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Helen’s Copper Thumb Ring

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A couple of months ago my friend, Helen, asked me to make her a ring for her thumb out of copper.   She’s been having joint pain and thought maybe the copper against her skin would help relieve it.   Of course, I said ‘Sure’!   I came home and thought about how to make a ring that would fit or could be adjusted to fit.   And the copper really needed to touch the joint.   And Helen lives 200 miles away so there would be no ‘fitting’. I cut paper and played with a design that would wrap around the thumb and not get in the way of daily chores.   I came up with this design.   During one of my practice sessions with my jeweler’s saw, I decided how to cut it and how to decorate it.   I practiced. The copper sheet I chose for the final ring came from my junk yard treasures.   It has striations on it and the plastic protection coating was still on one side.   I carefully sawed on my scribe lines and filed and sanded all the edges.   Then I used my disc cutter to make the random cir

Monument Valley – A Study of Rock Formations

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Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is located in Arizona and Utah and covers 91,696 acres.   It’s a place where you can almost feel time stand still and peace envelop you.   The large and varied rock formations were formed by erosion and range from 100 ft to 1500 ft tall.   Many of the formations have been given names – Elephant Butte, Camel Butte, The Three Sisters, Totem Pole and more.  Camel Butte (Can you see him?)  Tourism is big business here.   “The View” is a beautiful new hotel and every room has a view of the monuments.   We saw more rental RV’s than we could count.   And well over half the visitors were from other countries.   I was most interested in seeing the rock formations, the striations and faces of the rocks, the light and shadow as the sun moved across the sky.   The colors and textures made me want to get clay out and model while I observed the changes.    I have no doubt that this experience will have a major impact on my future

Finding Zen in the Jeweler’s Saw

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First Exercise in the Class Craftcast with Alison Lee is a really great online source for classes mostly about jewelry making.   I find myself signing up for almost all of them because they are so well done.   When the class ‘Zen and the Art of the Jeweler’s Saw’ with Michael David Sturlin was offered, I waited to take it.   I thought, ‘ok, I have a jeweler’s saw and I’ve used it and so why take a class?’   http://www.craftcast.com/ I’m going to Art Unraveled in Phoenix in August and I’m taking three classes in metal jewelry techniques.   Every one of them lists the jeweler’s saw as a necessary tool.     I got my saw out and tried it. ‘Hmmmmm’   I thought, ‘guess it is time to take the class’. There are recordings of the classes you can buy if you miss the live class and boy am I glad I signed up! http://www.artunraveled.com/ First of all my workspace is too low for correct posture and for keeping the saw vertical.   As you can see in the photo, Peter solved my problem.   He m