These pieces were created for 14 workshops taught during the pandemic (June 2020-August 2021).  Chris and I are embarking on a year long project to set these.  Settings will be based on drawings during the spring of 2024.  See the ideas for these settings in the  previous blog post.

While away from the studio this spring, I spent several hours each day drawing with watercolor pencils in a 50 page 2.25 x 2.25" watercolor sketchbook.  The focus for this sketchbook was to generate ideas for making settings for all of the 2" diameter domes I created while teaching 18 Zoom workshops during the pandemic (June 2020-August 2021). Each page explores one idea without consideration for how the setting would be made. This will probably be a year long project.  

Well, 2020 has been quite a year.  All in person workshops have been cancelled and I've transitioned (or "pivoted") to teaching live on-line workshops on the Zoom Platform.  My workshops  are hosted by Pocosin Arts, located in Columbia, NC.  pocosinarts.org/zoom-workshops-metals/
Each class has two sessions, each of which are two hours long.  This format allows for in-depth focus on one enameling technique at a time....which has turned out to be a "good thing" for participants and myself alike.  These are examples I prepared for the first class - Enameling:  Textures and Surfaces - Seed Bead Inlay.

In early September I spent five days at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine participating in the New Works Session.  This session allowed for some much needed, uninterrupted time devoted to experiementation with copper screen, copper tooling foil and liquid enamels.  This direction, the forms and techniques, will soon be used in new finished jewelry and objects.

The inspiration for the "Rafflesia" brooch began while looking through images online.  Check out the picture below my piece AND the other pics and the info about this amazing, Southeast Asian, parasitic plant.