Barbara S Fernald Jewelry

Tiny collages in progress and in place. Waiting for resin to set.

Some of these reversible pendants have been waiting to be filled for a few months. Others were fired last week. My plan is to use clear resin to cover a paper collage or a fill of beads on the reverse side. I’ve tried two kinds of resin with mixed results. Success and failure. Enough to make me want to try a new product.

Based on this review from the Miss Ficklemedia blog, I’m going to give ICE resin a try. Stay tuned, but don’t quit your day job. I have yet to make the collages, then will need to seal them and let them dry. Then I’ll apply one layer of ICE, let it set, then add the final layer, and then let them cure for a couple days. Jeeze. I’m such an instant gratification person, it will be hard to wait. (Yes, some of my resin failures are great collages, with a fingerprint smudging the resin surface because I though it would be set after a day or so.)  Two word note to self: Test piece.

is our Town Meeting day in the Town of Cranberry Isles. We started at 8:30 this morning and finished by 3:30 with a one hour break for lunch. By the end of the day, voters passed a town budget of $1,726,008. Our town is made up of five islands, but only two are inhabited year round: Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry, also known as Islesford. You can see there are not a lot of roads on the islands, but there was a lot of roadwork improvement discussed.

Most votes are hand votes, but ballot votes are required for town officers, selectmen and school committee members. Also a voter can make a motion to have an article voted on by ballot. (This is one of the few times a moderator might have time to pull out her camera to catch a few shots of voters, while they get a chance to stretch their legs.)

I would love to know if this ballot box dates back to the 1800’s when we became a town. Once votes are cast, inserted through the slot in the top, the top slides off so the box can be turned upside down with the handle and votes counted by the ballot clerks.

Official Town meeting dress code for our three selectmen: Khaki pants.

I love our annual Town Meeting. It is such an up close and personal view of a small town at work. Jasmine Samuel made an incredible choice of soups for lunch and volunteers brought salads, breads and desserts. People got along well throughout the meeting, spoke respectfully and discussed topics intelligently.  It was a beautiful day outside, and during the recess for lunch, people took walks, ate lunch outside, and went to visit the Islesford School Open House.  After the meeting, Stefanie, Cindy, Eliza and I went for our March “Dip of the Month. “The sea water was especially refreshing after spending a sunny day inside. I sure hope this early spring continues.

…posted this photo on her blog yesterday.

“painted by luca di tommi in 1362.” (From the Yale art gallery)

I was shocked by the resemblance to my grilled cheese and tomato sandwich from last week.

(I must say, that sure was one divine lunch.)

One of the techniques I have been trying lately is to join two pieces of bone dry unfired metal clay with just a wash of water and “squidging” the edges together until they catch. This I learned from reading Kate McKinnon’s book, “Structural Metal Clay.” I’ve always made my joins, before firing, with PMC slip. But the idea of just using water to create a small amount of slip on the surface of two well-fitting pieces sounded so much easier and cleaner. I found it hard to believe it might actually be stronger, so I made a test piece to try it out.

These sample earrings were made from PMC+  rolled 4 cards thick and pressed into my own silicone texture plate. I cut the discs in half with a blade and dried them on a cup warmer. I filed the edges ever so slightly to make sure I had the widest surface to join, and wet the edges with a brush and butted them together, sliding back and forth just a little until they started to catch. I held the pieces together for a few seconds longer and then placed them back on the cup warmer. When dry, I drilled a hole in one end and fired them at 1630º for 2 hours. After firing, I tried to break these puppies apart, and they did not bend. I then hammered them on a steel block with a steel planishing hammer and no stress or breakage along the join. I’ll be darned. That is a strong little connection!

I used the same technique to attach the inside ridged piece in these earrings. It was SO much easier to use water and dry clay, than to fit two wet pieces together, or  to use oozing slip to attach them. When I used to use my own slip to join two dry pieces, I had to go back and clean up the messy dried bits before firing.

I wonder if this same technique will work with Hadar’s copper and bronze clay? I’ve been away from those clays for too long.

It costs 20¢ to post up to 5 photographs for each item listed on Etsy, so I plan to post 5 every time. In trying to get different images of a necklace, I will use a leather necklace model just to give a different perspective of the piece. I think they are kind of hokey, but they do add variety to the photos. I looked for an equivalent ear model for earrings, but didn’t find any that I liked from the jewelry supply companies. The only thing that was remotely close to what I was looking for, in my Google searches, was this:

It even came with self-adhesive Velcro, for display purposes. I had to file the lobe down a little bit, as suggested, so the earrings would hang more naturally. The directions also suggested using acrylic paint or colored pencils to make it more life-like. I considered that, but then thought better of it. Do I think I might sell more earrings if they look like they are hanging from a severed ear?!

I’ll give it a try in its white version and see how it goes. What do you think?

I’m still working on the clasp series. More “clunkers” and “aha” moments. Still learning from my mistakes. I’m not sure why I find these things such a struggle, but I do. In the midst of working on one thing, I’ll get an idea for something else. I was working on a series of metal clay earring components with embedded wires, (the earring above features two of them), and I thought, “Why not embed shorter 20 gauge wire to create ear posts, and avoid   soldering?”  With the two hour, 1650º  firing, the posts are fixed well in place. Most likely it is a stronger bond than solder.  After the earrings are fired, I cut the end of the wire to the length I want, and smooth it with a cup burr. Voila! Ear post! And no torch necessary.

These earrings feature a different design on each side, so they are reversible.  This pair will go up on Etsy, but I’m making another pair for myself as soon as I come home from my day off the island tomorrow.

My first attempt at designing my own magnetic clasps had mixed results. When it came time to epoxy the magnets in place, there were more failures than successes. But I learned a LOT! I followed the instructions from Hattie Sanderson’s  Maglette kit, and I fully expected that the fired metal clay would shrink to the right size to hold the magnet in place and close the clasp. What I did not think about was the fact that the clay might shrink too much and the magnets would show.  I fired the pieces for 2 hours at 1650º to insure the most strength in the clasps. I now know that there is more shrinkage than I am used to when I fire pieces this way. It might be a good idea to design a little collar, for one side of the clasp to overlap the other. That would insure the magnet coverage, even with the clay shrinkage.

Below, an example of putting one of the magnets in upside down. Duh. The clasp could not close because the two magnets repelled each other.

Below, again with too much shrinkage to accommodate the magnets. (These strong magnets are pretty thin by the way.) These clasps made me think about having mussels or clams for dinner sometime soon.

One that worked:

So, back to the drawing board. Necklaces with a magnetic clasp are one of my best sellers. Especially for people with arthritis. Undaunted, I  will work on improving these designs!

I don’t know who the original artist is, but these were sent to me in an e-mail by my friend Stevie Quinn, mom of Meg. I was looking for something fun to post as I work on oxidizing and finishing the clasps I fired before my trip to Boston. These fit the bill!

Next time you have some extra time and dead flies, why not make some art?

…made me forget whatever was bothering me earlier today. As the tide went out, miniature rivers showed up in the sand; their banks catching the  light of the setting sun. Balm for the soul.

Last night I became encouraged by additional success with fusing fine silver  jump rings.

I attached one to a PMC3 oval to use as a clasp. Rather than fuse the jump ring in place, after firing the PMC clasp, I tried cutting a small wedge out of the leather hard PMC oval,  placed the jump ring on, and then moistened the wedge’s edges and slid  it back into place. This is a technique from Kate McKinnon’s book  Structural Metal Clay that I wanted to try.

So far so good, but I needed a hook for the other half of this clasp, and this is where the 14 gauge wire felt less than friendly. In trying to make a simple wire-wrapped loop with thicker wire, my pliers felt foreign. I tried to correct  the curves I didn’t like, and the hook looked worse! I can make these wrapped loops in my sleep with 20 gauge wire, but I remember how frustrating it was to learn at first. What is easy now, I had to do many times, before it became that way. So I kept trying, making what looked like super-sized French ear wires, until I thought to try fusing the end loop instead of wrapping it.

The humble progression:

And the as-yet-unfired PMC clasp:

I went to bed last night thinking that Mr. 14 gauge and I were great friends. This morning I made 11 hooks to fuse, and 11 figure-8 loops to match them. I had fusing confidence as I lit my torch after lunch. It turned out that the hook with the perfect little fused loop on the end was a nice piece of beginner’s luck.

Another humble progression:

Undaunted, I knew I could drill out the spots where the wire had melted to completely fill in the smaller loop. And my work-hardened friend was once again pliant after being annealed by the heat from the fusing process. With some shaping and hammering I ended up with a few new clasps I will be happy to use. I imagine I will learn to be more comfortable in using this heavier gauge wire, and  alreay I’m not in such a rush to order the 16 gauge I thought I was missing.

After fusing my way through these clasps, I tried a few more jump rings to have on hand. I’m happy to say they are getting a little easier each time.

It has been a while since I’ve spent this much time with my torch. I keep it in my basement work room, where I also do my soldering and keep my drill press for drilling rocks. Today I picked up some fired copper clay pieces that had been sitting on this workbench since early last fall. Abandoned earring components. Maybe I though they were too thin? Maybe the rest of that kiln batch had not sintered properly? I couldn’t really remember how I had planned to use them. Perhaps they just seemed too plain. I decided to take them upstairs to my studio to see what would happen if I hammered them. Would they harden, crumble, or crack?  Well, they hardened quite nicely. And as I set them down on my bench, next to the rest of my work from today, darned if they didn’t become another idea for a clasp!