camping again!

this weekend we went camping again! it was sort of a trip for jamie's birthday which was last week. we went up to lake santeetlah, which is near robbinsville, nc. it is a beautiful lake, not very crowded at all, since over 3/4 of it is national park. we took both trudy and sadie, because we were able to secure our favorite spot, which is a small island. neither of them swim, so that way they could run free and not be tied up. it rained a little bit, bit we were the die hard campers that we are, so it didn't bother us much at all.
it mostly rained at night. jamie got his socks and boots wet when unloading our "new" boat into the lake. the boat was great! the engine did suck more gas than we expected, but we got everything back in one load.


everyone has eyes like sadie. look closely!


jamie caught some small mouth bass! 5 of them! it was exciting.


tomorrow i have to do my taxes. this sucks. last year was a complicated financial year with getting married and also incorporating my business. wish me luck. argh!

on another front, my friend lee called me today and said that national geogrpahic has done an article on india banning rickshaws from the roads. this means human-pulled rickshaws, not the motorcycle rickshaw we in the west think of. in india, they call the motorcylce rickshaw an "auto". apparently, the ban is on because bicycle rickshaws inpede the flow of traffic and make it dangerous. i found this info:
"2006: as the year starts to wind down, India is just two years short of inaugurating a network of roads that is 14,000 miles long and that will completely change the infrastructure of the country. The big cities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Dehli will be linked together that no one could ever have thought possible. And what’s more – on these new roads will be cars. Lots and lots of cars. An estimated 600 autos for every 1000 people. In the next 25 years it’s projected that more cars will be sold in India than in the countries entire history. By the year 2030, India will be the third largest market in the world, tucked closely behind China and the United States."
better safe than sorry, but sad to see an old traditional for of transportation come to an end. sad to know that all those people will be out of work. have any of you read The Good Earth, by Pearl S Buck? there is a lot of interesting information and good stories about the life of a man who at one point becomes a rickshaw man. (it is a good book about the hardships of life to any extent.) i imagine it is not that much different in india.

my friend billy sproul has started a blog. he is making some killer kinetic sculptures and furniture with hand poured concrete. really awesome stuff. check it out here.



fermelenge!

sending off

well, i am just about ready to send off my pack of new work to de novo. i'm super psyched about this work. i love the way it looks, i loved making every bit of it. here are a few choice pics for you.

yellow glass stone (if anyone knows where i can buy more of these, please let me know), sterling silver

rutilated quartz, citrine, 18k gold, sterling silver
carnelian, diamonds, 18k gold, sterling silver
i've decided i need to learn a little more academic things about what i do, instead of just concentrating on how i feel about what i do. so i ordered a couple of books, which by the way were not cheap, much to my surprise. learning is expensive, eh? anyway, at 1st glance they look very heady. who knew that my work could be intellectual in its base nature? i guess i'll see if i still think that is so after i read these 2 books.



i want to bring hoss haley to your attention. hoss was a penland resident artist when i 1st took a jewelry and enameling class there back in 1992. he currently lives in asheville with his most wonderful wife, leslie, & new son, James. he is a super nice, down to earth guy, and his work is just incredible. i love how he makes the metal look like it was easy to work with. the forms and shapes he makes are accessible to the mind and pleasing to look at. when a person sees hoss's work, they wish they had a super cool house to put it in, as well as the money to buy it.


off for a busy weekend. more on that later.
hope everyone has a deligthful friday and weekend! back atcha soon.

neat-o

g'day!

i received an email yesterday from Quirk Gallery in Richmond. remember my new moss stuff? anyway, they sent me pics of how they have the work displayed in their gallery, and it looks AWESOME! in addition, i found out they have my ring featured on their website! (look under "quirk represents" and scroll to the bottom.) yay!!!




this really bugs me, as you might imagine why.

that's about it for now, i'll have more pics later of my newest work that i am sending out to de novo.

a big one, again

happy spring!
i'll begin with a pic of my cucumber seedling. it looked like it might be molding indoors in the peat moss, so i transplanted it outside. now it is covered with a table cloth so it hopefully won't freeze tonight.

i was able to go to caroline manheimer's MA grad show up at ECU this past week. caroline did a series of fiber hangings based upon her school girl uniform. this work was personally exploratory in nature, yet still held true to caroline's long time asthetic. gorgeous.


my neice came over and we did some faux mendhi. i found out the kind of "henna" i have is not really henna, and it can cause all kinds of skin reactions, so i decided to use a sharpie on berklee instead. still, it looked great and she was a very patient girl.


while jamie has had some downtime recently from work he has been making things. here he is doing some drawing, and here is a pic of the table he made using old pool table legs and pine and walnut. excellent.


jamie and i took my nephews edward and hampton camping on friday night at hot springs campground. it was much fun! a beautiful night, and a delightful experience with my nephews. i believe a good time was had by all--fishing, cooking over the fire, a slingshot.... hampton and i did some tree artwork, a gift for the next campers to come through.
i found these awesome crayon carvings by diem chau. take a look at the website, it shows some work that is super cool! miniatures, with a real quiet and elegant appeal.


diem chau also does sewing on porcelain bowls.
this reminded me of esther knobel's work in jewelry. she sews on sterling silver. there are many other people in the jewelry world who are sewing on metal right now, and i find it a very interesting mix of materials. check out iris eichenberg's work as well. the sewing is so appealing to me, it makes me want to sew as well. but it is a popular thing to do, so then again it makes me want to avoid the technique. but it is so simply beautiful, and it adds a whole different feel to jewelry.

i found this bowl, as well, you can buy it here. pretty nifty to see how people are using this technique in their own way. i like this bowl, because you are allowed to decorate it with whatever pattern you choose to really make it your own.i found another pic showing work of someone who obviously had seen one of my projects in a Lark book. i just can't get over this kind of thing! amazing!

her work:

my work:

a few cool links: www.coolhunting.com
www.designenterprise.com
www.callycreates.blogspot.com
www.margauxlange.com

fermelenge!

studio news

This is where we would like to be right now....aahh. memories are good, but they aren't the same as being there. seems like so long ago.

hope y'all aren't too bored with jewelry news. i just can't help myself as of late!

the other day there was a cat in the vent in our studio, meowing. jamie was there, and he opened the grate and tried to get the cat, but it ran away. we went home. i came back the next morning and saw evidence that something had been messing around in the studio over night, and realized it was the cat. apparently this cat has been doing this for months now, but appearing randomly on Scully's video camera after hours. scully would catch the kitty and put i back outside and it would then come back in later. so we found the cat in the studio and we called the animal police. Officer sams came and we had a fun time catching the kitty. au revoir!


here is my new small series of moss jewelry. you can see it before it is put together, and after. the model is one Miss Kora Manheimer. fun stuff!


we're just hanging around the house today since it is raining. i think i'll go take a bath in a few minutes, and read more of my book. then we have a date tonight, should be fun! i went to zambra's the other night and loved it, and figured it would be good to just go back there again!

not much else to report today.
have a great one!

filling in

i am waiting for the FTP server at Guild.com to show a file with my name on it. in the meantime, i thought i'd give a little update. i must say that it is harder to spend as much time on the computer now that it is daylight savings! i'd rather be outside or on the porch chatting with jamie!

Guild.com is one of my new stores. this is an online store, but it has a sister catalog called The Artful Home. perhaps some of you get this? i hope to have a pair of earrings or a necklace in the catalog, but i am not sure yet. i hope my photos are good enough! i need to get them out today so i can meet the deadline, but now i am waiting on someone else to help me out. they have been super helpful there, though, don't get me wrong, and the folks i have met have been so genuine and nice!

jamie built me this lovely coldframe last weeekend. i planted chard, spinach, and mesclun mix in it. i also planted right out i the ground as an experiment, hoping things will come up there as well, in cluding kale, cabbage, more spinach. and also a row of potatoes and some garlic.




about 2 years ago i did a bunch of enameling as part of my healing process from breaking up with a boyfriend. it was super fun, and i spent long nights in the studio working alone. i have had these enameled pieces sitting around since then, unsure of what to do with them. i saw that Lark Books put out a call for entries for 500 Enameled Objects, so yesterday i finished the necklaces and took photos of them. today i will drop my entries off at Lark, for possible inclusion in the book. can't hurt to try, now, can it? wish me luck!




At the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) conference i attended last week in Savannah, there is a meet and greet "Pin Swap". you can make pins and swap them with others and meet people at the same time. you make however many you want, and end up with a nice little collection of neat pins! these are the ones i made out of stainless steel wire.

i am really excited to be back in the studio. the price of gold hit $1000 for the 1st time, and silver is right around $20 an ounce. I am used to silver being around $6.50, so this is a huge price increase for me. But i have ordered a huge amount of material, so i have all that taken care of for awhile. and i just hope the price goes way down before i need to order material again. i am making some super fun brooches with the moss balls, can't wait to post pics of them! can't wait to go finish them as well, arg, to much computer work and paperwork this week!

well, i am outta here!
hugs to all
jo

how-dee!

well, i have been real happy to settle back in and be at home and just do our thing.

jamie was doing some great plumbing work for us last week and hurt his knee crawling around on the floor. i have to say that the work was worth it, but his pain has been hard. this is not the normal bruised knee cap, but it is getting better! so our weekend was spent in front of the tv, heating and icing the knee and just spending sometime together, which was lovely and needed.

we are super glad spring is coming. thanks to george bush for upping daylight savings. it seems very weird to both of us that our ...umm...deficient...president has the power over time like this. well, we are happy to have more hours in the day whether it be for the ecomomy or for the crocuses in our front yard! i was very pleased to see the crocus that are in are yard are orange, as i love orange flowers the best! (well, next to pink and red flowers...) but it is exciting to see what is in our yard since this is our 1st spring here. we have lots of plans for planting this year, and it is very fun!

we stopped in cash converters last week while waiting for take out thai food at Noi's Kitchen. i recommend this thai food, as i have been to thailand and eaten the food there. it is on merrimon just south of wendy's. anyway, we picked up a nice converter table top set of ping pong for our dining room table! woo hoo! we have already played many games. jamie wins more than me, but i win some too. it is THE BEST! our dining room table is a little slim, but it works just fine and gives us joy.



since i made some money at my jewelry shows, i spent some of it on some new tools as a gift for myself. this is the first set of tools i bought, a new set of dapping punches and a dapping block. i am so thrilled, it was like a whole christmas opening up these tools and wiping off the excess protective oil. look at how nice my new ones are compared to my old ones...wow!


wednesday i am off to savannah for the SNAG (society of north american goldsmiths) conference. i am really excited to hang out with some people that are attending the conference! it is going to be very fun. jamie was supposed to go see Van Halen this weekend, it was his big christmas/birthday present from me, but eddie van halen has gone back into rehab today and they canceled the tour. totally sucks. big disappointment, but jamie and john are going camping instead and will try out our new boat. that should be fun too!

i found yesterday that one of my rings is featured on a jewelry blog that only has pics of rings with growing things. it is a super great blog, with awesome fun pics of rings that grow! check it out, even if you can't read it!











i'm on the 3rd book in the Outlander series, Voyager, by diana gabaldon. yee haw, these are fun books! i highly recommend all of them to those with time on their hands for reading! hot stuff! (notice the brooch on the front cover, with its traditional "thorn" clasp! awesome!)

i'm out,
love to all
jo