8/29/16 8/29/16

Kat Cole: Making It Happen

This is the third in a series of guest posts by the enamel artist Kat Cole. This post previously appeared on her blog.

Now that I had found a location and community that could provide tools and support, I needed to find a way of funding this project. Last year, the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs had begun a new micro-grant project for artists. To qualify, the project would need to be completed within the city and be of benefit of the community.

8/17/16 8/17/16

Kate Cole: Getting Started

This is the second in a series of guest posts by the enamel artist Kat Cole. The post was previously published on her blog.

I have made large enameled work previously, but I have always felt handicapped by the size of the kiln available. Scale and proportion decisions had to be made based on the interior dimensions of the kiln.

8/16/16 8/16/16

Kate Cole: Project Crossroads

This is the first in a series of blog posts by the enamel artist Kat Cole . Cole, who has been making distinctive enameled steel jewelry, met Center for Enamel Art founder Judy Stone last year when Cole taught a Radical Enameling workshop for the Center. Stone encouraged Cole to explore the expanded use of industrial materials in her work, and connected her to KVO Industries , a partner of the Center for Enamel Art, where Cole created a large sculptural piece. Cole’s posts, which she is also sharing on her own blog , give insight into her practice and process as she brings a new scale to her work.

7/21/16 7/21/16

Art and the Enamel Industry w/ Kat Cole

We are thrilled to introduce a series of guest posts by the enamel artist Kat Cole.

Today the term “Enameling” is generally used to mean small, intensively crafted, jewel-like work, set into wearable or functional objects. But in the not-so-distant past, enamelists commonly worked much larger, on art pieces the size of a painter’s oversized canvas.

6/9/16 6/9/16

How Now Fred Ball?

Recently, I have been wondering about the legacy of one the most important American enamelists of the 20^th century, Fred Uhl Ball (1945-1985). I never met him, though he lived, worked and taught in Sacramento, CA, about an hour from my home, and frequented the supply store in San Francisco where I bought my enamels. But even in absentia, Ball was a mentor to me. His book, Experimental Techniques in Enameling (1972), came out the same year I began enameling professionally, and formed the basis of my journey into enameling.

12/9/15 12/9/15

Enameling On Steel: Kat Cole's Marvelous Workshop

During the three-day workshop we learned all about steel: different types (which had always confused me), which kinds of steel work best with enameling, and resources for finding special enameling steel (which can be difficult to track down). As we discovered, you can even enamel on stainless steel, which we did on bowls provided to us in the workshop!

9/28/15 9/28/15

Part II: What Is Missing From This Picture?

This is the second of our two-part series, Challenges and Opportunities for Artists Who Choose Enamel, an essay by our intern Zhou Zoe Yuan. You can read the first part here.

9/21/15 9/21/15

Part I: Is Enameling a Dying Art?

We are delighted to share with you a two-part essay, Challenges And Opportunities for Artists Who Choose Enamel, by our intern Zhou Zoe Yuan, a fourth-year student at California College of the Arts. It is an excellent exploration of enamel’s place in the art world and a wonderful starting point for a discussion of these issues.