April 23, 2011 · 11:38 pm

Spending a night in Portland

We drove to Portland today to see our son Fritz and his girlfriend Meg, and our son Robin and his fiancée Stephanie, who flew up from Baltimore on Thursday night. We had a fantastic dinner at Caiola’s with our sons, their girls, and Bruce’s sister Kelly and her partner Allison. Along with the delicious food,  we had a dining room all to ourselves.

“Ask about our best kept secret, thewine cellar.  Its brick lined walls, intimate lighting and rows of wine that host a long handmade harvest table seating up to 12 guests would be perfect for any occasion. For more booking information and menu options, please contact Lisa at (207) 772- 1110.”

And check out this cute sommelier!

Bruce and I are staying over night at the luxurious Portland Harbor Hotel.  Usually we stay on the garden side, which is quiet, with a view of their pretty little interior courtyard. Spring is here (on it’s way) which means the rates have gone up, so we reserved a room on the “city side” of the hotel, figuring we would save some money.  (The rooms are $30 to $40 less than the rooms on the garden side.)

The hotel’s Web site features these rooms with the words: “Views of Portland’s popular bars and nightclubs.”  Note that the operative word is views not sounds.  Today was especially cold and rainy and we figured, “How noisy can it be?” We were thinking of the noise of  Saturday night revelers. Street noise. What we did not think about was the steady bass coming through the walls of the night clubs and up to our room on the fourth floor. Right about now we’re thinking that paying the extra $30 would have been smart. Live and learn. (and pass the Ambien please!)

Tomorrow morning, Sunday brunch with the same group at Fritz and Meg’s apartment. I love my family.

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as

April 22, 2011 · 10:08 pm

Copper, brass, patina, enameled head pins, and a bit of silver

That’s what I was working on today.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

April 21, 2011 · 9:33 pm

Photo op

My editor from the Working Waterfront called today to say she had room for a photo to go with my recently written column, to be published on May 1. Since the article is about social networking, on the island and on the water, she asked my husband to take a picture of me working (checking FaceBook?) at the computer.

The smile on my face is because I wasn’t really writing as I posed. I was playing Text Twist!

6 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as

April 20, 2011 · 10:02 pm

Rocks, rocks, and more rocks

I never get tired of them. I can’t walk on the beach without looking down. I just don’t want to miss the next special rock. I’ve been spending a lot of time this week drilling beach rocks for necklaces. It sounds monotonous but it’s really not, for me. I finished one book and started another today (on CD), all while drilling rocks.


I have containers and boxes and bowls of little rocks all over the house. Next to our front steps, outside, there are rocks. Many of them ended up there when they were replaced, inside, by other special rocks. I would be shocked to think there is anyone who has visited our island who has not taken home a small rock or two. They don’t call it “the rocky coast of Maine” for nothing! Tonight, when I went to take a shower, a few more rocks fell out of my pockets.

Rocks from today, drilled 3/4 through, waiting to be marked to drill from the other side.

Rocks drilled all the way through, waiting to be waxed.

Wax off, wax on.

Sea glass does not benefit from waxing. It would lose some of its weathered frostiness.

This morning I got up early, again, and left the house for a quick walk to the station and back. I did not take the beach for the first part of the walk, but did walk on the sand on the way back. I didn’t plan to even look for rocks, but I managed to find a few more to bring home. I mixed up some dough for sourdough bread, and patted myself on the back as it started to rain, then thunder, then hail within 20 minutes of getting back from my walk!

Man can not live by rocks alone.

13 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

April 19, 2011 · 8:28 pm

I am not a morning person

I used to be able to wake up early and get right out of bed. Somewhere along the way I turned into a night owl. I am wide awake at 10 p.m. which is one of the reasons I post my blog so late. In the morning I like an hour to myself, without noise or conversation. (Hmm…that’s one of the reasons I stay up late at night; time to myself without noise or conversation.)

I keep thinking I would like to get up earlier. I know I feel good when I start my day with a walk. I know it’s a way to start shedding some of the extra winter weight I’m carrying. But I’m SO good at hitting the snooze alarm, cat-napping my way through another hour in bed.

This morning the tide was at its lowest at 6:11. We had very heavy seas on Sunday. This was the perfect morning to walk to the “station” and have a chance to see what might have landed on the beach from the stormy weather. I managed to get out of the house by 6:45, dragging myself all the way to the front door.

Before I even made it down my front steps I was happy to be outside.  The spring smell of things turning green hit me right away. I could hear at least 10 different kinds of birds singing as I walked down the road to the beach. While it wasn’t  a sunny morning, the rain had stopped and there was no wind, so it really wasn’t  too cold. As I stepped onto the beach, two great blue herons flew overhead on their way to a tide pool for some breakfast.

I was glad to have my camera with me. The next time I take an early morning walk, (tomorrow?) I want to bring my binoculars. I heard a bird call I didn’t recognize, and this time in the spring, before the leaves come out, is the best time for getting a good view of warblers.

I was not the only one who was out early on the low tide sand. Deer tracks!

I liked the way this piece of seaweed looked like some sort of sea insect.

And the way the photographer’s shadow was distorted by the wet sand.

A large section of the beach was covered in kelp tossed up by the storm. (In the background, the old U.S. Life Saving Station. Now a private dwelling.)

Rather than walk through all of that, I left the beach and continued my walk on the road. As I stepped over the top of the bank, I saw another sign of the recent storm. This seaweed lined trail of sand, left when the high tide overflowed.

Today was a good day to be a morning person.

6 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

April 18, 2011 · 10:12 pm

Some days are busy…

…with little to show for it. Today was one of those days. I worked on some earrings using some of the patina-ted components from last week. I test wore one pair of the earrings (with the thin leaves) but I still want to tweak the design a little before I photograph them. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day for that.

I balled the ends on 120 pieces of silver wire, a mix of 22 gauge and 20 gauge, to use for head pins. I also balled the ends of 54 pieces of copper wire, same mix of gauges. I drilled some rocks, and went for a long walk on the beach to find more.

Bruce warmed up the leftover lobster risotto for dinner, and made a salad of  kale, romaine, strawberries, goat cheese and cucumber. Pretty darn tasty! Then we watched, “Waiting for Superman,” a very well done documentary about the state of our schools in the U.S.

The day was a very productive one, but I find I have little more to say about it, and no photos of the work I accomplished. So, here’s a scene from my walk yesterday.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

April 17, 2011 · 11:14 pm

Stormy Sunday

We listened to pounding surf all night, accompanied by high winds and rain. It was quite the spring storm for the first half of the day.

Gilley Beach at 10 a.m. high tide:

It was a perfect morning to go to Dan and Cynthia’s for cottage cheese pancakes with friends:

Then we went over to the Co-op to pick up some crabs for appetizers (before lobster risotto for dinner.)

Notice how quiet the water is in the harbor? It’s pretty well protected from those easterly winds. Bruce is hamming it up with the crabs.

Co-op ramp:

Somehow the seagulls totally missed this piece of bait dropped on the ramp. I’m glad I didn’t. The spontaneous composition really appealed to me.

Gilley beach at the end of the day. Low tide, less wind, and clearing sky.

10 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

April 16, 2011 · 9:15 pm

Solution

Recently I considered using these reddish beads, by Susan Kennedy of SueBeads, in my “mysterious pod” necklace. I ended up using other beads in that necklace. I’m really glad I did, because I am quite happy with how the  red beads turned out in the asymmetrical piece below:

I included several of my own PMC beads along with beach rock beads, ostrich egg shell, coconut shell, and small sterling silver beads.

I spent the day off island for the second time this week. Tomorrow will be a stormy day. I’m hoping to spend some of it in the studio and some of it catching up with friends who are visiting for the weekend.

Apropos of nothing: On the boat ride home this afternoon, the non human passengers included 1 bunny and 28,000 bees.

11 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as

April 15, 2011 · 5:50 pm

Really random photo post

I succeeded in procrastinating with my writing until this morning, going well into the afternoon before I had my 1000 words in a tidy package to send to my editor. I write on my old computer, which is slow for almost everything, but I just like my old Appleworks program for writing. I guess it’s like writing on an old typewriter. I can find so many things to distract me every month, but  unfamiliarity is not one of them.

The old computer has my TextTwist game on it, which is what I use to step away from the task at hand without stepping away from my chair. The other thing my old computer has is old photos. Rather than work harder to come up with something to post on my blog, I’m going to declare myself done with work for the day and post a random collection of the photos that were part of my at-the-desk distraction.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

April 14, 2011 · 11:13 pm

Wax on Wax off

Applying Renaissance Wax as a final finish on pieces with patina is how I spent part of a sunny afternoon on the back porch. It was so nice to hear all the birds singing, especially the cardinals and song sparrows, and it was pleasantly promising to feel 60 degree air again. It was also a relief to work outside since the smell of this wax is not one of my favorites. Fortunately the smell is gone after it hardens. It’s not that bad, but I’m sensitive to it. As long as I was outside, I took the time to apply Butcher’s Wax as a final finish to a batch of beach rocks I drilled earlier in the week. Butcher’s smells a little better, but still it was a nice change to keep that outside, too.

So, I did lots of hand finishing this afternoon, which is a good thing for 2 reasons. The first is that I now have a bunch of new components to work with in the studio tomorrow, and the second is that I procrastinated all day from writing my “Cranberry Report” for the Working Waterfront, and completing a variety of components made me feel like I had done something productive. I might stay up late to finish the column tonight, so I don’t have a repeat of procrastination tomorrow. Ugh. I always do this when I have to write. I had hoped that keeping up with a daily post on the blog would be helpful to writing my column in a more timely manner. But…not yet. Not this month, anyway. Tomorrow is my deadline, but I usually stretch the day of the deadline out until 5 p.m. I don’t know why I do it, but I know I can get away with it.

My first foray into the world of patina (excluding the use of liver of sulphur on silver, and a few times using Baldwin’s Patina on some copper/bronze clay pieces) went pretty well.  I started with the verdigris because it is a cold patina and it seemed like the simplest place to start.

Copper and brass components with patina applied on left. Original finish on right. Photo taken before any sealant or wax have been applied.

Brass leaves before and after patina has been applied. Still no sealant or wax.

An example of why pieces must be solid copper, and not just copper plated. The patina reacts with the steel under the copper plate and cause rust rather than the nice green patina. The pieces on the right look so innocently like copper…

I tried a coat of sealant and wax just to learn about the process, but I’m not sure if I will find much use for “rusted propellors.” I’ll set them aside to see what they do.

Here’s the whole batch, after applying sealant and wax. Each step requires a 24 hour curing period.

My favorite pieces this time are the copper leaves I filed down and stamped, to give them a little personality before I colored them with patina. These will become earrings just as they are, or with some extra silver components.

Before:

After:
  
The patina learning curve has begun.

6 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,