Private Art Show

CrossNote

I thoroughly enjoy the craft and art of creating lost wax silver cast items. The creation is where I find the enjoyment. The finished product is… well, just the finished product. I like what I make but I like making of it better.

I realized that there is art in the steps of creation and I am usually the only one who ever sees it. At least in my shop. I work almost exclusively alone. I see it, enjoy the moment, and then it is gone forever. Unless I take a few photo’s along the way.

I have been taking photos and publishing the sequence of creation for years. They are the basis of the many blogs I publish of the things I love to create or make.

Here are a few shots of my most recent private art show.

This silver pendant project I call a CrossNote. Suitable wearable for church choir member, church musician, or someone who just enjoys Christian liturgical music.

This design was created in Vectric Aspire 3D CAD and then cut with my Taig CNC mill. The remaining wax is a bit of art in it's own appearance. The calculation is the number of grams of silver required for casting. I melted 40g.	This is the tree that will be encased in investment then totally burned away or "lost" in a 1350 degree kiln. It too is a colorful bit of temporary art.
After the cast, what was wax is now silver. Here the tree is in the hot acid "pickle". I think it has an artsy "misty" look.	Out of the pickle and undergoing inspection. I think this could be something displayed as art...
A closer look. I am pleased the casting went well. This is not the stopping point so this tree is about to be chopped apart and lose its association with looking like a tree.	All eight pices of the CrossNote finished and ready for market. The entire process took about 36 hours with about 12 of them being hands on labor, design and finish work. The rest, machining and kiln firing.time.

Plastic Land

I have ventured off into Plasticville, a little village I knew about in my youth. It was a not-to-realistic collection of plastic structure models intended for model train use. They were mostly snap-together and not of realistic colors. That is, not high scale accuracy. They did the job for tinplate toy railroads.

However, this post is not about this old commercial toy product. Only Illustrating the fact, I have become highly involved in making small objects using 3D printing and plastic materials. Therefore, I must be virtually living in Plasticville, USA.

I will certainly continue with my creative plastic endeavors. I will try to back off a bit, though. The nice part of making high quality 3D plastic parts is, quality demands fine layer printing and that takes a long run time. Time, I will use to get back to my more artistic efforts.

I am making effort to return to wax carving by the good old manual process. I will reserve the CNC carving for the mass-produced items. I want my hand carved effort to be unique items. If needed, I do have the tools for making rubber molds for creating a series from hand carved masters if I desire.

My thinking (for this moment) is to express myself as more of the old school artist. To me that means more creative hand carving.

The rings I make are all one hundred percent hand carved. My thoughts are not to limit hand carving to just rings. I like to make rings, but I only have ten fingers, the last time I counted…

The coming Summer is an excellent time to turn my focus back to the air-conditioned wax carving area of my studio. I can fire up say, a twelve-hour 3D print job run and then switch to the wax carving project. The printer to do its monotonous repetitive motions and I can do my inspirational wax carving motions. Ha!

AIR - Arts Incubator of Richardson

My adult daughter, Shelley, influenced me to join her in a "popup" arts exhibit and 7th annual Crawfish Boil in Richardson Texas. Location is the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, 421 Custer Rd, in Richardson, Texas. http://www.artsincubatorrichardson.org/

Shelley produces colored "art glass" through a process of torch firing and colors of glass rods. Most items are beautifully colored glass beads. She influenced me to join with her at the art show and show some of my silver work with her craft.

The crawfish above are 3D printed in my studio and will accompany my display as part of the crawfish boil theme. The smudged background seemed appropriate for the mudbugs...

We were both asked to supply three photos of our work. So I present them here for your enjoyment.

We make a good team. This should be a good experience.

Anti-Tarnish Bags

New packaging has been added for my silver jewelry. It is a small plastic bag that is produced with an anti-tarnish ingredient built in. The bags are copper color but still translucent so the item can still be viewed through the bag. The maker claims the bags are effective for at lest a year. User reports say they last much longer than that.

The bags are supposed to darken as they absorb the sulfur gas, a sign they are becoming less effective. I would assume in typical home use where jewelry is kept in a box or drawer, this treatment will last a considerable time. I was born and raised in a steel and coke making town. We thought sulfur filled air and black silver were normal...

I also have some anti-tarnish tabs, about an inch square (bottom of picture) that do the same job when included inside a non-treated bag.

My plan is this will save some polishing of my inventory and provide my customers with a good way to store their occasional use silver.