POOL

So, a couple of days ago I stumbled upon this amazing opportunity being offered to small business owners here in Mesa, AZ. I cannot even convey my level of excitement to you. I am so excited!!! The opportunity is with a new marketplace in downtown Mesa called POOL. POOL is having a contest for merchants, and the winner will get one year of free rent in the POOL Marketplace. The winner will also receive free business coaching and logo design. Wow. The applications are due June 15th and will be chosen by June 28th. The public can vote online for their favorite entries. I will be applying and will be asking for votes from all of you! I've been working on my application non-stop for the last two days and will let you all know when I have submitted it. I wish I had known about this sooner! How amazing would it be to win??? The idea that I am submitting is to have an Art Jewelry Gallery here featuring the work of both local and national metalsmiths. We don't have anything like that in the whole Phoenix area so I think it would be really great. Anyway, that is all for now, I just wanted to let you all know that I will be working very hard on this and will be counting on your support! Oh, and here is a little more information about POOL from their website.

"POOL is a brand new kind of retail environment tailored to the particular needs of a community. It is built from the ground up around the idea of creating engaging experiences that aren't being met by traditional retail projects. Centered on local retailers, restaurants, and grass-roots community groups, the social interaction is grown from the surrounding community.

Gathering spaces blend seamlessly with shops and restaurants, unique community spaces and entertainment venues to create an environment as unique as each community itself. A flexible framework of infrastructure and a canopy of support services provide a backdrop for small local merchants. A welcoming, comfortable atmosphere all come together to make POOL the heart of the city."

Bragging Rights

Just thought you may like to know that it is still in the 70's here in sunny AZ. So, while I will NOT be enjoying final exams and critiques for the next two weeks, I will be enjoying the weather. And...this is the ONLY place on earth you get sunsets like this...in December! I love it. I took this picture yesterday right outside the studio when I stepped out for dinner. Gorgeous!

Happy Halloween from AZ

Only in Arizona is it still t-shirt and shorts weather on Halloween. It was 90 degrees today. I love it! Oh, and to wish you a Happy Halloween I will show you the little guy I found right outside my back door last night. Yum, what a nice little black widow treat!

One thing about living in the desert...

There are lots of scary bugs. Lately I've been finding lots of black widows around outside the house, and tonight I discovered this lovely little creature on my living room curtains. Doesn't it just give you chills?

Arizona Piece: Completed

Finally!!! The embroidery on this piece took SOOOO long! Days and days and days...

It measures 9.75" x 9.75" x .75" and is made from copper and embroidery thread. The process and ideas behind the piece are explained in the post below.

**If you click on the image above you can get a MUCH better view of the piece.**

It feels GOOD to be done! And now, I have to get to work on something BIG. I mean REALLY big. I have exciting news and will share soon:)I think my favorite part about this piece is how the etched contour lines are reminicent of tree rings. It makes me feel like the passage of time is evident in the piece, which is important to me because it is about where I grew up, the place I spent my childhood, and all the memories associated with that time and place.

I am still working on my photography skills for these larger pieces. I am so used to taking pictures of much smaller work, so these wall pieces that I have been doing lately are giving me a good challenge. Unfortunately the colors of the heat patina aren't really done justice in the photos. I will have to work on that...

Arizona Piece

My metals professor gave us an assignment to get us back to work in the studio last week as school started. It was mostly to help us get acquainted with the new grads as we worked on something together. We all had to make our own piece, but we were all given the same assignment. She gave us one week to make a piece inspired by Arizona. It should have been easy for me to do this, but seeing as I have lived in Arizona pretty much my whole life, it was actually pretty hard for me. It's all I know, so it was hard to isolate my feelings about it. I took a drive out to the desert to get myself inspired.
I collected some cactus needles and other plant materials but still didn't really know what I was going to do. The picture above is a prickly pear cactus, and the picture below is a barrel cacuts.
The little day trip was fun but I decided not to use any of the things I collected.It was a really beautiful drive though, and its always nice to get out of the city. I started to think about really old maps and how they were like works of art. Each map was hand drawn and painted. Here is an example from the 1600's (taken from here). Maps give us direction, tell us where we are going and where we have been. They mark important landmarks and show us the way. I wanted to make a map like this of my own home, or at least where I grew up, in Tucson, AZ. I found this topographical map of the area I grew up (I put a little "x" next to where my parents house is). This land is very familiar to me and is a place that I love. I decided to make a copper wall piece inspired by this landscape that is so special to me. I started out by planishing a flat piece of metal, giving it a hammered texture that starbursted out from where my house would be located on the topographical map. I wanted the marks to subtley draw the eye towards my home.I then glued the map to my metal and drilled holes along all the contour lines so I could embroider them.
Then I removed the map, covered the metal with a resist, drew in the rest of the contour lines and acid etched the lines into the metal. This etching part was kind of scary because I had like 4 gallons of acid in this bath, precariously balancing on two magnetic agitators. Probably wasn't the smartest thing ever and would have been a disaster to clean. Luckily all went well. I should have counted how many holes I drilled. It was a LOT (the panel is 11"x11").
Here are the acid etched contour lines.
Then I had to score the back of the plate so I could fold it into a wall piece that comes 1" off the wall. That is no farmers tan folks, that is just the filth that comes with grinding. The picture doesn't even come close to how dirty I actually got.
Next, I gave the plate a heat patina and started to embroider. Then I embroidered...for days, and days, and days (and am still going...)!

I am almost done...but not quite. Stay tuned for the finished piece! It will be mounted on wood and will hang on the wall as a reminder of where I come from, what made me who I am, where I can always go for peace, where my family is, and the place I will always call home.

Electric

One thing that I really love about Arizona is the summertime lightning displays (and the storms that come along with). Beautiful. Truly.

Last night we had an awesome storm. Luckily the lightning came several minutes before the rain, so I got to try taking pictures of lightning (something I've always wanted to do) without getting soaked!

Black River

My crazy nephew, Ted Standage, just wrote a book (crazy becuse he likes to camp and fish where there are lots of bears)! Its called, The Lower Black River: An Outdoor Guide. You can buy it here. Check out his website http://www.blackriveraz.com/ .

If you like to camp, fish, hike and other such outdoorsy things (and live near or in AZ) you should definetly take a look, its a beautiful place!

Congrats Ted! I'm proud of you! But I still think you are crazy.

Ghostown Adventure

Yesterday was my husbands birthday. He asked me to take the day off and spend it with him, so we could go explore an Arizona ghost town called Cochran out in the desert of Pinal county. So, we began our little adventure early in the morning and drove as far as we could on paved roads. We did have to drive for quite a while on dirt roads though.

Spring in the desert is beautiful and the landscape was scattered with patches of brightly colored wildflowers. It was gorgeous! My husband found this info on ghosttowns.com...

"Cochran's post office was established January 3, 1905 and discontinued January 15, 1915. Cochran was a mining camp but also served as a stop on the Sante Fe, Prescott, Phoenix railroad. The town supported about 100 people and had a general merchandise store, boardinghouse, and many other establishments. Today all that remains are the coke ovens across the river. The town was named for John. S. Cochran, the first postmaster."

These are the coke ovens. They are really strange looking out in the middle of nowhere!

We tried to get to the kilns, but weren't interested in trespassing across the fence below, or wading the river. Next time we will go prepared. We definitely plan on returning.

We walked along this neat little path for quite a while, wondering if we would ever get to the river, but eventually we found water!

This is us at the Gila river.

On our trip we also found this mine near Winkelman, AZ. It looked like a man made grand canyon, it was SO huge.

This is us inside the shovel of the tractors they use to mine. The tire was three times the height of our car.

Chrysocolla is one of the things they mine there.

It was a really fun trip and nice to take a day off!