Last work of 2011. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
I don't make resolutions.  At the beginning of every year I always say that I want to spend less money and get more work done.  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not.  As soon as I finish this blog post, I'll go get some work done while the rest of the family sleeps in.

I've finished up another mineral chasing commission.  These mineral chasings are challenging for me, forms that I've never worked with before.  I do love looking at rocks, but I've never thought of rocks as something that you'd replicate or depict in metal.
You can click on the photos to go to a larger version in Flickr.
 

I made up a few copper ginkgo pendants and earrings, well, just for fun.  Copper is such a beautiful and malleable metal, all around fun to work with, and a perfect color choice for the leafy work.







As many of you know, my husband, Bill Fiorini, passed away last spring.  As an accomplished artist, he left behind a lot of experimental projects, discarded projects, and a few works in progress.  Every now and then I find some pieces that I can use, almost in a collaborative way.

Over the past few years he'd been making stamping tools and doing Japanese influenced stamped design work.  He had made some flower motif bead forms for earrings.  He had some left, so last week I made them into this collection of 2 earring styles and 2 necklaces for my online shop.

In this pair of simple sterling silver earrings, you can see the stamped flower motif and 24k gold dot inlay at the center.


In this second style, he had used two of the flower motifs, soldering them into double sided bead forms with copper in the center.


The two necklaces use the 2 sided more dimensional bead form.
Here one bead makes a simple statement, hanging from a 24 inch black cord necklace.


The other is more dramatic, with 5 beads linked into a 26 inch sterling silver chain.


I also finished up one more of the framed mosaic pendants, using polymer clay mosaic tiles that Bill had created when he taught a damascus steel pattern development class many years ago.