The Art of Running a Business

At the PMC Conference this summer, I attended a couple of presentations related to the business of making and selling jewelry.  Susan Dilger’s presentation, The Art of Positioning and Pricing your Product, was really good. Susan worked in retail for many years, so she has a unique perspective for artists trying to sell their jewelry.  I really need some coaching on this, so I really appreciated everything she had to say. I already do some of the things that she suggests but I will have to try to be more organized about thinking of this as a real business and not just a hobby. Susan recommended Harriete Estel Berman’s blog, Ask Harriete for more information. Estele is a metals artist who lives in the San Francisco bay area. She also has some great insights. Her post about meeting with the IRS was eye opening!

The other presenter at the conference who talked about the business of crafts was Bruce Baker. He has been a jewelry maker and gallery owner and now spends much of his time coaching artists about selling their work. He was so entertaining. Selling is my least favorite thing but Bruce had lots of tips and insights that made the topic very interesting. He sells sets of CDs with his talks about selling, setting up an effective booth and how to get into juried shows from his website. Definitely worth listening to.

Back to School!

I can’t believe that I’m going back to work tomorrow. This summer has been full! We left for Barcelona the day school got out and had a wonderful week. We even got to spend a couple of days in Munich and I visited with cousins I haven’t seen for 35 years! I only got to spend a couple of days at home again before taking off to Idaho to stay with my sister while she recuperated from hip surgery. She’s doing great, thank you! The drive up and back was great, lot’s of beautiful scenery. I was home for a couple of weeks. Got to see the Birth of the Impressionism exhibit at the De Young and got some things done around the house before going to West Lafayette, Indiana for the PMC Conference. It’s always fun to be with so many like-minded people, learning new things, viewing the wonderful work of the guild members and spending money on new tools, stones and beads. I roomed with my good friends Kathleen Gordon and Susan Shahinian. We had so much fun, I came home filled with ideas and energy.

I didn’t get as much done creatively as I wanted to but I have been back in the studio. Sherry Cordova showed me how to make a die for her hydraulic press. I only got to work on it for one afternoon before she left on vacation but I’m very excited about it. Lots of ideas are swimming through my head. But for now, I have to put myself in the “back-to-school” mode and start thinking about a line of work.

Charms for Charity

Next week I’ll be traveling to Indiana to attend the PMC Conference at Purdue University. I’m really excited to be going again as it is one of the largest gatherings of people who love making metal clay jewelry. There will be conference sessions led by the important artists in the field, lots of networking with people who I only know from Facebook or the Yahoo Metal Clay Gallery Group and fun with my friends who will also be attending.

One of the events that happens is the Charms for Charity Raffle. Over 30 bracelets have been created from charms created and donated by artists from the metal clay community in memory of a member who died from cancer. The bracelets will be raffled off to raise money for the American Cancer Society and the Marrow Foundation. The first raffle took place at the last conference in 2008 and $12,270 was raised.

Tickets are $5.00 each or 5 for $20. The tickets will be sold at the conference or by purchasing them online.  Purchase raffle tickets online here.

One of the bracelets being raffled off.

Artist of the Month

Quite a while back, Mike Wilk from Art Clay World emailed me and asked me if I wanted to be one of Art Clay World’s artists of the month. Heck! Why not? I sent in pictures and some information about myself. When I got home from vacation I had an email from Mike telling me that I was the Artist of the Month for July. Very cool!  Now I have to start living up to that honor. Off to the studio to put it in order for some art making time.

Summer!

It seems that after SVOS in May, time just flew. The end of the school year is always a blur and I get to spend very little time on my own projects. We planned to leave on vacation the day school got out, June 11. We flew to Barcelona and spent 5 lovely days exploring the city. There is just so much art to see! I especially enjoyed the many buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi. Each day we planned a walking tour that included some of the sights.

La Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's last masterpiece

We then left Barcelona for a couple of days in Munich. I have family there that I haven’t seen since I was a teen. Munich is a lovely city and we really didn’t have time to really explore it but I did enjoy meeting up with my cousin, Antonia. She is an architect in Munich and gave us a quick tour around the city center. Much of Munich was destroyed during WW II but they have done a wonderful job of restoring and recreating the buildings were damaged.

Neues Ratshaus

Rathaus Glockenspiel

I was only home for a couple of days before I left to drive to Idaho to help my sister recover from hip surgery. The landscape is a whole different world from Europe but beautiful, none the less.

Jordon Valley, Oregon

The drive was long. I spent the night in Winnemucca, Nevada. The scenery on the second day was amazing. My husband, Jorge, flew up to Lewiston on the following Friday and we will be spending the 4th with my sister’s family. Then we will drive home on Monday. It will be fun to share the drive with Jorge. And I will be really glad to finally be back home for a while.

Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Silicon Valley Open Studios

I have been busy getting ready for SVOS. I’ll be showing at my friend, Veronica Gross’ studio in Los Gatos again this year. We have been doing it for the last three years and it’s been fun. I will have lots of new things so stop by and check it out. Our dates are May 1 – 2. The address is 200 Kimble Ave., Los Gatos. We’ll be open from 11:00am to 5:00 both days.

Besides me, the following artists will be showing:

Veronica Gross – Watercolors

Karen Schroeder – Painting

Janet Trenchard – Mixed Media

Pat Seaborn – Pottery

Cartier and America

Today Sherry Cordova and I got to see the exhibit Cartier and America at the Palace of Legion of Honor. Wow! It was amazing. We went on a special docent led tour organized by the Metal Arts Guild. We got there at 8:50 am, before the museum opens to the public. It was really nice to have the place to ourselves for that half an hour.

This necklace was designed for Maria Felix. It was said she brought a baby crocodile to Cartier to use for a model.

It was unbelievable how many diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires were in the collection. The collection spanned the Cartier’s history from the early 1900′s to current day. It included jewelry but also the mystery clocks (very cool, the hands of the clock looked like they were floating in crystal), watches and other ornamental items designed by Cartier. We couldn’t take pictures but I was able to find a few images online.

These clocks were called mystery clocks because the hands of the clocks appeared to be floating. In reality, they were embeded into pieces of rock crystal which rotate.

There were a lot of interesting stories about the people who owned the jewels. One section of the exhibition was devoted to the designs that were drawn for the pieces. I really enjoyed the short film that showed the creation of a single necklace from the drawing to the final creation. If you haven’t seen the exhibition, it’s been extended through May 9, 2010.

Elizabeth Taylor with a diamond and ruby set given to her by her husband, Mike Todd.

When we left the museum, Sherry suggested that we stop by the wind mill at the end of Golden Gate Park to see the tulips. What a beautiful day and lovely ending to a fun day.

Tulip garden in Golden Gate Park.

Art Clay Copper!

Well, there’s nothing like volunteering to do a demo for the San Francisco Bay Area Metal Clay Guild to get one going! Kathleen Gordon and I did a demo last year on bronze clay. It went rather well, so we decided we would do something together again this year. We couldn’t decide what to do. We played with resins but then Pat Evans did a great demo on resins a couple of months ago so we decided to demo the new Art Clay Copper, which can be torch fired. We roped Sherry Cordova into playing with us. We got together at Sherry’s house and broke open our first package of clay. The clay comes in 50 gram packages and the information pamphlet that came from Art Clay World said that any clay that was opened had to be used right away or sealed in a vacuum sealed package.   We made a few simple pieces like some end caps and charms, basically using up our 50 grams. We decided to try firing them on an open shelf in the kiln. The kiln was preheated to 1780°. The pieces to be fired were placed on a shelf covered with a sheet of kiln paper to prevent sticking. The pieces were fired for 30 minutes, then removed and dropped into water. This removed most of the oxides. It took some time in the pickle to remove most of the oxides that were left.  Sherry took some pictures and you can see them on her blog.

I then did some expirimenting on my own. I wanted to torch fire the clay to see how that worked and also try some of the different finishing techniques.

Torch firing for 7 minutes.

A lot of copper is lost during the firing process.

The torch firing process is fun. It’s quick and you have immediate results.

Pam East wrote about working with the Art Clay Copper so that it can be enameled. I decided to try that process and maybe try some enameling. I punched out a bunch of textured discs and dried them on a large marble to give them a domed shape. I thought that would help if  I enameled them. I followed Pam’s instructions for firing on an open  self.

Sample were placed face down on a piece of thin fire shelf paper.

Shelf placed into preheated kiln for 30 minutes.

Pam’s instructions say to put the pieces on kiln paper with the front facing down. Apparently less copper will oxidize on the side facing the shelf. I preheated the kiln to 1780° and placed the shelf in the hot kiln. I set a timer for 30 minutes. When I pulled the shelf out of the kiln, I used gloves and long tongs to drop the hot pieces into a container of water. I then pickled the pieces for around an hour. After removing the pieces from the pickle I simmered them in water with baking soda added. I then tumbled for around 3 hours.

Again, lots of flaked copper.

These pieces were tumbled for 3-4 hours.

Kathleen, Sherry and I got together one more time before we were ready to present. Our demo would include a “hands on” portion, so we decided to add a sample of Hadar Jacobson’s Quick Fire Copper Clay. This clay comes in a powder form which must be mixed before using. We also tried another experiment with the copper clay. I had read Hadar’s blog post about creating an alloy of copper and silver by combining PMC Plus and her own brand of Quick Fire Copper Clay and I read the March 2010 article about Shibuichi that she cited in her post. I also wondered about combining the clays to create an alloy but she had actually tried it. Her result were beautiful, especially the patinas that she was able to achieve. I’ll post again soon with some of the results of our Shibuichi experiments.

The guild meeting went well. Everyone was able to try both the Art Clay Copper and Hadar’s Quick Fire Copper clays. The samples were torch fired, quenched and brushed with brass brushes. Everyone left with sample pieces and the experience of torch firing the clay.

Holidays!

I had a silly thing happen and it caused me to totally stress out and lose my creative momentum. A friend asked me to fix a pair of earrings for her, a simple tightening of the clips on an old pair of earrings. I don’t do jewelry repair as a rule but I thought this probably wouldn’t be too hard. She gave them to me almost a year ago, at a time that I was working off my dining room table. Of course, every time I needed to use the dining room (holiday meals, book club, etc.) I would have to clear everything off the table, into boxes, and stow them away. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I misplaced the earrings. My friend started asking for the earrings back during the summer, during the time I had packed all my jewelry supplies and tools away while I worked on the room that was to become my studio. I couldn’t find them! My friend was very upset because the earring had belonged to her mother who had passed away and I was frantic! How could I have let this happen? I was consumed with looking for the earrings. Well, to make a long story short, I found the earrings this week! In a crazy place, one that I had searched more than once. I feel as if a heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I was able to return the earrings this week.

What did I learn? I don’t do repairs! I need to be careful with other people’s things. I need to be more organized. What can I say? I’m just glad the earrings have been found and I can get on with making jewelry!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Christmas in the Studio

I have been working like crazy, trying to get things made for Christmas in the Studio. It’s the 30th anniversary and there are 30 artists this year. I have been going to this show for nearly that many years. I was thrilled to participate last year. And I’m doing it again! I’ll have some bronze as well as my silver jewelry.

It’s such a fun show. It’s a benefit for the 13th Street Animal Rescue.  Hope to see everyone there! Click on the flyer below to get the complete image.

Marilynn Host 13450 Harding Avenue San Martin, CA 95046 (408) 375-3792

copyright 2009, Christmas In The Studio