me on screen first, tend to be very complimentary of my video work. I, however, always see it differently, especially that very first viewing. I come from a wildly perfectionistic and hyper-critical family. I'm also a woman, and, whether by nature or social conditioning, I worry about the visible effect gravity has on my face or how gray my bangs are getting. Inevitably on seeing the final edited results, a series of more personal questions and comments fly through my head at the same time I'm obsessing about whether I adequately conveyed all the technical information. Usually the personal questions in my head begin with something like "Why does my lipstick look so orange?" Quickly followed by "Holy cow I sound so Southern!!! I was trying so hard to speak clearly, but daaayum!"

Invariably my husband will say something genuine and kind like "You look beautiful, and you don't sound Southern."

My response is usually, "No offense, but you sound way more Southern than me, so your saying I don't sound Sothern is a relative commentary. You really think I looked ok?"

"Yes."

"Ok, I'll believe that part because you do have good taste."

During set up for the video at Rio Grande, we all discovered our shoes squeaked slightly on the floor, so the crew and I shot the whole thing in our sock feet. Such things can add to feeling silly and self conscious in front of the camera, or behind it for that matter. It's far better than finding out months later than the footage looks great, but there's this odd high pitched noise that cannot be digitally removed. The added goofiness to the shoot also probably contributed to my "handler" Yvonne calling me a Muppet. (She's correct.)

Lilah & me in the studio - Lilah is sporting her non-skid
dog socks that help an aging pup cope with hardwood floors

Working in sock feet is actually normal for me since at home we don't wear shoes inside our house. It helps keep the pollen and horrendous Atlanta pollution from getting in our lungs and aggrevating our allergies and asthma. It's also a great way for new guests to wonder if we're Muslim and they didn't know, or perhaps secretly Japanese, or to confirm what they've suspected, that we're just "weird." Our friend, Bill recently spent all his time at our house on the front porch or just inside the front door in the shoe removal zone, simply to avoid having to deal with his shoelaces. I've known Bill since I was 10, so my weird factor was nothing new to him.

Wearing shoes in other people's houses is weird for me. Upon entering the first time, I look for signs like shoe racks by the front door and pay attention to my host's footwear. Sometimes I just plain ask. It's a relief when I find out the house rules include shoe removal. When the custom is to keep them on I feel like a bulldozer in stylish boots. I think of the places I've worn those boots, the airports and hospitals, and I realize I'm brining the scum and particulates of the ages into someone's sacred space. Eeeew.

Little known fun fact: all of the vidoes shot in my studio at home were done in fuzzy slippers or barefoot, depending on the season. Perhaps being barefoot is why I sound slightly Southern. Before anyone asks the question posed to newscasters, yes, we were all wearing pants.

Us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 02:20:00 +0000

Life has been exceptionally rough lately. The thing I have dreaded for decades is happening: my godmother Bobbie, my chief artist inspiration, is dying. I can best describe her as an expressionist painter and sculptor, a folksier, heavy set Georgia O'Keefe with a long white braid and always wearing a hat, and a woman who embodies the concept of undconditional love. For over 60 years she has lived in an integrated neighborhood in the South where everyone is welcome, and I mean everyone. For Bobbie there is only the concept of us and no concept of other.

For weeks I have been sandwiching in day and overnight trips whenever possible to be with her for whatever last moments we can have together. As I scrambled to pack editing and administrative work I could do at Bobbie's bedside while she slept, my son informed me of the protests by and in support of immigrants on Thursday. Only a few people seem to see my work deeply enough to understand the gender, and therefore political, issues it often encompasses, which leaves me feeling somewhat powerless to make a significant difference in the world's dysfunction.

I contacted my office manager Celina, and we formed a plan to shut things down for the day in recognition of our team's own immigrant ancestors. Out went the email blast letting people know along with an auto-responder on the main email accounts. The million logistical things that have to happen to get my art, tools, and videos out into the world, the logistics of all the big projects, the bookkeeping, the inventory management, the website, the constant planning and communicating for teaching workshops and creating commissions would all wait one more day. Bobbie was not coherent enough for me to explain what I'd done, but I knew she would be proud.

A few things: (Please read thoroughly before commenting.)

To everyone who is Native American: this last thing I would mean to be is disrespectful or uninclusive! I hope my small protest was taken in the larger spirit it was intended.

To everyone who sent emails of solidarity and appreciation: Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! I was not expecting that. At one point I forgot I wasn't working, and my stress compulsion to check email kicked in and was met with so much kindness in my inbox!

To those who felt compelled to email me the legal status of and assimilation by their families and ancestors: I do not work for INS or ICE.

Behavior can be legal or illegal, but people, wherever they start out life, can only be people.

Prior to the 1920's people could get on a boat in one country, eagerly, reluctantly, or kidnaped and in chains, get off over here, and most were able to stay. Claiming the "legality" of European and Middle Eastern ancestors who immigrated to the US before then carries no actual "legal immigrant" meaning.

In 1882, the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, making it illegal for most people from China to become US citizens. This law was not fully replealed until 1943.

Unemployment remains at the exceptionally low percentage, achieved during the previous Administration's efforts to get it there.

Making art full time requires being a small business owner, which means I have to buy my own health insurance. If you feel I should not have that right to buy it, don't expect my website and Pinterest board to be your source of inspiration. My family has to eat too.

If any of this sparks an argument in your brain, you might want to consider this link.

At this point in the study of human migration, Human DNA tells us we ALL hail from East Africa. Whether by necessity, choice, or force, people have been moving around for a very long time. In my big picture view that really does make all of us immigrants.

Bobbie taught me that people are people and deserve to be treated with kindness, compassion, and dignity to the best of our ability. She taught me that we can think and be discerning without being judgemental. Anything less is unthinkable.

Women Versus the Gatekeepers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 22:31:00 +0000

When I was a kid, the first thing I ever wanted to be was an astrounaut. Well, technically, the first thing I wanted to be was a cat, but when, at the age of 2, I ordered "French fries and Little Friskies" at a restaurant, my parents freaked out, and my feline dreams fell aside. When I stopped walking around on all fours, I started looking up and discovered the whole world was looking up at this point in history. I have a freak memory that goes all the way back to my first birthday, so remembering the first moon landing, isn't too much of a stretch.

As soon as I was big enough to swing by myself without being pushed by an adult, I would spend all the daylight hours when the moon was visible, swinging and staring at it. I wanted to go. Not like every kid thinks it's cool to be a fireman kind of want to go. I seriously, desperately wanted to go. I didn't tell anyone. I'd learned what happened when I let on about the cat thing, so the astronaut thing was a total secret.

photo courtesy of NASA

By the second moon landing, I was paying close attention. If I was going to go there someday, I figured I needed to know how one sets about becoming an astronaut. I knew better than to ask. I asked my father what those big boxes on the astronauts' backs were, and he told me they were filled with medicine. I later supposed that explaining the concept of bottled oxygen to a child was up there with explaining why the sky was blue, and he didn't want to bother. At the time I wondered how going to the moon could make someone so sick he'd need to carry half a drug store on his back.

I had noticed something else about the moon walkers. They were all men. The news reports sang their glory as military men and fighter pilots. So this was how one got to be an astronaut. But I didn't want to be a fighter pilot. And I sure didn't want to be a man. The men in my family seemed to know a lot, but they never seemed to be as clever as the women, and they had to wear ties. I thought ties were stupid.

Mae Jemison -
physician, professor,
astronaut

I went back to swinging and staring at the moon, wishing it were possible for me to go but not really seeing how that would play out if I was dead set against being a fighter pilot. By the age of seven I was thoroughly discouraged. Perhaps I should have told someone my dream, but I can't imagine anyone would have said what I needed to hear, that one day NASA would send up scientists not just fighter pilots, that one day women would be astronauts too.

I grew up in a world that was falling apart at the same time there seemed some hope of it coming together. Walter Kronkite's nightly body count in Viet Nam, war protestors, civil rights activists, and bra burners were all over my television, but I was afraid to ask about any of it. By the time I became aware of the world around me, middle class, white people were mostly sick of talking about what was wrong and seemed to want it to work itself out without any more effort on their part.

Katherine Johnson, the mathematician who

did the calculations for the first actual

moon landing in 1969

What I did hear talk of was Women's Lib. I heard it as a derogatory term, said in the exaggerated way people say things when they are suggesting other people are exaggerating the importance of something. I heard people droning on about the pros and cons of allowing women to do jobs they hadn't done before.

Allowing.

Who's in charge of that?

My mother worked, and I knew her monther had worked until she had kids, and my great-grandmother worked most of her life. I knew the men my mother had to deal with were often jerks to her, but they also didn't seem nearly as intelligent as she was, so I couldn't understand why she cared.

I had one concrete clue that it was ok to be me and still be what I want.

Voice of the Mummy, my favorite board game in the 1970's

The board game that ultimately made me become a metalsmith had another profound effect. In Voice of the Mummy, one moved one's cardboard Egyptologist around the board, collecting gems, and listening to the whim's of the Pharaoh's voice from the plastic sarcophagus encased record player on top. Two of the cardboard Egyptologists were men, and two of them were women. Women could be Egyptologists!

I had a plan, albeit one that took a big detour.

What gatekeeper had let that gender freedom slip through the game design?!?

photo courtesy of NASA

The problem with gatekeepers is that they filter out vital information that people need to know. Traditional gatekeepers may have gone the way of record label executives; CNN may be forced to follow and substantiate the Twitterverse (it would seem that Fox News hasn't figured this out yet), but our media channels, be they TV or social, still filter for us. They do so partly because no one could possibly take in the vast amount of new information released at any given moment and partly, perhaps mostly, because they still deal in what sells. Unfortunately, what sells is still a rather narrow view in the world.

The reality was that women Egyptologists are real, and had been a reality since the early days of Egyptology being regarded as a legitimate field of study. The letters between Caroline Ransome Williams and Howard Carter bear out the regard in which Williams was held. Her book, Gold and Silver Jewelry and Related Objects, though sadly long out of print and never republished, is the foundation for much research into the techniques of Bronze Age metalsmithing and referenced today by experts like Jack Ogden.

Vera Rubin, American astronomer who established the
presence of dark matter in galaxies, measures spectra
in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of Vera Rubin via amnh.org

Decades after my dream of being an astronaut, the women who made it possible for anyone to go to the moon are coming to light. I first learned of Vera Rubin from watching Stephen Hawking's Universe in the late 1990's. Rubin established the existence of dark matter. I thought, however, that she was alone as a pioneering female astronomer. In the recent series of Cosmos hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson I Iearned of Annie Jump Cannon, who developed the stellar classification system and Celia Payne, who was able to determine the composition and temperatures of stars based on Cannon's work. Through Maria Popova's Brain Pickings I have found Maria Mitchell.

Saturn's rings, photo courtesy of NASA

For 100 years, school kids have learned about Marie Currie as some kind of freak exception to a man's world. A little digging in most any field, however, and you will find the women whose contributions have been glossed over or written out completely. Hildeguard Von Bingen, Camille Claudel, Elizibeth Vigee-LeBrun, Rosalind Franklin, and many many others. A recent edition of Metalsmith magazine has a whole article on women jewelers of the Art Nouveau period. We buy into this idea that throughout history men did all the worthwhile work, and women stayed home and raised families. (The stupidity of any statement containing the term worthwhile versus the term stayed at home is a whole other essay.)

Actually, we've been here all along doing exceedingly worthwhile things.

May all the children starring at the sky from their swings know this.

Creating Your Own Reality with a Purple Crayon

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 16:11:00 +0000

My "recent acquisitions" stack next to my
bench; Orion welder to the lower right;
one of my godmother, Bobbie Crow's
Tornado series paintings in the upper right

I remember in elementary school, the awe and anticipation tinged with uncertainty as the teachers would pass out the Scholastic Books printed forms from which to choose books. I remember wondering how books came to be on the forms. Who got to choose them? Are these books on the list all there are? The only ones for sale? The books were by grade reading level. I had to choose them based on the titles alone. I think maybe my mother had a say in my selection. I seem to remember her saying I couldn't order every single title. The choices were blind, tough. I'd wonder if I picked the right things or if I might be missing out on what I didn't select.

Eons later, maybe two to three weeks, the books would show up at school. They were bundled with rubber bands. No boxes. No bags. Most of them were paperbacks. Most of them were in color. My bundle would be handed to me by a teacher. They went alphabetically, and though, if by last name, I've always been midway through the alphabet, it took eons more for my bundle to be placed in my hands.

Studio Wild Thing

This was the moment. This was when I would find out if the titles I picked on the form were really portals into hidden worlds or if they were duds. Somehow they were never duds. - In retrospect, I believe the forms were mostly lists of Caldecott award winners. - Where the Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Frog and Toad, Bread and Jam for Frances...Scholastic Books were my tickets to other worlds of vividly colored imagination, where the main characters created their own realities out of sheer determination...and the occasional purple crayon.

It wasn't until I was reading Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech for the Newberry Medal, recently published in The View from the Cheap Seats that I realized how profoundly receiving those rubber band bundled paperbacks was an event that I still seek to relive. Gaiman was speaking in favor of libraries and their crucial role in helping kids develop. - Reading his book made me realize I ought to venture into the Fulton-Atlanta Public Library System to borrow Kindle books. I could read even more stuff!

Lilah's new interest in Egyptology during

last summer's overhaul of my studio

Truth be told though, as a kid, libraries completely intimidated me. It always seemed that in order to find the best books, you had to deal with adults, and I would do just about anything to avoid dealing with adults. They were endlessly patronizing and said stupid thoughtless things to me. I was always the smallest in my grade. My mother made me wear my hair in pigtails with nauseatingly cute outfits. - There were no baby Stevie Nicks clothes in the 1960s and 1970's, so I never quite felt that I got to be me when I left the house. - Everyone always thought I was at least 2 years younger than I was, so the patronizing baby talk was even more insulting to my precocious mind. Did they not realize I would be reading these books to myself, that they needed to be colorful, fanciful, and all encompassing for my escape from the world of these same clueless adults?

My cuff, Inspiraled, in Brandon Holschuh's

The Jeweler's Studio Handbook

on the shelf at my local Barnes & Nobel

No, they did not, so I didn't beg to go to the library much when I was a young child. Later I would beg because they had computers but not because of the books. The bundles of Scholastic books were critically important because they were sacred, seemingly nearly bereft of adult interference, and they were mine forever.

These same books have moved hundreds of miles with me over the years and now sit proudly on my son's bookshelves. Reading them to him is among my fondest memories as a parent. Even though he is a teenager now, he stil understands the vital importance of Harold and of Frog and Toad, whose life lessons many American narcissists would do well to embrace. The Wild Things sit on my studio shelf. My son did not favor the monsters as I do, preferring instead Maurice Sendak's character Mickey, a little boy to whom he could better relate. After all these years, I can still sing most of A Aligators All Around set to Carole King's melody since I was requested to sing it every day for several years.

Thrilled to be on the shelf at the Strand Book Store in NYC

As a child I escaped into books, music, and making things. I thought I was biding my time until I could be an adult and make a world for myself. Ironically, as an adult I am no different except that now my escape includes recreating those childhood portals to a world better imagined. The thrill of the rubber banded Scholastic book bundles has been replaced over and over by shipments from Amazon and Edward R. Hamilton.

I can still find the books I love best by choosing titles and covers with little more info than the Scholastic forms held. When I rip the cardboard boxes open, I am again 7 years old, hoping for Wild Things and ways to shape my own destiny through other people's shared ideas. Rarely am I disappointed. The books are mostly about art

and fine craft, occasionally about Egyptology. They are stil mostly full of color images.

Best of all are the rare trips to bookstores like Strand Book Store in NYC because then I am inside the list on the form. The gatekeepers are a bit more removed, and I can flip through every spine or cover that calls out to me. I can even find my own artwork on these shelves. I don't usually create beautifully drawn monsters, but maybe I've succeeded just a little in making my own world.

My one of a kind book, The Falcon, featured in
500 Handmade Books on the shelf at
the Strand Book Store in NYC

Starfish and Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 May 2016 01:51:00 +0000

Catch a Falling Starfish

Granulation and Russian Filigree earrings

Sterling, fine silver, 14k gold accents

I was deeply saddened when David Bowie died earlier this year and thought nostalgically of the many hours I spent listening and dancing to his album, Let's Dance, in the 80's. The day I learned of Prince's untimely death, I got the wind knocked out of me. In recent years I've been less likely to listen to Purple Rain than to Bowie's "Cat People" or "Suffragette City" with my son, an avid Bowie fan. Still, if there is one musician that shaped my transitional teen years, it's definitely Prince.

Long brocade coats, asymmetrical hairstyles, one long earring, lots of black eye liner, Prince and the Revolution was the look to which I aspired in the 80's. It's a wonder my copies of 1999 and the 12" single of "I Would Die 4 You" / "Erotic City" aren't completely worn out. One of my prized possessions is a special edition, purple, vinyl 45 of "When Doves Cry." I had Prince's butt cleavage sporting poster from the 1999 album on my bedroom door, much to my mother's complete horror. Prince even inspired an ongoing theme in my current work for over a decade but for different reasons.

Waving Starfish

Ancient style wax seal ring

Sterling, 18k gold & sterling bi-metal

size 6-1/2

Starfish XII

Granulation ring

18k gold, 22k gold, sterling, blue zircon

size 7-1/2; 7/8” x 3/4" x 3/4"

It's no secret that I'm also a die hard fan of Jim Henson's work. I was skeptical in the late 90's when his son, Brian relaunched the old show as Muppets Tonight, as skeptical as I was when Disney recently launched Muppet Studios. Leave it to Kermit and crew to always come through.

The episode of Muppets Tonight with the then known The Artist Formerly Known as Prince is one of the very best. Muppets in Purple Rain gear, it doesn't get any funnier than that...until Prince gets off the elevator to meet them, and he looks like an average Joe in a letter sweater. It's his skit about how he can create songs about anything that is the consummate answer to that stupid question most artists hate, "Where do you get your ideas?"

The idea that you could create song lyrics out of menu items speaks to the point that creative people see ideas anywhere. Put the setting in a Muppet commissary and things get a little zany. - Were they purposely referencing Monty Python's Spam sketch? Who knows. - I picture Muppets Tonight writers brainstorming a skit about how you can write music about anything. Life imitating art imitating life. Colorful, texturally fascinating, and always goofy puppets surrounding a rock star, known for his relentless pursuit of excellence, talking about eating starfish with coffee.

That's the real genius of any artist, to imagine something no one else has or would and then birth it into being, really, really well. This is the kind of absurdly out-of-the-box creativity I spend my life pursuing in all types of media.

Screwing up in Style: Why Perfect Doesn’t Always Win

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 23:23:00 +0000

Ok, yes, I admit it: I have a little problem with perfectionism. In fact, sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I realize I’m berating myself for not having a better handle on my perfectionism problem.

Ring shank chasing in progress
(before the melt down)

The good news is that my determination for things to always work pushes my creative problem solving skills to their max. Truth be told, it’s the creative problem solving that keeps me working in metal. I can bring a drawing or a collage back from the edge of the trash can, but the feeling of doing so is not nearly as satisfying as the mechanical workings of turning a half melted mess into something that looks, if not perfect, very professional.

Yesterday I pulled a chased ring shank out of the pickle and grabbed my optivisor to see what the gunk was all over 1/4 of the band. It wasn’t gunk; it was tiny reticulation where my delicate chased scrollwork pattern had been hours before.

This is what happens when I spend more hours answering email that I spend at the bench and what happens when all my bench time has centered around etching and forging. It’s also what happens when I go from soldering with the last whisper of acetylene to a new tank that did not need the pressure regulator up quite so high. I threw the shank on a jeweler’s anvil and grabbed my tiny line tool and Fretz 417 hammer and began putting the scrollwork back. I didn’t berate my mistake, but I may have sighed at how long some things take me. Stay tuned for the finished ring later.

Today I was painting my newly upgraded master bathroom. - It was add on 80’s with a prefab fiberglass shower and is now gorgeous art deco tile and plaster. - Ella Fiztgerald was blaring out my bluetooth speaker, reminding me that some of the best ever screw ups go on to win big awards.

When Ella covered Mac the Knife at a live concert in Berlin in 1960 she forgot the words. I don’t mean she switched a line or flubbed a word. I mean she forgot several whole verses. At full voice. Accompanied by her big band.

But when you’re Ella, you don’t panic, you don’t freeze, you don’t whine on your therapist’s sofa about how you screwed up your career. No, you improvise. For 3 full minutes!!!

Oh Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong

They made a record, oh but they did

And now Ella, Ella, and her fellas

We're making a wreck, what a wreck of Mack the Knife…

The recording won her not one but two grammies: one for Best Vocal Performance, Female and one for Best Vocal Performance Album, Female. Now that’s screwing up in style...

Listen to the fabulous recording in full here. Note what she says when she introduces the song. 😉

Art in the Big Blue House

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 04:15:00 +0000

After over 17 years of living in my house, I saw it from the other side. Literally. My husband and I sat around a fire pit at our neighbors' house across the street. It was the first time I'd ever been to a purely social event at a neighbor's. When the topic of what I do came up, another neighbor from further down the street asked wide eyed, "Do you really make a living from your art? I've known lots of people who've tried, but hardly anyone who does."

"Yes, really," I replied, which is 100% true and has been true for well over 25 years. My neighbor was clearly impressed. My answer seemed to give him a little hope in this Walmart society of ours, and yet, whenever people ask me some variation of this question, I always feel a little weird. No one ever asks an IT pro or a lawyer this question. I gazed up at my own screened in porch, unable to see, but knowing within it is the studio window though which I'd been gazing out this direction while working less than 2 hours before.

I thought about the projects that have been consuming much of the last 4 months of my life, the projects that I can't yet talk in detail about because I signed a non disclosure agreement, the projects that promise to make my expressive account's eyebrows raise one more time when he goes over next year's corporate tax returns for Victoria Lansford, LLC. How could any successful artist still get hit with doubt, fear, or imposter syndrome?

Starfish XII

Granulation ring; sterling silver, 22k gold, blue zircon

size 7-1/2; 7/8” x 3/4" x 3/4"
© 2015, Victoria Lansford $620.

Here's why: artists exist caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of society's legitimizing us through buying our work, and accusations of not making real "Art" by our peers if we sell enough art to make a living. This means there is no right answer and no legitimacy to be had.

One of the weirder questions I sometimes get is whether I really make my living selling my art, or if I just sell some and make up the rest of my income by teaching, as if my legitimacy as an artist now depends on a pie graph. "Some of the rest of what?" I always wonder. The ability to live in a regentrified historic district that was still sketchy until a few years ago? The ability to pay the mortgage and eat? The ability to take my family on vacation? The ability to turn down work my heart is not in?

No one ever asks the reverse question: "Can you really make a living teaching specialized metalsmithing workshops, or do you make up the lack of income by selling your art?" The funny thing is the answer to that question would be "Hell, no." Even though I'm toward the top end of the food chain in terms of workshop fees, I could not passionately teach at the level of giving that I do enough times in one year to pay all the bills. It's not physically possible. Sadly, the way the question is usually asked of me, my willingness to share illegitimizes my status as an artist to the outside world. Huh?!?

I figure creative people have enough to worry about without society and our peers telling us both directions are wrong. It is more than enough for us to worry about making good art and spending twice the number of hours to put it out in the world and find it a good home as it took to make it in the first place.

In today's Brain Pickings newsletter, Maria Popova interviewed poet Sarah Kay. During the interview, Popova paraphrased Seth Godin's take on making a living making art:

Seth’s point was that for the vast majority of history, one made a living and then one had a creative life — the two didn’t have to be the same. Only recently did we come to believe that what legitimizes one as an “artist” is making art full-time and having that art also make one a living. The insidious implication of that belief is that the art made by people with day-jobs is somehow less valid, less legitimate. Which, of course, isn’t the case. It is indeed a rare thing for a creative life and a living to be one and the same.

My neighbor, who is originally from Europe, was probably not likely to have been raised to value mass produced, made in China, plastic stuff from Walmart more than hand made art by locals. Much of the rest of American society tends to need more convincing. The reason society legitimizes artists through the full-time sale of their work is because people are more comfortable liking or wanting something they know other people want or already have. Most people aren't comfortable being the trendsetters, the impressarios, or wearing, using, or hanging something without its creator's back story of struggle-turned-success.

Allahoudine II

Original pattern Vertebrate chain bracelet with a clasp of Eastern repousse from

dimensionally patterned mokume gane; fine silver, sterling, copper, shibuichi

8" long x 7/8" wide x 3/8" deep. Links can be added or subtracted for sizing.
The inspiration for the shape of this series comes from the genie bottle shaped,
blown glass perfume containers I've collected from Egypt and the gilded glass Christmas
tree ornaments that belonged to my grandmother. The title, Allahoudine, is the Arabic
word for Aladdin. ©2011, Victoria Lansford; $1120.

I had a wonderful philosphy professor in college, David McCarty, who smilingly described himself as a "professional philosopher." He had found that, if he merely answered "philosopher" when people at parties asked what he did for a living, his answer was not taken seriously because people tend to dismiss philosophy as a way to make a living. Adding the word professional in front, didn't make people think he was less strange, but it stopped the jokes before they happened. Though I didn't feel the need in last evening's receptive crowd, I've used his strategy more than once at parties.

When I go back into the studio today, Alice will once again be on her usual side of the looking glass, in front of the window, hammering away on the projects that cannot yet be revealed. The view of my house from my neighbor's backyard is now indelibly imprinted on my brain. When I stand on the deck outside my studio, I can see all their houses, and I'd assumed all these years, that they had an equally reciprocal view of our comings and goings, but my lot is lined by small trees that shroud it even while still bare. Several of our neighbors told us that they'd long wondered who lived in the mysterious blue house. My view from within reveals much of the world, but the view from the outside reveals so much less, no matter how hard a cobalt blue house is to miss.

The Ties that Bind and Gag

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 20:28:00 +0000

Letter to my great grandmother, Minnie Kelley

I come from a family that saves things. Not significant things perhaps, china, silver plate, (very) small amounts of money, an anvil, a forge…my maternal grandfather died a few days short of his 97th birthday with an inventory of nails, screws, nuts, and bolts in every size, all sorted in mason jars, the lids of which lids were mounted into the floor joists above his basement workbench. Their retrieval was an easy one handed job in the midst of any project.

Tucked away in an old metal box in the attic of my grandparents house was a large stash of letters. They were mostly the correspondence between my maternal grandfather and his mother while he was in the Marine Corps and between him and my grandmother during their early courtship. - It is wonderful yet disconcerting to reconcile the quoted poems and sheet music my grandfather sent my grandmother with the stoic man who horded all that hardware and every license plate and radiator belt from every car he ever owned. - These letters, together with the letters between my great grandparents and the letters between my great great grandparents, tell a story of loneliness and hard, boring, tedious work, interwoven with a secret desperation for love and its promise to rescue these people from their various situations.

Wedding photo of
Orman Edens and
Minnie Irene Kelley Edens,
my maternal grandmother's parents
December 25, 1912

My mother has spent the last two years photographing and transcribing all these letters, one Sunday afternoon at a time. On Christmas Day she handed me the latest notebook, the photos and transcribed letters between her maternal grand parents and the letters between her mother’s paternal grandparents. These love letters reek of secrecy. disappointment, and yearning. Their semi-middle, semi-working class literacy elicits constant promises of “Please write me back with a long letter soon,” begged for mostly by the men, whose letters are usually short and full of excuses. They are Jane Austin with bad grammar and odd spelling.

Letter form Orman to Minnie when they were dating, April 22, 1911

I grew up deeply socially connected to this side of the family, but I never quite felt that I was really part of them. My mother and I have the same smile and the same raising and alternately furrowing of the of the eyebrows when we take in information. When I look at look at her hands or her legs I see my own exact appendages a little forward in time.

My mother strongly resembles both her parents, who look so much like each of theirs, yet these American descendants of Brits and Scotch Irish, these Grahams, Kelleys, Lansfords, and Edens with their serious expressions and enormous picture hats, look nothing like me. These letters explain a little of how I was hard wired as a child, but their writers offer nothing to explain what I see in the mirror. It’s a bit like having local maps for small towns from a lost continent.

At some point in getting to know people, I get asked the question of my ethnicity. Part Italian? Dagastani? Persian grandparent? Half Syrian? It’s not uncommon for native Spanish speakers to address me first in that language or for acquaintances to be certain I would know on which date Yom Kippur will fall. In my globe trekking days I was never once pegged as an "American tourist" until I flashed my passport or opened my mouth.

Last year I decided to find out. I participated in National Geographic's Genographic Project

42% Mediterranean

38% Northern European

19% Southwest Asian

1.1% Neanderthal

1.2% Denisovan

(Yes, according to NatGeo, I am 101.3% whatever I am. Perhaps that is why I always feel driven to do and be more.)

My MtDNA, the mitchondrial DNA handed down unbroken from mother to daughter, belongs to H7, a somewhat rare, little understood, and oddly scattered haplogroup. H7 originates in Western Asia, and later some of it spread west into Asia Minor, Northern Europe, and the Meditterean.

In the current climate of racist hate speech, I find myself identifying more with these remote ancestors from what are now Afganistan and Turkey. Even if it’s been a few thousand years since anyone in my family called these places home, I share something with many Western Asians in every cell of my body, and it's evident every time I look in the mirror. Though my percentages do not match the surnames in my family tree, they are not off by so very much. Genetic research regards English reference populations as being, on average, 49% Northern European, 33% Mediterranean, and 17% Southwest Asian.

I look far more like my father’s side of the family. Until I participated in the Genographic project, I had come to believe I was just a throwback from my paternal grandmother’s Jewish Lithuanian heritage, not that I look particularly Eastern European either. To my young romantic mind, however, this Baltic branch of the family was the exotic side, the non Celts, the non WASPS. The rest of my father’s family came from Germany, England, and probably Scotland. Again, the same questions repeat...

The field of genetic research tells us there is no such thing as 100% Northern European, no such thing as 100% white. There are only centuries of migration and the hopeful seeking of connection along the way. That is what humans do. It is the one answer on which my genes, my reflection, and my family’s letters all agree.

Hat tip to Erma Bombeck for the blog title, based on her book, Familiy: The Ties that Bind and Gag.

Fugue States

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 14:00:00 +0000

Passion Made Visible

Pendant of Russian filigree and high relief Eastern repoussé

from dimensionally patterned mokume gane,

suspended from a Roman chain

fine silver, sterling, copper, shibuichi, 22k gold, Koroit opal

2-1/2” x 3” x 3/8”,, chain 18"

$1980.

I've never believed the stupid paradox that "less is more" or that simple is anything other than something that is well marketed but cheaper to produce. Sometimes when I'm talking with friends whose design sense is more streamlined, I become aware of just how layered and complex my design agenda really is. I love Japanese design in which everything serves a visual or functional purpose. I crave less clutter in my kitchen when I see really well done minimalist interiors, but I well know I'd never be content in such a space for long.

I joke my work in recent years is like fusion cuisine, a blending of things no one expects to combine but that somehow coalesce into a pleasingly complex result. Technically, my pieces lean toward a kitchen sink approach with 5 different processes thrown in. Why? Well, it's a bit like asking Sir Hillary why he climbed Everest, because it's there; because I can.

Imagination Bodies Forth

Eastern repousse front cover of a one of a kind,

long stitch book with calligraphic hand lettering

over a giclee printed montage of original collages,

and an acid etched copper back cover
Copper sheet, handmade and photo papers,

Japanese stick inks, gouache
6" x 6" x 2", height of repousse on portrait is 1"

text: William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream,

Act V, Scene i, lines 2-22

A few weeks ago something dire happened. For no apparent reason, some distant memory was triggered by some unknown stimulus, and I realized if I let myself, I could hear Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in my head. - If that name doesn't ring a bell, think back to Captian Nemo's organ playing in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and you'll know what I'm talking about. - While for some this might sound like a worthy skill, for me it's a like a bad flashback. My brain quite literally came into existence to that music. Live. On the Organ. At home. All the time. By the time I was 8, it had become a threat, a quick jump by my father to the organ bench, hands poised, "Clean your room now, or else..." - My husband was forced to clean to Disco. It produces similar childhood trauma, the result of which leaves us in constant need of a housekeeper.

Imagination Bodies Forth
(detail)

I get asked a lot of questions about my background, how I got into metalsmithing, was my family artistic, and so on. I've let slip more than once that I grew up in a musical household, where the "3 B's" were Bach, Beethoven, and Brubeck.

I've talked often about the Brubeck part, but I've never disclosed much of the Bach side. Beethoven...there was a music box in my room that played a chimy version of Patetique. I can remember screaming from my baby bed for the baby sitter to reach an arm around the door and pull the string for the fifth time. I must have been about 2. Moonlight Sonata is humanity at it's most sublime. For me, Beethoven just is.

Bach on the other hand is tough. I love Bach...for strings...and strings alone. Yo Yo Ma or Joshua Bell playing Bach, and I could just about forget that humans are usually a fear based war loving sort that frequently lack logic or compassion. Bach for organ...that's another story. Not a pretty one. I like crazy circus or movie theater Whirlitzers or a funky solo on a Moog from the 1960's or 70's. Pipe organs, however, are a no go. I listened to too many of them live as a kid. Like people who've had one too many drinks and will go raving mad if they take another, or Inspector Clueseau's boss who devolves into nervous ticks at the mere mention of Peter Seller's famous clumsy character, the sound of a church organ, and I start seeing the benefit of a solitary padded room and meals slid under the door.

Imagination Bodies Forth
(pages 1-2)

But a few days after I realized I still knew Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by heart (in my head, not to play, you understand), I suddenly understood that my work is forever shaped by Bach's compositions. The layers, the parts that move independently or in tandem, the somewhat strange need to put mokume gane, Eastern repousse, and Russian filigree into the same piece, this increasingly complex design agenda of mine is not simply because I have the chops to pull it off. It's because, as lovely as a simple melody can be, it's never enough to consume and fulfill my brain that is so hard wired for counterpoint.

Portrait of Skyler
colored pencil on deerskin vellum
©2013
(Creating this portrait gave me the idea for
the repousse bound book.)

Most people have to choose whether to go deeper or wider in their life's work. I always end up doing both. Some days the stress of doing so feels like I will follow in paternal DNA patterns and blow out at a young age (that side of the family is super smart but unfortunately also charter members of the Heart Attack or Stroke by 50 Club). Realizing that what is engaging, mesmerizing actually, about fugues, that they epitomize simultaneously going both deeper and wider with an idea, might just have provided me with the sanity of acceptance. One idea, one motif, turned on its head, played at the same time, over and over, layer upon layer, all together, at once. Bach was onto something. Maybe, so am I.

Best of 2015 - SNAG Juxtapositions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 22:32:00 +0000

It's that time of year when we tip our hats to what was significant about the year before. All the nominations and reminiscences have reminded me of the highlights I was asked by Art Jewelry Forum to write for the 2015 Society of North American Goldsmiths conference in Boston last May. I primarily wrote in AJF's juxtaposition category, and they only posted a few of my suggestions.

As I look forward to SNAGneXt in Asheville, North Carolina this May, I'd like to share more of the juxtapositions that stood out for me from last year's conference and its many exhibits. Enjoy! (They might not be what you expect.)

1. Ruddt Peters and Joyce Scott

One of the best juxtapositions of the conference comes from speakers Ruudt Peters and Joyce Scott. Peters, known for his postmodern, hyper-masculine forms, and ironically humorous performance art, declared in his talk that he prefers brooches to rings or necklaces because, "I do not like holes." Scott, whose expressionistic and African inspired beaded jewelry and sculpture deal with racism and rape, entered and exited the stage singing improvisationally with a range from deep gutsy blues to trained soprano. The two artists and their bodies of work could not be more opposite in philosophy or approach, yet within the same conference, they bookended the wild diversity that is SNAG.

Ruudt Peters
2mm Squared, SNAG Conference
Keynote Speaker, Boston, 2015
photo: Conor Vella

Joyce Scott
American Craft Council Fellow Speaker
SNAG Conference, Boston, 2015
photo: John Dean

2. Orbit I and Peculiar Sign Language: There (here)

The line quality of both pieces evokes a feeling of symbols as if when worn, they point out a secret message to the viewer.

Akiko Ban
Orbit 1
2013
2.25" x 1.5" x .375"
Alchimia: an Anthology
Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

Enrica Prazaoli
Peculiar Sign Language: There (here)
2014
4" x 3" x 1"
Alchimia: an Anthology
Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

3. Home Sweet Home and Good Girls Wear Pearls

These pieces surround the wearer who becomes part of the voyeuristic goings on in each section of the respective works. In Maeda's bracelet the three dimensional characters exist within surprising transparency. In Roderick's necklace the two-dimensional silhouetted people evoke Film Noire scenes by partially obscuring black and white images within each link.

Asagi Maeda
Home Sweet Home
5” x 4"; 2015
Journey Through Time: Explorations of Artful
Adornment and Sculptural Vessels Through the Ages,
Mobilia Gallery, Boston 2015
Photo: Asagi Maeda, Courtesy of Mobilia Gallery

Jennifer Roderick
Good Girls Wear Pearls
2015
Adorned Spaces, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

4. Kama and Collier

The links of both necklaces invite the viewer to peer into the hemispherical forms. With Eichler's the viewer peers deeper into the links with. With Yujie's, the deeper the viewer peers into the links, the more the viewer's image is reflected back to him/her, creating the sense of rebounding from the necklace.

Dai Yujie
Kama
16" x 2" x 1.25"; 2014
Alchimia: an Anthology
Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

Anja Eichler
Collier
2014
18" x 2" x 1.5
Alchimia: an Anthology
Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

5. Choices and Invasion of the Bodie Snatchers

The sporadic placement of the components in each necklace creates a unique composition on the wearers. Alusitz's are partially open, whereas Eid's remain closed, yet both convey containment.

Cynthia Eid
Choices
16” x 6” x .25”; 2015
Journey Through Time: Explorations of Artful
Adornment and Sculptural Vessels Through the Ages
Mobilia Gallery, Boston 2015
photo: Cynthia Eid

Sylvie Alusitz
Invasion of the Bodie Snatchers
2015
22” x 11” x 1.25"
Momentum, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

6. Array and Round Dahlia

Caballero-Perez's link focuses outward in a boldly embellished Aztec sun motif. Redman's link, also very dimensional, draws the viewer into the valleys and crevices. Together with the whiteness of the silver and in contrast with Caballero-Perez's solar link, Redman's link evokes a lunar feel.

Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez
Array
3.5" x 3.5" x .75" , 2015
An Auction of Masterful Links to Benefit SNAG
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, 2015
photo by the artist

Jayne Redman
Round Dahlia
2.25" x 2.25" x .375"
2015
An Auction of Masterful Links to Benefit SNAG
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, 2015
photo by the artist

7. Made for Amal Clooney and XI A Ring for Sarastro (Mozart Series) from An Alphabet of Rings Collection

These otherwise completely different pieces both use text to convey and define a message without making the text overly visually prominent. In Wong's work, the text becomes hidden when the piece is worn, symbolizing the spirit of the person whose hands would become imprisoned in the metal. No longer able to read the text, the wearer still physically feels and embodies it. In Coates' work, he uses hands themselves to frame the text. The viewer's eye reads the text while the ring's eye gazes back at the viewer. The sense of wearer and audience are blurred in the resulting connection.

Pin Wei Wong
Made for Amal Clooney
7" x 2.25" x 2" , 2015
Adorned Spaces, SNAG pop up exhibit space, Boston, 2015
photo: Victoria Lansford

Kevin Coates
XI A Ring for Sarastro (Mozart Series)
from An Alphabet of Rings Collection
1.04" high x 1.06" wide, 2015
Journey Through Time: Explorations of Artful
Adornment and Sculptural Vessels Through the Ages
Mobilia Gallery, Boston, 2015
Photo: Clarissa Bruce, Courtesy of Mobilia Gallery

(Apologies for formatting issues. It took 4 drafts over 5 hours to get this laid out in its primitive form. Some days I think Blogger hates me.)

New Review of Victoria's Online Class, Granulation Techniques Demystified

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 21:24:00 +0000

Read a review of Victoria's online class

Granulation Techniques Demystified

by Pearl Blay at BeadingGem.com

Free Spot in Victoria's New Online Granulation Class

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 20:52:00 +0000

Online Granulation Class Giveaway!

Craftsy.com in partnership with Rio Grande

presents

Granulation Techniques Demystified with Victoria Lansford.

Craftsy will be giving away 1 free spot in this class as a pre-launch special! This class is scheduled to go live on the Craftsy website very soon.

Click here for a chance to win and
to be notified when the class is live.

This special offer ends:

Saturday, July 5, 2016

Meet Victoria Lansford - Danaca Design's Jewelry Shop Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 13:51:00 +0000

Meet Victoria Lansford

June 19th – 21st guest instructor Victoria Lansford will be visiting us from Atlanta, GA to teach a workshop in High Relief Eastern Repoussé. Victoria has generated an exciting revival of nearly lost, old world metalsmithing techniques including high relief Eastern repoussé and Russian filigree.

I was able to ask her a few questions about herself as an artist and to get a bit more information about the high relief Eastern repoussé technique. Now I can’t wait to take her workshop myself!

Click here to find out a few things you might not know about the woman behind the artwork.

One More Museum on the Way to the Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 23:24:00 +0000

It will remain with me as long as I have a memory, that wild ride to Boston Museum of Fine Art that my mother insisted we could squeeze in for 45 minutes before our late night flight home out of Logan Airport. I was 12, wearing my newly acquired Harvard t-shirt that no one could pry off me plus about 14 other layers to cope with the unkind March weather. I was freezing outside and miserably hot inside the museum when my mother insisted we run to the Renoir exhibit. I will never forget how beautiful Girl with a Watering Can was nor how much more comfortable she looked compared to how I felt.

I was patient for Girl with a Hoop too, then I was just done. “We’re going to the ancient Egyptian collection and spending every last moment there!” I challenged. My mother had gotten a fraction of her desired Renoir fix despite all my and her best friend’s protests that we didn’t have time to stop at BFMA. Now it was my turn. - The collection seemed really small. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t more somewhere. There probably was, and there certainly is more now.

I think we were the last people to board the airplane, but we did make that flight. To this day when I bring it up to my mother, she reminds me that she was right, that we had time.

Everyone has defining moments in life, those early memories that stick and seem to explain so much about who we are. That 45 minute Renoir and mummies run is mine. My whole existence seems to be founded on the idea that I can fit one more thing in and live to tell the tale. When people ask how I am, I’ve gone back to saying, “fine.” “Busy” as a reply has become too cliche, and I find that what the term busy means to most people is what the term vacation means to me. When people ask what I’m working on right now, I often reply, “uh….” and stare like a deer in headlights, thinking I’m working on so many things at one time that I don’t know where to start explaining. I figure people can’t really be interested enough for the 20 minutes of my nonstop talking it would take to hit the highlights of my master task list.

A very friendly peacock at
Los Poblanos Inn where the final
round of the Saul Bell Design Award
judging took place

If “yes, we can” was my mother’s key parenting style, then clearly the worst thing she ever said to me flies in the face of this philosophy: “There will never be enough time to make into reality all the ideas you have.” - Rule #1: My mother is the most enthusiastic person on the planet. She makes the average Border Collie look like it has a vague interest in herding. Rule #2: When she contradicts herself, refer to Rule #1. (Rule #3: Watch out! My mother reads my blog.)

I’m a rebel to the core, as every good kid posing as an adult should be. The trouble is, I’m never sure if I’m rebelling when I don’t squeeze in one more essential thing to do, or if I’m rebelling when I try to implement all my better ideas. I don’t ask for time to do all my ideas, just the really good ones. I’m not completely crazy.

With All Chained Up and
Russian Filigree workshop
students, Tanya and Jesse at Creative Side
Jewelry Academy of Austin

Last month I flew to Austin, TX to teach a one-day All Chained Up workshop and a two-day Russian Filigree workshop, plus a meet and greet with a demo and talk by yours truly at Creative Side Jewelry Academy. From there I flew to Albuquerque to judge the final round of the 2015 Saul Bell Design Awards, then I had four days at home (sort of) before taking off for Minneapolis to teach a 3-day Eastern Repousse workshop at Quench Jewelry Arts. All three workshops were sold out, and all three were a blast to teach!

While in Austin I caught up with my longest (I won't say oldest) friend, Cheri. In Albuquerque I got to catch up with good friends, Molly Bell and Ronda Coryell. In Minneapolis I got to spend time with Judith Kinghorn (before heading to the airport!). Getting to know Courtney Gray of Creative Side and Sarah Michaela Sitarz of Quench was exceptionally fun and inspiring.

Meet & greet at CSJA

The Saul Bell Design Award finals judging
with fellow judges Todd Reed
and Blaine Lewis and
Rio Grande President, Alan Bell
photo: Kayla Torres

Of course the whole reason I was in Austin and Minneapolis was to work with more than 30 students whose creative endeavors I had the privilige to help expand. That's in addition to the incredible artwork I got to hold during the SBDA judging and the wonderfully supportive mates, friends, kids, and fur kids with whom I had a blast in all my travels. I suppose I should have been in social overload by the time I got home, but instead I was in withdrawal by the next Tuesday. As I've said before it's the stories people share that I carry home with me and hold dear.

The number one question I get asked is, "When do you find time to create all your artwork?!?" Somehow when I was young I thought success looked like less work for more money, but I have found that instead, real success involves being in demand. The problem is that those ideas my mother warned me about don’t stop coming, and most of the work I do simply can’t be crammed into 45 minutes on the way to somewhere.

The Saul Bell Design Award
finalsjudging with fellow
judges Todd Reed,
Blaine Lewis,
and Janet Deleuse
photo: Kayla Torres

Non-creative people who think they know what I do have some erroneous belief that I sit around all day making pretty jewelry. Enlightening them to the contrary involves my same deer in headlights, “uh…” reply described above.

With students from my
Eastern Repousse workshop
at Quench Jewelry Arts in Minneapolis

If I hadn’t seen those Renoir’s my life would look extremely different partly because of how deeply their technique and beauty affected me and partly because I persevere based on this ridiculous ideal that I can do it all. If I had a more practical approach to life there is much I would not have experienced and much I would not have created.

I woke up to snow my last morning in
Albuquerque! The inn's white peacock
refused to get out of his nightly perch.

It's all about a balancing act with time, my ability to wear 46 different hats to do all that I do, and enjoying the journey with my fellow travelers.

The view from atop the pueblo of
Acoma Sky City, NM

Thoughts from the Window Seat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 23:43:00 +0000

I orginally wrote this in October, while teaching in North Carolina. Life having spiraled wildly this fall, I'm just now posting it.

The thing I love most about teaching is when my sharing of hard earned knowledge makes the lightbulb go on over someone else's head and sparks an idea that results in the birth of a creative object. It is a frequent yet always unique moment, a collaboration between my experience and another person's fresh awareness of ancient processes, and watching it take place is one of the greatest highs of my life, often more exhilaration than finishing my own work.

For those moments to happen, however, there is a great deal of logistics and planning that goes on behind the scenes before I ever board an airplane or drive a long distance to a workshop. While travel is no longer as glamorous as it used to be, I still thrive on it, yes, even the butterflies of watching years of my life stuffed in a bag, hauled up on a conveyor belt, zapped in a machine, and hopefully meeting me intact on the other side while I await the TSA massage, known as the "opt-out" pat down. I love the combination of known and unknown quantities, the new and the familiar faces and places, the layouts of studios with their same tools in a new to me arrangement.

This summer and fall have been a bit of a whirlwind teaching tour. I've joked that my schedule is like that old movie, If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium. If it's Metalwerx, it must be Russian Filigree (unless it's Friday, then it's All Chained Up). Truthfully, joking is just my way of enjoying the rapid pace of it all and my hope that my not being a one trick pony doesn't come back to bite me.

People often ask what things I get to see when I'm traveling to which I can only usually reply, "the studio, the surrounding roads, the place where I'm staying, some nice restaurants, and the lovely people." I've crammed in my share of museums on the way to or from an airport, but I've learned the past few years to let most of the sites go and opt for rest when I can get it.

As I write this, I'm curled up in an open window seat under a blanket of stars over the glow of water, listening to tree frogs and kaddydids and the occasional faint kerplop in the lake. A few weeks ago I enjoyed the lush fall colors of the Berkshires. Here in Tryon, North Carolina the leaves are just beginning to to show golden tips. I feel like I've cheated time. When I get home I'll get to watch the leaves change yet again this fall.

I tease my mate that every time I book a workshop, it's not a vacation opportunity for him. He teases me that my freqeunt traveling alone helps keep us married. What I've always enjoyed about traveling alone is that in between the bits of solitude I'm open to meeting the most extraordinary people and stories. Dining with people I've just met but feel like I've known for years, staying in the homes of people with whom I've only emailed is sort of an upscale mature version of youthful backpacking through Europe.

Given we artsy types' tendency to gravitate towards each other, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that I meet and often stay with so many kindred spirits on my workshop journeys, but it is always a delight. I live in a somewhat carefully constructed bubble of art and fine craft. We find each other not through our online profiles but through the images of our work and our desires to keep timeless processes alive and evolving. Fine craft being a small world, of course there are common threads between us, yet I never cease to wonder at the serendipity of it all.

Tonight I had a marvelous dinner with my hosts at Tryon Art and Craft School, who confessed that bringing me here to teach is what made them get to know each other and become close friends. At Metalwerx two students just happened to sit next to each other but bonded to the point I didn't realize until halfway through the workshop that they'd just met. They remind me of a student from Victoria and another from Raleigh, who met years ago in one of my workshops and who, last I heard, were still in touch though one now lives in Bali. Metalsmithing... It isn't just metal that gets forged.

When I become aware of these stories, I smile and laugh and say it's wonderful, that I'm honored, but my quasi introverted self kicks in and spoken words feel pathetically inadequate to express my awe at having a part in other peoples' connections. Hidden alone under the stars I confess that it's not the ragweed pollen making me tear up.

As an only child who grew up painfully shy and escaped into making things, I don't think of myself as a people person. Telling random strangers at parties what I do for a living takes all my best learned networking and marketing skills to endure. Among my fellow moms, I'm the one with her head buried in her work and not talking nearly as much as the others. I have endless patience for people who want to learn, but for closed minded know it alls I have too busy a schedule.

As a traveler in my carefully constructed bubble of art and fine craft, I feel that what I bring is knowledge, experience, and a unique way of looking and learning ancient technology, and what I carry home are people's amazing stories with which they have entrusted me, stories of joy, loss, and pain, and through them all creativity runs. In the stories I find endless endurance and strength encased in fragility much like the artwork we create.

Flourishing Children

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 23:47:00 +0000

One of my favorite things to do is give demos for kids. It's so much fun to watch the way their eyes light up when I flick on a torch, hammer metal, blow the remnants of gold leaf across a page, or swoosh a big sparkly flourish. In fact, it might be a toss up as to who is having more fun, my young audience or me.

Kids never ask the rote questions that adults do. They are never afraid to show their wonder and excitement. I'll never forget the adult artists who demonstrated at all the craft shows my mother took me to in the 1970's. The spinners and candlemakers were my favorites. Their repeated motions made me believe anything was possible with enough practice and determination. Their creativity ignited my desire to learn and do.

I had an opportunity recently to demonstrate calligraphic flourishing and Spencerian script at Maker Faire in Atlanta. The kids that watched me write their names were among the most patient of creatures I've ever witnessed. When nibs wear out, and metallic gouache gets thick, nothing wants to flow out the pen. At one point I ran out of black paper strips and had to cut more. With a line 6 little kids + twice as many adults deep, I could barely remember how to measure and use a paper trimmer. Seriously, under stress it's the easy stuff on which my brain's RAM maxes out.

Weirdly quietly they waited as I slowly swirled, swooshed, and flourished their names in my best possible on-the-fly Spencerian script with no guidelines. I did my best to explain and letter at the same time, always a dangerous feat as what comes out my mouth can easily come out my pen at the same time instead of what I'm supposed to be writing. - I only misspelled one person's name. I left out the first h in Siddharth and so had to explain my brain's fondness for missing ascenders if they are in a row. Once I make an upstroke, some neurological decision is made that I'm done with going up and only going down and across remain. I had to tell the story of the year I left the k after the S out of my son's name on his birthday cake and the next year when I left off an h and wrote "Happy Birtday," all while I relettered the name, carefully swooping up "ddh" and wondering if I could get as pleasing flourishes on the second try as I had on the first.

There were quite a few of us demonstrating over the weekend. I heard one person talk down to the kids that wanted to watch. She would write their names IF they promised to read real books and use the strip of paper with their names as bookmarks, and only IF they would get interested in calligraphy and learn how do do it.

I wanted to scream.

I was a kid who loved books, loved to read, and was goofy for bookmarks and bookplates, yet I know exactly how I would have reacted to being spoken to like that. I've always been obsessively conscientious of other people's creativity and cannot bring myself to throw away or ill treat someone else's artwork no matter what. I would have felt compelled to keep such a bookmark, but I'd have shoved it in a drawer out of sight so as not to be reminded of being spoken down to. I'd probably have avoided calligraphy and calligraphers for a long while too just in case that sort of attitude was the trend.

One homeschooling parent asked my opinion on most school systems no longer teaching cursive. I explained that I feel schools should offer the option of learning cursive, that it's important that people be able to read it, but that no one should be forced to learn anything or forced when they might not be ready. Why people believe whole groups of children should learn the same thing at the same time because some school board decrees it is beyond comprehension.

Another homeschooling parent seemed more concerned that we all know she had told her kids about calligraphy and paper making than in giving the kids any sort of hands on feel for a pen or brush. The kids were adorable. In different circumstances I'd have handed them my pen and paints, which brings me to my impromptu assistant.

For just a split second I'd gotten up from my chair, and a little boy about 9 years old walked up to my set up and started using it. I took a deep breath as he grabbed my hand turn nib holders made by Heather Victoria Held's husband, Chris, and I gently convinced him to let me show him what I was doing first and then I'd let him try it.

Oblique pen holders are not the most intuitive of instruments. Neither is loading a nib with metallic pan gouache. To watch this child move the pen different directions and immediately be able to control the pressure of a pointed nib to create thicks and thins without pooling out all the ink was amazing. Most adults have trouble doing that until they've had hours of practice. My assistant came back a few more times throughout the day. I took his mom one of my cards with Paper and Ink Arts's website written on it, explained she had a budding calligrapher on her hands, and begged her to order her son some supplies. I asked her son to email me pictures of what he created in the future.

We never know what we do that might open up new vistas to tomorrows adults.

Make Art Make Money Make Time

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:41:00 +0000

A few months ago I finished one of the three best books I've ever read on the work life and business of being an artist, Make Art Make Money: Lessons from Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens. My other two favorites are Eric Maisel's Making Your Creative Mark: 9 Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals, a way to strategize the professional necessities of being a successful artist by looking inward and being honest about the challenges and Alyson B. Stanfield's I'd Rather Be in the Studio, a nuts and bolts guide to navigating the practical requirements of bios, artist statements, working with galleries, etc. Each of these books fills a special need and has helped me be focused, but Make Art Make Money is one of the few books I've ever been a little sad to have finshed the way I'm sad when a fun event is over.

Steven's's book revolves around the exceptionally successful career of Jim Henson and explores the lessons all artists can learn from how Henson approached both creativity and business. It is at once permission giving and enlightening. What could spawning Kermit the Frog and a multimillion dollar puppetry business have to do with one of a kind metalsmithing, teaching, and a one woman small business? You'd be surprised.

The book is a very big picture look at Henson's decision making and determination in which the author does an exceptional job of relating those lessons to individuals like me. How Henson handled copyright, balanced his creative process with cutting edge yet hippy business practices, tremendously evolved a centuries old art form to fit a new medium, and continually pitched his art are all key strategies for anyone who makes, writes, composes, or choreographs anything.

In my life as an artist I had failed to recognize one hugely important lesson until reading the book. In the soul sucking junior high and high school I went to, I learned that anything I wanted to learn and anything I wanted to do could only come as a reward aftert all the things I was supposed to do. At the age of 12 I had 4-1/2 hours of busy work homework every night after 7 hours and 15 minutes of being in a place I hated with only the occasional respite of an intelligent teacher and an interesting class.

The Falcon

Eastern repousse bound, one of a kind, long stitch book

Copper, hand lettered and mixed media over printed

photo montages of original collages

5-3/8" long x 3-3/8" wide x 1-5/8" high

© 2011, V. Lansford $6200.

Featured in Lark Book's 500 Handmade Books, vol 2,

juried by Julie Chen

I have long had a difficulty moving from the management side of work to the making side of of the studio before 3:30 in the afternoon. In the days before my son was born and in the days after he was born and I worked late into the night while he slept, it didn't matter so much, but with my ability to work in fine detail increasingly dependent on sunlight, this time divide is dreadful. I never associatd until reading Make Art Make Money that 3:30 was the time I got out of school and felt at least marginally more in control of my own time and life.

In short I learned in school to treat creativity as a reward instead of a way of being. Bad lesson for someone who earns her living as an artist. (Talk about school not preparing kids for real life!) Doing the work that excites me when it excites me and not when I finally get a chance to squeeze it into the rest of my work is my ongoing goal.

The Falcon

detail

Since finishing the book, I've made it a habit at least 3 days a week to bypass the email inbox and the mammoth to-do list and head straight to my drawing table or bench as soon as I get into the studio. Some days, often the best days, this happens while I'm still in my pajamas. My overwhelming sense of responsibility and the 46 hats I wear as a small business owner are ever present. For my sanity (and the sanity of those nearby), making things comes first at work, knowing that I always come through on time on all the "have to's" of entrepreneurship the same way a Border Collie will always catch a frisby.

The Falcon

detail

Free Giclee Print Offer + Free Shipping

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:16:00 +0000

Free Giclee Print Offer + Free Shipping

With any $50 or greater purchase of artwork, videos, books, tools, or supplies receive a limited edition 8.5x11 giclee print of Victoria's new necklace, Embody, plus receive free Priority shipping within the USA and $5 off international shipping. This offer is good only on sales through VictoriaLansford.com. Print edition limited to 50.

Elegant Elaborate Rings Workshop in September

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 22:53:00 +0000

Elegant Elaborate Rings Workshop

Spruill Center for the Arts

Atlanta, GA

September 20 & 21, 2014

My New Article in Jewelry Artist Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 22:51:00 +0000

The August, 2014 issue of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine features a spread on soldering setups, this month with Victoria Lansford.

Aphrodite Goes to War in On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Aphrodite Goes to War

Russian Filigree, High Relief Eastern Repoussé,

and Roman and Original Vertebrate Chain halter

Sterling Silver, Fine Silver, copper

18 " long x 40" wide x 3/4" deep all

chains are adjustable to fit most any size

Suzanne Ramljak's newest book from Schiffer Publishing, On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets, has just been released, and my metal halter, Aphrodite Goes to War is featured on page 111.

It's an honor to have my artwork included in the book along with so many truly stellar metalsmiths and edgy yet well executed artwork.

Congrats to my friends and fellow contributors, Nanz Aalund, Parker Brown (back cover!), Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez, Angela Gleason, Mark Ramsour, and Wayne Werner. You all make me want to chain myself to my bench and never stop working!

Defining Creativity - Crazy or Just Creative? part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 15:49:00 +0000

In response to my last post, "Crazy or Just Creative?" John Lunn left the following insightful comment. Alas, the writing roll that I got on in responding would not fit in Blogger's small comment window, so I thought it was worth posting as a sequel to the original topic.

From John Lunn:

Imagination is the wellspring of creativity that brought us out of the trees and built houses and civilization. But, I don't believe that everyone is creative - unless you define creativity very loosely - and these days we seem to champion the pedant much more than the artist and since the Earth is covered with followers not leaders, the followers are having their day. You should read the original novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boule. It is very different than the movies and is a parable about our society giving up on its creative self.

John, I always love hearing your perspective! I would agree with you completely and still hold my original opinion (and not just because I'm overly diplomatic). I've never read the book, though now I have playing in my head the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy scene of Arthur Dent trying to teach apes to speak beyond grunts while the management consultants also stranded on primitive Earth creatively ponder seriously stupid ideas.

Grieving Lapis, (detail) an illumination
from my soon to be released book,
Giving Voice
Gouache , watercolor, and graphite on
Arches watercolor paper, ©2014

I will define creativity as that characteristic which makes possible our ability to solve problems in a new way by synthesizing our experiences and knowledge with our imagination. Yes, that's rather loose, and it allows for use to describe decision making within the design field or physics, or what to fix for dinner when the fridge is nearly empty.

I believe this creativity is innate in humans, but I know that it is so often dumbed down and lost. Our education system does nothing to foster creativity. As Seth Godin sites when interviewed by Debbie Milman, ask a group of 5 year olds, "Who's an artist? Raise your hand!" and they'll all throw their hands in the air. Ask a group of 8 year olds, and some will raise their hands. Ask a group of 18 year olds, and very few will.

There is also an equally strong behavior in humans that causes us to do what we already believe works so as to increase our odds of staying alive. Ideas such as "don't approach the big cat without a weapon," or "do not try to fly off a cliff by flapping your arms," have helped we humans pass on our genes. Creativity kicks in when the big cat approaches us and a spear is not at hand.

I'm not an anthropologist (though I play one on my blog), but it seems that only those who possessed both traits would have survived to pass on their genes.

So why do so many people follow blindly? Even worse, why do they choose to follow leaders who tell them to believe stupid and dangerous things that are the opposite of what scientific data continually proves? Why do seemingly intelligent people believe leaders that tell them our climate is not changing due to our behavior, pollution is not a problem to breathe, and the Earth is flat or 6000 years old?

Because life is complex and challenging, and fear of how to survive it causes those who haven't adequately developed the ability to think for themselves to look for the easiest path they believe will quell all that fear. Creativity requires curiosity and a willingness to take a slight risk in favor of a different outcome. People who are conditioned from a young age to follow a leader to get a reward have had their innate creativity dialed way down.

I meet people all the time, who have a strong desire to make things, but say to me in a panic, "Oh, I'm not creative" and want to use unaltered, straight out of the book clip art as their design for a metal piece. (Clip art books can be great jumping off places and references for designing, but should not be copied just as is because, obviously, that design has already been done.)

Somewhere way back they likely never learned to draw or worse, were told they didn't have a talent for drawing. - Teachers who say those things to kids should never be teachers! - So now these people have an internal battle between their desire to be creative and make things and their inner belief that they aren't creative. It's all because of doubt and fear.

The path becomes seductively easy. Do that this way and you will get this reward. Do well on the tests, get into a good college, get a good job, make a lot of money. Of course our post industrial economy no longer guarantees that reward, and back when it did, at least for more privileged people, I met and taught too many people who had followed the path, gotten their reward, discovered it wasn't enough, and were quite unhappy because they'd never been allowed as kids, nor let themselves as younger adults, express the creativity they felt inside.

Creativity is not the same as (though is included in) extraordinary talent, nor is having innate creativity a substitute for slugging through hours and hours (or pieces and pieces) to acquire technical skills and mastery. Having a talent for playing the piano does not take the place of practicing, making a lot of mistakes, and learning how to play better.

I hesitate to say that not everyone is talented. Certainly when I observe my son's friends play (they range from 7-18 in age, and most of them are secularly homeschooled) I can see their imagination wheels turning, and I ponder how their particular and unique abilities will manifest later in their lives. With most kids so often taught what to do, and when to do it for 8 hours a day, it soon follows that an overwhelming number of them will give up and give into what to think and how to think it. Any talent they possess often gets muted in the process.

Sometimes I get really depressed wondering about all the art, music, and inventions that never were, not because they weren't good, but because those who would have produced them, feared they might not be.

Crazy or Just Creative?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 22:46:00 +0000

Watching Over Eternity, an illumination
from my soon to be released book,
Giving Voice
Gouache on Arches watercolor paper, ©2014

I grew up with "crazy" creative people, so for most of my life I've sought the answer to that 20th century question: Is it that being creative and having brains that work differently mean being inherently a little crazy, or is it that most of us live in a rigidly puritanical society that seeks to make us all fit the mold in vain? Up until recently, I would have said the answer is C: both. The more I create in this world, the more I'm aware that the answer is more often the expectation of having to fit the mold that makes us feel so out of sorts.

I should clarify what I mean by creative. Being creative is really just being human. It's what we do. Someone or several someones along the way thought, "Hey, perhaps I can bring home that gazelle if I make a pointy thing to throw at it instead of hoping to wrestle it to the ground. Someone thought that mud over there holds its shape rather well when you squish it. Someone thought that intertwining some grasses together might be useful. Someone - and you might guess this is my favorite - thought, "shiny hard stuff in the ground…plus... fire... Hmmm, might work."

While problem solving that starts in our brains and comes out our bodies and hands is not unique to humans - there are elephants and birds that paint - we seem to produce a lot of cool stuff as a result. Why then would that be threatening to anyone? Why would anyone want to stop us and tell us to get nice "secure" jobs (I really have no idea what job fits that description nowadays) and lead "normal" lives (normal in our house is merely a setting on the washing machine) or to be more practical about life, as if doing all those things only to freak out around age 40 in the typical Western existential mid-life crisis is really a good idea.

The answer to why that would be threatening is expression. Expression is what drives us to try new and innovative ideas to push beyond the craft kits from the craft store and put our ideas into form. Despite this drive existing in all of us, not everone grows up having these areas of their brains developed or is encouraged by their families and friends.

If no one else around you understands what you want to do with that mud that holds its shape, bizarrely, they may think that's a good enough reason to tell you to stop "playing" with it. Change is threatening. It might not work. After all that gazell might not like having the pointy thing thrown at it. It might throw it back at you, right? Of course not. That's why fear of ingenuity is so stupid.

The sad reality is many of us have taught ourselves not to value creativity in everyone, that it's not merely a human trait but is somehow reserved for the Leonardos, Mozarts, and Edisons of the worlds. I say those names in the plural as if they could be, but you get that negative message, yes? There's only one of each, ever in all of human history, and none of us is he.

We've ceased to see just how creative good doctors and lawyers are at solving problems, closing or finding loopholes to achieve justice or discovering new treatments. We don't value the obvious need for vast creativity in solving environmental problems in easy to implement ways or how outside the box someone has to think to invent a new type of video game. We've substituted the self expression that drives this type of creativity with notions of security in the form of larger paychecks and a silly pride that comes with acceptability from ones more vocal piers.

As my friend, Bruce Baker describes it, those of us who are still still in touch with those primal hand and earth materials instincts are viewed by the rest of society as having run away to join the circus. There are no veneers of money and security to make people say the acceped social niceties about us. I can promise you that none of my grandparents ever bragged to their friends at church, "Victoria is studying to become an artist." Instead they had a great deal of trouble figuring out why anyone would take up time in college taking art courses.

So why does it make us feel crazy? Because even if we've figured all that it, we still have those voices in our heads, and these are the kinds of voices that tin foil just can't keep out. We have to recognize that disconnect between being praised as children who brought clay ashtrays home from 3rd grade art class and being criticized for not abandoning the desire of making for more acceptable paths by people who've lost touch with what it means to be human.

Perhaps the solution lies not only in championing the arts for their own sake but also in correlating being creative with all kinds of career paths. There is plenty of data and no end of books that proclaim this concept. We hear all the time that creativity is not something that is so easily outsourced. That would mean that developing creativity is a kind of (gasp) job security.

We could start by championing our kids, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and, friends' kids by not giving into the meaningless banter about their "doing well in school" then perhaps we can work up to answering these types of questions for ourselves. Maybe instead of answering the inevitable useless questions about how business is for us artists, we can talk about what's really interesting: our shared drive to express ideas and create new things.

Russian Filigree Workshop in Picturesque Door County

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 May 2014 16:36:00 +0000

Join me for 3 days of Russian Filigree

at the Peninsula School of Art in Picturesque

Door County, Wisconsin

June 26-28, 2014

I'm very fortunate to teach workshops at so many of the premiere venues for metalsmithing in the USA. Besides having a lovely studio, the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek, WI is located in Door County, one of the most gorgeous parts of the country, and the whole area is art focused with many galleries and artists' studios nearby.

Encircled VIII

Russian filigree earrings

Sterling, fine silver; 2-1/4" x 1-1/4" x 7/8"

3-Day Russian Filigree Workshop

Learn the art of Russian filigree through extensive demonstrations and hands-on exploration. Make a pendant, a ring, and a large spherical bead while exploring more sculptural possibilities with the process. Most importantly learn the necessary tips and tricks to ensure success and fun through this exquisite technique. Participants must know how to solder with a torch. Enrollment is limited to ensure adequate work time and attention from the instructor.

Victoria Lansford has generated an international revival of nearly lost metalsmithing techniques through her artwork, publications, workshops, and passion for creating. Her award winning artwork has appeared in numerous juried exhibitions, books, and magazines, including the Lark 500 series, Metalsmith, and on Home & Garden Television. She created the metals program and served as head of the Metalsmithing Department at Spruill Center for the Arts, Atlanta and was an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee.

Her instructional DVD and book series, Metal Techniques of Bronze Age Masters,featuring the titles Russian Filigree, Rings, All Chained Up, Eastern Repoussé and Chasing, and her iPhone™ app, iMakeJewelry have sold throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Victoria lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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New Review of Victoria's Online Class, Granulation Techniques Demystified

Free Spot in Victoria's New Online Granulation Class

Meet Victoria Lansford - Danaca Design's Jewelry Shop Talk

Meet Victoria Lansford

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Make Art Make Money Make Time

The Falcon Eastern repousse bound, one of a kind, long stitch book Copper, hand lettered and mixed media over printed photo montages of original collages 5-3/8" long x 3-3/8" wide x 1-5/8" high © 2011, V. Lansford $6200. Featured in Lark Book's 500 Handmade Books, vol 2, juried by Julie Chen

The Falcon detail

The Falcon detail

Free Giclee Print Offer + Free Shipping

Elegant Elaborate Rings Workshop in September

My New Article in Jewelry Artist Magazine

Aphrodite Goes to War in On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets

Defining Creativity - Crazy or Just Creative? part 2

Crazy or Just Creative?

Russian Filigree Workshop in Picturesque Door County

The Falcon

detail

The Falcon

detail