for whatever comes

I believe in signs - that some things are not meant to be.

I trust in them.

What point is there to fight what is not meant to be yours,

when your path is meant to be another path?

But I also believe in fighting for what you want,

in giving your all,

in just waiting and seeing.

The trait I admire most is strength -

strength of will,

and strength of character.

Because it was what I wanted for myself,

and what I always strive to have.

Because what I always ask and seek for in the end, is 
to be strong enough for whatever comes.

timing

Time is a funny thing.

It cannot be rushed
and it will not wait.

Patience is the hardest thing I've had to learn in my life.

With it, almost anything is bearable.

With it, good things come.

outlines of things

Weight has always been a problem for me -
too easy to gain, too difficult to lose.
If I don't pay attention it piles upon me.

It is not always a tangible thing,
secrets are weighty,
 so is disappointment,
so is loss.

You can feel the absence of weight,
that lightness - that spring in your step.

There are outlines of things that used to be,
and there is the weight of choices -
choices made, choices waiting to be made.

advanced class

i really do like teaching at Organic Metal Gallery. there's something very satisfying about seeing a student set goals for themselves, work through their problems, and come out with a finished product. Megan was such a great student - she was excited, hardworking, and ready to take on difficult jobs.

she tried her hand at some cloisonne, making these two christmas ornaments in just one class. she purposely matched up the red of the one dove with the red in the heart of the other. so cute!

and then she worked on creating a hinged locket, which i find a very challenging project for someone who had only been experimenting with jewellery for such a short time. hinges are very difficult to make. all kinds of things can go wrong in the process of soldering them on. and soldering them on neatly is even harder. while these hinges are not perfect, the fact that they're on at all is more than admirable.

predictability

i just recently started using this golden rod yellow. it was one of the new colours i picked up in my latest enamel order. i liked how it turned out in this piece, so i wanted to use it again for some scallop earrings. for the most part, opaque enamels are pretty predictable once you know how they end up after firing, so i figured it would come out the same way as the pendant i had done before.

i was a bit surprised that the enamel reacted like this on the curved surface. in a way i kind of liked the effect. but at the same time, i really like predictability when i do my work, most especially when i'm trying to pair two earrings.

i'm sure i'll need this kind of aesthetic sometime, but maybe not so much for these kind of pieces. 

summer colours

i'm so happy that i can say that i'm faster at enameling now. i'm quite proud of myself :p this time last year, i was much more overworked with much less results. but you only get better with practice right?

i drew out some new lichen pendant designs last week, and now i'm making use of my more summery colours that i've barely or never used. i think if it was just up to me and my taste, i would enamel everything in greens or blues. but that's just me.

 

so here's some pieces in golden rod yellow, storm blue, grape purple, pastel blue green, and pastel pink. more to come soon!

coiled within

"maybe great books were 

coiled within him like springs." 

  - extremely loud and incredibly close

i continue to think about this book - because it is so eloquent, so thoughtful, and so relevant to my life at this point in time. i tend to fixate on certain ideas and i surround myself with things that remind me of them - songs, movies, novels, phrases, people - sometimes i don't want to let things go.

i like to reflect, to reminisce, to analyze things that have come to pass. everything i ever take note of, anything that you can find in my sketchbook, written or drawn, is something that has a pull to me.

recently i was asked if i ever get that itch to create. i think i answered before he finished asking me. i do. i get it all the time. and it's why, even when things are discouraging at best, that i can't bring myself to even imagine a world where i am not a maker in some way.

the quote at the beginning of this post initially reminded me very much of someone i know - but now it also reminds me of anyone who has something creative in them that is aching to be released.

if you're one of those people, i encourage you to react to that itch. the world is waiting to see the results.

hand drawn and hand sawn

i have totally been lacking on the blogging front lately. sorry readers! my days can be so hectic. i can be out from 8:30am - 11:30pm at times working. also, my photoshop isn't working on my laptop right now, so it's hard for me to edit lighting in photos. so aggravating. 

anyway, i really like these new lichen pendants i'm enameling, and i actually really enjoy sawing as well. so while these may look like too much sawing to some, it doesn't feel overwhelming to me at all. 

each one is hand drawn and hand sawn, so they're all one of a kind - the kind of work i like best :) 

i did add yellow transitions around the small circular areas...but i think i like the pieces more when they're one colour. we'll see what i feel like doing next time i'm in the studio.  

new lichen pieces

even though my schedule has been super crazy, i've still managed to squeeze in some studio time.

i just came back from a two day trip to the states, but i found myself so glad to come home. this made me think that i probably can't live anywhere else in the world - i'd get too homesick and keep trying to get back.

after locking myself up in my room for a while, i came up with these lichen inspired sketches that made me really excited to get into the studio. 

i only managed to do work on this one yesterday before i taught my advanced jewellery class at Organic Metal Gallery, but for the others ones i definitely plan to play with scale and colour. 

i like big jewellery...what can i say?

i'm still working on this piece - my day was far too long, and i was dying to get home. i couldn't keep my eyes open on the bus. that's when you know you're overworking yourself. for this one, i plan to add transitions of a lichen green enamel coming down from the top.

painting with enamel

i hope everyone in Canada had a great holiday long weekend! i spent mine the best way you can - with friends and family.

recently i decided to experiment with enamel painting. i tend to rely on using a sifter when applying the enamel powder - it's easier, but it's also limiting in how precise i can be with colour changes.

so instead of applying the enamel dry, i have it mixed with water in a painter's palette for the different colours i'm using. then i apply it to the piece as evenly as possible with a paintbrush. this may seem easy, but it takes FOREVER. the first one i did took a ridiculous amount of time, but the second one worked much more smoothly and quickly. 

every spare grain of enamel that moves away from where you want it to will show up once its fired, so there's a lot of touch ups that need to be done. i had a stiff neck the next day from looking down and concentrating for so long.

 

at the same time, i found the process kind of soothing. though i can only do this kind of thing if i have a long day devoted to them. i'm planning on bringing my kiln home soon so i can do this kind of thing more regularly and paint the enamel at my desk with movies playing in the background or something.

these forms are a blend of a couple of ideas and imagery i've been working on in my sketchbook. so of course they have undertones of containment and growth. i also plan to work on some 3D forms similar to these soon. 

symmetry

lately i've been in the mood to create very symmetrical and radial work. in general, i don't like my work to be too symmetrical, so when i do have symmetrical components i tend to  organize them asymmetrically or have them in varying sizes like in this piece. 

i had some fun with these forms by doing some metal forming and folding. it was an experiment to see how far the copper was willing to bend without awkwardly warping. it was also an experiment in how to make things without the fairly well equipped OCAD jewellery studio. (i miss having seemingly limitless amounts of tools at my disposal).

here's one of the pieces for now. i still love the combination of oriental red and black - they contrast each other so well.

this is how it ends

you may have noticed that cocoons are recurring forms in my work. they are symbols of protective containment, and to me, the ripped ones represent self imposed growth and change. i love the organic nature of cocoons and their bulbous, pod-like forms. and it's infinitely interesting to me how small changes in where i choose to saw my lines or how far i move my pliers can change the look of the tears.

when i first learned enameling i tried to make some ripped cocoons, but there were some small logistic problems that have now been solved. the cracks can be more detailed if it's just metal like in this piece, but if i enamel, fine cracks in metal lead to cracks in the enamel.

well, i'm always learning :)

all i ever think about is this

this was the piece i was working on before my kiln decided to self destruct for a while.

do you guys sense a lichen theme? i can't get away from it for the time being. it keeps becoming relevant to me for varying reasons whenever i'm in the mood to make a new piece. you'll see more again soon but in different forms of course.

this one is called all i ever think about is this and it's made from enameled copper on sterling silver chain.

here's a picture of the pieces in process in case you've forgotten. it's crazy how enamel can change the look of metal so much.

sawing lichens

i've been pretty busy making making new work for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this year for the past while. when i applied last year i had only just learned enameling so i had no enameling work in my application. but since my work is now enamel-focused i knew i had to make sure that the photos the jurors saw represent that.

i just submitted my package on Sunday, just two days shy of the deadline. these images are the early stages of a new lichen necklace i just recently finished. there was A LOT of saw piercing, but after finishing the batch i realized that i've gotten so much better and faster at sawing, something that i used to grit my teeth through :)

enameled stones

i had planned to do this myself in the summer: making enameled pieces look like stones and then set them into jewellery. i had formed all the metal pieces and then promptly lost them :S

one of Robin's clients needs a whole bunch of sky blue coloured enameled pieces to be set. these pieces will be the "stones."

Toronto Craft Alert feature

Toronto Craft Alert is up and running again from their long hiatus and i was pleasantly surprised to see that sweetie pie press featured my Lichen Inspired Necklace on their front page yesterday. it's always exciting to see my work somewhere else in the world than on this blog.

did all you torontonians enjoy your snowday?

i spent mine with a nice hot chocolate and taking photos of some new work.

stay warm everyone!

a necklace in process

i was working in the studio yesterday and i was all pumped to start some new enameling work. alas, it was not meant to be. right before the holidays i was on a huge enameling binge. i guess it was too big of a binge because a coil burned out in my kiln - which means it won't work til i get it fixed.

it's annoyingly difficult for me to get my kiln repaired, i had to do it after the Outdoor Show too. the repair place is so far away from where i live, too hard to get to with transit, and costs far too much to get it fixed. i'd do it myself but i'm too afraid that i'll mess up my kiln permanently.

these were some of the last pieces i was working on before my kiln decided to die.

a sneak peek

i finally took some pictures of my newer work. here's a select few.

some good and bad

i had some technical problems with my kiln today leaving me extremely frustrated. hopefully it gets resolved soon.

i felt better when i found my transitional cocoon was uploaded to this site. as well as when i found some of my work on flickrhivemind - which is apparently also known as a place for "the world's best photos."

the very first cocoon i made from my first year in jewellery was included in the set "the world's best photos of sterling silver and thread." though, the photo itself is awful. this was long before i knew how to document my work properly.

and my labyrinth bun cage, aka "sometimes goodbye's the only way," "jack's spoon," my rollercoaster earring, and my leaf knife were all included in the set "the world's best photos of design and metalsmithing."

i'm not sure who curated these sets but thank you for including me in them :)

a busy week

this week has been very tiring, but also very productive. 

i tried indoor rock climbing for the first time on sunday with some old friends. it was really fun and made my upper back really sore for a couple days afterward. my friends complained of having sore fingers, but mine were fine. at least being a jeweller gives you strong hands! here's one of them climbing to the top of the 60ft wall. i was surprised when i grabbed that top rock myself.

then on monday i was off to teach art with my friend Connie. this week the kids worked with pastels. Clinton Public School has a really good art program for kids - a program i wish i had when i was their age. the parents are extremely supportive of the arts and consistently organize fundraisers to keep the program active as well as art nights to keep the work appreciated. i was astonished to find that some of the kids are learning silk screening, paper making and ceramics - things that i learned at OCAD for $500 a class.

on monday's and wednesday's this summer i'm the class assistant to Gillian Batcher's casting class. it's really good to have her as part of our faculty. George Brown tends to teach jewellery a bit differently and more intensively than OCAD, so whenever we get an instructor who was educated there we tend to happily learn more tricks of the trade. i've already learned a couple of things i didn't know about casting just from assisting her for two classes.

on wednesday and thursday i went to yoga (i really needed that). and then i spent part of monday, wednesday and friday, as well as all of tuesday and thursday sawing, filing, and forming some of the jewellery i plan to have for the toronto outdoor art exhibition (exciting and tedious).

i also ran some errands, went chain shopping, and had a mini meeting with a friend i'm entering a european design competition with in august.

i am pooped.

but i still have to go to a family gathering and spend the rest of the weekend enameling.

someone get me a coffee :)