Archive for radical enameling

Cloisonné: New Frontiers- a workshop with Aurélie Guillaume

THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL.
Email to be put on the waitlist.

Join us as we push this ancient art into groundbreaking territory. Cloisonné is often used for small jewelry, but its precise lines and forms hold incredible potential for graphic, illustrative, whimsical, and narrative work. With cloisonné wire we will “draw” and create patterns, adding color and detail with ink pens, various underglazes, and bold, opaque colors. We will also troubleshoot the technical issues of these complex pieces.
Basic enameling experience required.

Aurélie Guillaume, born in Montréal, Québec (1990), is a French Canadian jeweler, enamelist and illustrator. Sshe is currently living and working in Montréal. Formally trained in the arts of jewelry and metalsmithing at the École de Joaillerie de Montréal, and at NSCAD University in Canada, she was first recognized for her work upon graduating as the winner of L.A. Pai Gallery’s 12th National student jewelry competition. Since then, she has participated in exhibitions throughout North America, Europe and Asia. In 2017, she had her first solo show in the United States at the late Reinstein & Ross Gallery in NYC. In 2018, she was one of the five finalists for the Art Jewelry Forum Artist Award.

Aurélie’s pieces have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Enamel Arts Foundation in Los Angeles, the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the University of Iowa Museum of art, and the Pureun Culture Foundation, Seoul as well as many major private collections. Her work has been featured in Metalsmith Magazine (Vol.36/No.5/2016) and in many exhibition catalogues and books.

 

Workshop Hours:

Tuesday -Thursday, 10 AM to 5 PM , with meal breaks at Silvera Jewelry School

Cost: $595 + $35 materials fee

Materials List: Provided upon registration or when ready

Registration: Limited to 9

Refund Policy: No refunds unless your workshop position can be filled by another person.

Lodging, Meals, Transportation:

Coming from out of town? Check AirBnB, Priceline, and other discounted online lodging sources, The Center will try help you make your stay comfortable and stress free while you are a workshop participant.

Enamels On and Off the Body – with Jennifer Wells

 

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In this workshop we will use wire and a variety of enameling techniques to create two very different kinds of work: unique sculptural jewelry, and whimsical wall pieces.

For the jewelry, we will create complex dimensional pieces by pairing simple backings with enameled shapes of fine iron wire that we have formed and then enameled with liquid enamel. This process, which Wells has perfected for her own work, makes striking jewelry, as the lines of the enameled iron wire contrast beautifully with the monochrome colors and shapes of the flat pieces.

For the wall pieces, we will focus on line and color to create works full of color and subtle complexity. Working on flat copper sheet, we will make lines by using sgraffito in liquid enamel and pencil drawing on enamel applied to the surface, and achieve complex color layering through multiple sifting techniques and painting with watercolors and china paints. We will make frames for this work by bending iron wire in imaginative designs and configurations.  

In addition to several different enameling techniques, this workshop will explore solutions to the presentation of enamels, using wire.  How can we set flat enamel elements and place them on the human body? How can we frame a flat enameled piece wall so that the frame enhances what the enameled piece has to say?

Enameling techniques that will be taught:            

  • Using liquid enamel to coat iron wire
  • Sgraffito through liquid enamel
  • pencil drawing on an enameled surface
  • painting with watercolor enamels
  • sifting to create complex layering

A basic understanding of enameling is required.

Jennifer Wells completed her M.F.A in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design in 2010; afterwards she spent a year at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts as a resident artist, and also completed shorter-term residencies at Pocosin Arts and the Jentel Foundation. She has been a summer assistant for Haystack Mountain School of Craft and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. Until recently shehas taught Jewelry and Enameling in Italy with East Carolina University’s Italy Intensives program headed by Linda Darty.

Workshop Hours:

Wednesday – Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM , with meal breaks at the Crucible in Oakland,  CA

Cost: $425 plus $30 materials fee

Materials List: Provided upon registration or when ready

Registration: Limited to 10

Refund Policy: No refunds unless your workshop position can be filled by another person.

Lodging, Meals, Transportation:

Coming from out of town? Check AirBnB, Priceline, and other discounted online lodging sources, The Center will try help you make your stay comfortable and stress free while you are a workshop participant.

 

Enamels: Exploring Texture, Color and Form-a workshop with Kathryn Osgood

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This 3-day workshop is about textured surfaces and three dimensional form in enameling. Texture is built through experimentation including sugar-firing, overfiring and firing on to an enameled surface with non-traditional material such as cubic zirconia, sand, reflective glass beads, frit, and glass microbeads. We will move beyond the traditional glossy enamel surfaces to create intriguing tactility.

To explore the use of vitreous enamels on dimensional surfaces the metal forming will involve fold forming, shell forming, die forming, and corrugating. We will create color through layered opaques and transparents, liquid enamels, silver foil, graphite, and enamel paints. Solutions for setting enameled pieces will be discussed.

All levels welcome.

Kathryn Osgood is associate professor at College of The Abermarle in Manteo, NC. She received her MFA from East Carolina University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is featured in several publications: The Art of Enameling, Contemporary Enameling: Art and Technique, 500 Earrings, 500 Enameled Objects,  and Metalsmith magazine.

 

 

Workshop Hours:

Friday – Sunday, 10 AM to 5 PM , with meal breaks

Cost: $425 plus $30 materials fee

Materials List: Provided upon registration or when ready

Registration: Limited to 12

Refund Policy: No refunds unless your workshop position can be filled by another person.

Lodging, Meals, Transportation:

Coming from out of town? Check AirBnB, Priceline, and other discounted online lodging sources, The Center will try help you make your stay comfortable and stress free while you are a workshop participant.

Surface, Color, Form: We Talk With Kathryn Osgood About Her Boundary-Pushing Work

Brooch, Kathryn Osgood

Kathryn Osgood worked as an engineer for a small, family-owned telephone company in rural Maine for almost 20 years before starting a second life as an artist, jeweler, and enamelist. After studying with Linda Darty and Bob Ebendorf at East Carolina University, she moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where she heads the Professional Crafts Jewelry Program at College of The Albemarle in Manteo

Osgood’s work pushes the boundaries of enameling, using fold-forming, varied surfaces, and non-traditional materials to create tactile, sculptural pieces. Osgood will share her expertise in her upcoming workshop, Enamels: Exploring Texture, Color and Form. The workshop runs from May 18 – May 20, 2018, at the Crucible in Oakland, CA.

There are still slots available in this workshop–register now!

 

What drew you to enamel as your preferred medium?

I have always loved color. It elicits an emotional response from the viewer; it can be calming, sensual, exciting, joyful. Before I became a jeweler and enamellist, I was working as a textile artist, doing surface design, painting and dyeing fabric and creating wall hangings and quilts. When I took my first metals class, I was hooked. I loved working with metal; how it allowed me to create dimensional work. It could be hammered, shaped, and formed.  I fell in love with the material, but I really missed the element of color.

When I discovered enamel, I found a way to bring color back into my work. Layering opaque and transparent enamels allows me explore an almost unlimited rich color palette.

Ocean Brooch, Kathryn Osgood

How did you become intrigued with textured dimensional surfaces?

When I began working with metal and was fabricating jewelry from sheet metal, I was not satisfied with the idea of decorating a flat surface.  I wanted to create pieces that were more sculptural, to take advantage of the plasticity of metal, of its ability to be formed into organic shapes.  I began exploring the natural forms around me: magnolia pods, pine cones, leaves.  I was intrigued by the textures found in nature and I wanted to replicate them, creating pieces that were more organic.

I enjoy exploring ways to from metal by hammering, dapping, bending, fold forming, shell forming, and die forming.  I like my pieces to have a tactile quality, to invite the viewer to touch.  I want them to feel good, to entice with both texture and color.

Who have been your mentors?

There are so many talented enamelists whose work inspires me, so it is hard to just name a few.

I was lucky enough to study at East Carolina University with Linda Darty and Bob Ebendorf.  Linda Darty introduced me to enameling and the world of color on metal. Linda is a master enamellist and she generously shared her extensive knowledge of enameling and was a supportive and encouraging teacher. Linda continues to impress me with her beautiful work and with her love for the art of enameling. Bob Ebendorf is also a mentor and generous teacher. His knowledge of metalsmithing and his adventurous creative spirit continue to inspire me in living a creative life.

Osgood on the North Carolina coast

What inspires your work?

I live on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. Since moving to the Outer Banks area, my work has changed to reflect my environment. The colors and textures of the sand and the water that surround my coastal home inform my work. In the early mornings, I often walk on the beach with my dog, Lola, picking up pieces of shells and driftwood that have washed in with the tide.  My pieces are based on marine plant and animal forms, their textures and colors informed by the shell fragments that I have collected.

 Find more of Osgood’s work on her website.

Enameling Recycled Steel for Jewelry and Objects – a workshop with Melissa Cameron

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Are you the magpie always collecting bits of rusty steel on the street? Are there bits of magnetic metal in your studio that you’ve tucked away, swearing that one day you’ll clean them up to make a masterpiece? Bring your rusty recycled bits and bobs to The Crucible in Oakland to learn the skills to turn these into beautiful and unique jewels.

This class will involve diagnosing scrap metals to find their suitability for enameling, proper enamel-on-steel surface preparation, liquid and sifted enamel application, trivet modifications (with titanium wire), and firing tips for steel. It will also include design tips for getting the most out of the enamel parts and to assist each participant in making their found pieces into wearable jewels and beautiful objects.

Attempts to Kill -vitreous enamel, recycled steel tortilla pan, titanium, stainless steel

There is great narrative potential with steel and enamel, owing to steel’s strength and durability over the other enamel metals. It can be used over much larger expanses, while remaining unexpectedly light. Steel is a chameleon, able to be used in luscious, precious looking works and the complete opposite, textured and dramatic displays, all able to be supplemented by the natural decay of steel. These inherent characteristics add richness to the colors and effects of enamel, and make it the ideal contemporary jewelry and object material.

 

Melissa Cameron was born in Perth, Australian in 1978. (BA interior architecture, Curtin University, Perth, 2002, MFA and metalsmithing, Monash University, Melbourne, 2009) She relocated to Seattle in 2012.

Melissa’s works have been exhibited worldwide and are in several prestigious collections. She has participated in enamel residencies in the UK and Germany and the Penland Winter Residency in the US and her pieces are featured in Jewel Book, Art Jewelry Today 3 and Lark Books’ 500 Silver Jewelry Designs, as well as the upcoming Tales from the Toolbox: Narrative Jewellery, edited by Mark Fenn. She is the recipient of multiple grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and a Fellowship grant from Artist Trust in Seattle. She has presented papers at many conferences and symposia. Her writing appears on Art Jewelry Forum. She currently serves on the Metalsmith Magazine Editorial Advisory Committee.

Melissa regularly teaches workshops  in Seattle, and was one of two featured enamelists teaching and presenting at the Enamel Guild Northeast Conference in 2015.

She recently won a best of show award for her pieces in the 2017 Alchemy 4 exhibition sponsored by the Enamelist Society.

Workshop Hours:

Wednesday – Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM , with meal breaks

Cost: $425 plus $20 materials fee

Materials List: Provided upon registration or when ready

Registration: Limited to 12

Refund Policy: No refunds unless your workshop position can be filled by another person.

Lodging, Meals, Transportation:

Coming from out of town? Check AirBnB, Priceline, and other discounted online lodging sources, The Center will try help you make your stay comfortable and stress free while you are a workshop participant.

Register Now