Suburban Tribal

New line of forged and hammer textured earrings, bracelets and pendants made of aluminium. Today I took some time to further develop this idea of very large earrings that are supper light weight. Keeping it simple by leaving coarse hammer marks and texturing helps to keep the price down and adds the intended funky look. They are still labor intensive but the aluminium takes the high price of silver out of the equation. It also allows for the bold statement with out the weight. These earrings are 2 to 3 inches or more yet feel weightless to wear.

They're fun to make too. You can really move some metal when the it doesn't put up much resistance  but they are very strong and durable and colorful.  I have added several to my display at the artisans' guild gallery.

Scars and Stripes: The Saga Continues

This is the second in the series of Scars and Stripes and about the 10th in the series of sake/drinking cups. This one holds 1.5 oz. It's made of sterling silver and copper. It has a nice substantial feel in the hand weighing in at 85 grams. (2.73 oz.) Price on request

Tarpon Bronze Buckles

This new buckle has what I call a flake patina. It essentially colors the bronze the way it will look after wearing so you don't have to go through the "finger print "stage.

New Gator Buckles

This series of 4 smooth textured gator buckles came out great! I'm really happy with the patinas on these. I especially like the green on # 518-50. All my buckle are signed and numbered. If you order one by number, that is the buckle you will recieve.

The color of 518-50 on my screen shows it pretty close to the actual colors, maybe a little more brown and less green in direct sunlight. It is really difficult to photograph these patinas. There is a certain depth to the color that is hard to capture. Even looking at them in different light gives them different color
.
This is # 520-52  I used a more basic brown coloring on this one but as it ages the darks and lights will become more pronounced and the color texturing,mottling will get more contrast. It will get a little darker over time

#517-49 has a light brown antiqued undertone with some light green on top. It looks a little greener than it is in this picture.  It's more subtle on the actual buckle

#519-51 has what I call the basic brown bronze finish.  This is a pre- aged look of dark and light brown
They are all still 75.00, even though the ones with the one of a kind patinas take alot longer to do.

New Earrings

Some of the new designs I'm working on for the coming art shows.  This weekend there is a trunk show at the Harn Museum on Sunday. I'll be showing some new designs and showing a presentation on casting .   The stripes on these earrings are inlaid copper and silver.  As they age the patina on the copper will get darker and increase the contrast. The hoops are about 1.25 inches across.

Fun Class

I got to teach a private workshop on soldering and stone setting to another teacher and artists, Deryn Mentock of Something Sublime.  We did the workshop in the studio of another artist and mutual friend.  It was fun and we all learned alot.  Deryn made a great silver ring with 2 bezel set cabs.  Great job Deryn!

Bracelets with stones

Some more new bracelets with stones. The top one is forest jasper. The middle is unknown but I think it's crysoprase or verisite, maybe someone can identify that for me. I got it years ago at a gem show and never knew what it was, the bottom is a carnelian It's much more translucent than this picture shows Quite a nice gemmy stone of an orangish red color. These are priced at about 110.00 to 150. with silver at 40.00

stone set bracelets

first in a new series of bracelet using a flat wire frame set on edge and shaped in an asymetrical , organic design with added elements and set with stones. In this case it's a forest jaspar 15mm

Swamp

The biggest batch of gators so far. Textured and smooth. I couldn't resist so I put some patina on a couple just to see what they would look like. The one in the center is the only one that is finshed. The others are all rough castings ready for finishing. There a few red fish in there too.

Custom Pendant

This was an interesting job. A friend had this bottle cap as a keep sake from a trip to Japan. One of her favorite beers discovered on a brewery tour. She wanted to make it into a pendant


I cut the rim off. I had to do it in 2 stages to get the right height but that turned out to be a good thing because I made earrings out of the rims. I made a silver bezel cup to fit and covered it with plexi to protect the cap and set it in the bezel

She loved it

Custom ring with stone

A recent custom job of designing a silver ring with a catseye stone the customer had


After several design sessions we came up with a good solution to his idea of basing the design on the yin yang symbol. This is the rough casting in silver with the bezel ready to be soldered in and the stone set. 

the finished design

New Grouper

This is a new grouper buckle with a very different patina. I did several layers of brown and green using heat to get a darker color in some places. I was going for a more patterned surface because the grouper has a very distinct random looking pattern of darks and lights. This one off is available for 65.00 on the one of a kind page of my website.

Painting pins

This bad shot is of 3 painting pins. This is about all I have left from this series of pin pendants. The center one is of bronze and the acrylic painting is set behind polycarbonate and set like a stone with silver bezel. The sticks are also silver. The one on the right is a print of a watercolor I did of a swimming pool It's coated with acrylic and set from behind in a copper frame. The left on is also a print and set from behind in a silver frame. The top picture shows some paintings that have yet to be used, waiting patiently to be cropped and prepared for the next series to begin.

Here is another Red fish buckle in bronze with a good example of what I call the brown flake patina. I also put some green on this one. The green fades a little after wear and gets darker with exposer to heat and sun. I wore this buckle for about 3 weeks and this is the color it achieved. It will stay about like this. Other buckles made with this alloy will eventually get to this color and "flake" pattern, even if they start out with a high polish. However , it will take about 6 months of constant wear. This one looked like this from day one due to the patina I put on it.

This redfish buckle has a brown flake patina with some green. One of a kind
65.00

This gator came out with a great green patina.

I changed the display at the Artisans' Guild Gallery a bit to better show the buckles. I added the new snook and the grouper as well.  These and others will be on display there thru July when we move to our new location downtown.

More Gators

Here are a couple of shots of new Gator buckles. The heavily textured one is like the others but with a darker patina.  The smoother textured one is a one of a kind and that will be for sale in the one offs available page on my website   under the jewelry menu

Beach Glass custom job

A customer brought me this piece of glass to make a necklace.  It has an open back to let the light thru