ruby
I love making these tiny boxes, this one is about two centimeters across. As usual, the tiny jewel rotates out to catch the light.
lost
I love this fragment, it went inside the lid of The Egypt Box (one of the story boxes I made a while back).
clock beetle
I’m letting this piece sit for a while until I figure out where to go with it. I spent much of today drilling tiny, tiny holes in wire which I will rivet tomorrow, also experimenting with odd-shaped rivets of various materials.
Last Saturday was a day of coincidental meetings. At the show (which was in another city) I ran into the lovely woman who was my neighbour for the last seven years until she bought a house this summer. Later, at dinner in a Peruvian restaurant, it turned out that the woman sitting next to me had been in the same Chinese (language) school that I was in, for the same three years, but we had never met before this. Two friends on my left told us they ran into each other on a sidewalk in New York last month, neither knew the other was planning to be there.
pearls
Pearls are so beautiful and strange, the way they reflect light is fantastic.
This is the last thing I finished today, then I went to dinner with friends and met the wool-pusher‘s father, who is visiting from England. Miss P herself is easy-going and endlessly generous, with an incredible array of talents ranging from dancing and fiber-art through managing singers and teaching. She and her dad are full of funny stories about their lives, crazy wolfhounds, and adventures all over the world – they are the kind of family you want to be adopted in to, and it was a great ending to a good day.
measured
On request, here is a picture of one of the legs next to two acorns so that the size is clear.
evening
Happy chaos. A wider view of my workspace would show more of the same. Only pieces that are in the first stages of creation are ever visible since after that first bit the construction goes faster and faster until they are finished, then they leave immediately before I can reconsider. There are usually many bits laying around that are 1 – 5% finished, as their numbers increase they get combined. Not methodical work, but fun.
empty
This sliding compartment will be held shut by a winding pin, tomorrow I’ll build the setting.
p.s. Clearly if this were to be nominated for the ‘Most Boring Post of 2008′ award the competition would slink away knowing they had no chance. And a thumbnail photo, really! I owe a thousand apologies.
heavy
The retreat is over and I’m here to testify that luggage filled with tools is heavy. Very heavy. But the steel bench vise did come in handy! The retreat was fantastic, being with other artists is energizing, but I have a hard time creating around other people, so I didn’t have to worry about carefully packing up a lot of delicate finished pieces for the trip back. Just heavy tools. Did I mention the bench vise includes an anvil?
The box in the photo is a simple one, I love the face. I’m trying to find more of these vintage white tins, they are by far my favourites.
In my eternal search for tools I have not been able to find anyone locally who carries a riveting hammer that is steel and has a round head, so I’m off to order one on-line because my next projects involve a lot of riveting.
jewel
Almost done, I just need to shut the lid of the inner box and wire the capsule into that empty cavity.
