02 | September | 2014 | Barbara S Fernald Jewelry

Daily Archives: September 2, 2014

September 2, 2014 · 10:41 pm

First day of school at the ABS on Islesford

It has become a tradition for parents and townspeople to gather in the schoolyard as students arrive for their first day at the two room Ashley Bryan School. Everyone is there to wish them well, to see who the new students are, and to feel good about our special island school and its community support.

The crew from Great Cranberry arrives by boat and begins the short walk up from the dock. There are 6 students from Great Cranberry and one teacher and one aide who travel by boat every morning. This morning there were also all of the teachers for Art, Music, Phys. Ed and French. The principal was there too. It made for a solid group of educational energy surrounding the school. The inter island students were all happy to reconnect after a busy summer. All around the school yard parents of students, and other community members want to celebrate what a unique school we have.

I hope these photos evoke the anticiption that hovered in the air this morning.

There were many more friends from the community than there were students. There are 16 students in all covering every grade from K through 8 with the exception of 7th grade. It looks like it’s going to be an exciting year!

Teachers Lauren and Audrey asked people to exuberantly make suggestions of goals for the year and then Ashley Bryan read them out and worried that the students will have to work too hard to learn all of these things! I don’t know if you can zoom in on the list, but the suggestions are things like: Laughter, building, discovery, adventure, wonder, fun, awesomeness, cooperation and friendship.

Below, someone who couldn’t care less!

Then the kids got together for a group picture, and they insisted that all the community members get in for the second picture.

At last the students lined up from youngest grade to oldest grade, to move into the school as they were introduced by the teachers.

I hope everyone got the photos they wanted, else they’ll have to wait until next year to get another shot at the first day of school. Wishing a great year to all of the students and teachers at the Ashley Bryan School!

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September 2, 2014 · 11:03 am

Home from Haystack

Last week at this time I was busy in the metals studio at Haystack learning a bunch of cool new things from Chris Darway, like how to use an oxygen reduction flame to fuse 22 karat metal clay slip (PMC Aura 22) onto copper, and how to mix up “super pickle” to etch that copper piece to make the gold stand out even more. The demo of making bezel settings on stones by dipping them in PMC 3 slip, was genius! So is the whole idea of using Elmer’s Glue and flattened toothpicks to provide a handle to work with dried PMC pieces before firing in the kiln. There are so many ideas and images going through my head that I don’t know where to start.

I’ve not been back in my studio yet and I have to be okay with that. I am an introvert who has just spent a whole week among people with almost no time alone to recharge. Ideally, I need at least an hour alone to balance an hour of stimulation from being with people. Simply put, extroverts gain energy from interacting with others and introverts lose energy. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to be around people or go out in the world, it just means we have to find ways to reboot the system after we’ve been there, even among friends.

At Haystack it is ALL FRIENDS and ALL CREATIVITY all the time! It was a blast and I am so glad I spent the week there. My introvert/people energy may still need to be recharged, but my creative energy is brimming, spilling over into my quiet time in the form of sketches, poetry, and remembered images. When I make my way to my studio it will be with a smile on my face and a feeling of coming home to an adventure.

I’ll be posting an album of Haystack photos on my FaceBook page. If you want to see all of them just send me a friend request (if we’re not FB friends already). If you’re not into FB, that’s okay too. I’m going to post some of my favorites right here.

Our cabin:

The metals studio awaits:

Demo of PMC slip bezels and Chuck’s version of the slip bezel setting:

Copper clay is still not my favorite medium, but it was at least humorous…

Random class photos:

And one of my favorite additions to this time at Haystack: Holly Kellogg and I went for a 20 minute swim every single day we were there, at this sweet little beach. (It only looks warm. The water was still about 63º just like home.)