The goods:

1/24/10

I started out with a different concept in mind, and after unsuccessfully playing around for a while I ended up with this fun, simple shape. Someone on Flickr commented that it looks like a baby snake. Snakes: they follow me!

I really enjoy the position of this ring on the hand. It’s not exactly practical for everyday wear, but it’s pretty awesome looking!

1/25/10

Red polymer clay and fine silver bezel wire. I’m pretty pleased with this one, too. It was terribly difficult to get that polymer clay shank to stay where I wanted it to before I baked it, though.

1/26/10

Here’s where it got frustrating. I found an old (from early 2008, I believe) experimental polymer clay ring with an eyeball on a tentacle in my studio. I wanted to make it a little more practical for daily wear (also, less phallic), so I started playing around with a new glass eye and some clay.

This thing just would NOT do what I wanted it to. Finally I called it a day with this version.

I think it would be fun to make a similar semi-circular polymer clay segment with lids for an eyeball and set it in a metal bezel. Actually, this attempt probably would have worked out a lot better if I’d baked the first section of the ring and THEN added the polymer clay shank, instead of trying to do it all at once. That just occurred to me now. Oh well. Maybe next time!

1/27/10

Busy day, tendril ring. This one is very comfortable to wear.

1/28/10

Space balls! For this one I rolled up a bunch of clay spheres of varying sizes, stuck them together with the help of some short lengths of wire, then stuck ‘em on some silver wires and baked it all. This also would have been easier if I’d baked the polymer clay before adding the wire shank. Ah well. Live and learn. Though this one was a little rough, I like the look of it. I might play around with this idea some more in the future.

1/29/10

At this point I was starting to get polymer clay fatigue, and a friend providentially requested a ring on Culp Baubles’ facebook page. He asked for “Dice rings. More specifically d20 rings.” As it so happened, I had a bag of long forgotten d20 dice lying around in my house, so I hastened to fulfill the request.

This was fun! This was one of the larger dice, so I made the shank out of a thick brass rod. I like the color contrast between that particular die and the brass.

1/30/10

…and since I had so much trouble deciding which die to use for 1/29’s ring, I decided to make another! I loved the way the d10 die shape referenced a diamond, and since I had a sparkly silver one at hand, I had to use it. I ground off the bottom point of the die (adhesives don’t stick to plastic well, I’ve discovered), made a sterling silver shank, and popped the two together. I do enjoy a whimsical ring to round off the week.

Things I learned this week: I am not particularly adept at working with polymer clay, but it can be a valuable tool to experiment with new forms and shapes quickly and cheaply. Also, taking requests can be fun!

Since I had so much fun with the dice rings, I am now taking requests for potential rings of the day! Hit me up with ideas on Facebook or Twitter. Coming up soon: a ring with mini metal antlers, and a boot or shoe ring.

1/17/10

Polymer clay, brass rod. This little guy owes his shape to Carleton; I enjoy making variations on that shape when playing around with polymer clay. I like that purple color and its contrast with the brass.

1/18/10

I took the image from a vintage postcard. The entire original image features a red-cheeked, sweaty, naked baby holding a tennis racket. I scanned the image and printed it so I could keep that demented postcard intact. Shine on, crazy postcard.

I backed the image with a stiff cardstock to make the baby a little more durable, made two brass rings, and stuck ‘em together. This ring is oddly comfortable to wear.

1/19/10

I’m rather fond of this little plastic bull; he came out of a margarita pitcher shared with friends at a dinner in New York in summer 2008. I have two of the bulls and originally intended to make a pair of earrings with them, but the ring challenge called for one of them. This was a terribly busy day, so I ended up just popping the bull onto a cheap base metal ring that came into my life from Claire’s or some similar supplier, and voila! Now he’s a ring.

1/20/10

Another busy day! I tried to make another ring and burned one of my fingers in an attempt to heat and bend plastic. That inspired me to go this route. I suppose it can double as a broken heart ring if worn on the left ring finger.

1/21/10

Clementine peels are an old favorite of mine. I raided my stash of dehydrated peels, artfully arranged and attached a few of them, and put a loop of steel wire on the underside. This ring is actually much more comfortable than the Band-Aid ring of the day before.

1/22/10

This ring honored Friday and Mrs. Skinny Bone Jones, who introduced me to Bulleit. I spotted the teeny bottle in a liquor store the week before, and had to have it. A thick brass band attached to the back side with strong adhesive holds it on the hand. I can’t stop smiling at this thing.

1/23/10

This one is made up of copper wire scraps left over from making 90 days… last year. I laid them out flat, soldered them together to suit my fancy, then wrapped the result into a circular shape and soldered the ends together. I’m a little sick of looking at copper, so I dunked it in a black patina that tends to make metal look matte and a little weathered. I’m pretty pleased with the result.

This was a hectic, stressful week, and it turned out several rings of the “object stuck to a shank” variety. I’m ready to branch out a bit! Next week, I plan to play with clay and focus on structure.

You can see more pics of the rings on the Culp Baubles Facebook page and my Flickr.

Since making one ring each day could easily turn into a very time-consuming task, I’m trying to keep materials and processes for this project simple and use it as a way to explore outside of my usual working processes. Here’s the first week’s results:

1/10/10

On the 10th, I decided to jump in feet first. (It was rather late in the evening, and seemed like a great idea at the time.) My first endeavor involved electrical wire and a small piece of brass tubing. It was actually quite difficult to get the wire to stay bent into a circle that small, but I prevailed with some glue and patience.

1/11/10

For this one I broke out some polymer clay. A length of fine silver wire fits around the underside of the finger, and is held in place by the spheres on top. I couldn’t resist giving the larger one a belly button. This ring is surprisingly comfortable to wear. I may play with this form again in the future.

1/12/10

This pinky ring may be may favorite of the bunch so far. The “finger” broke off a bad cast of my own hand earlier in the year. With a couple coats of nail polish and some steel wire added to hold it to a real finger, it found a new purpose. This one looks especially creepy when worn on my corresponding left pinky finger.

1/13/10

The snow outside was (finally!) beginning to melt, so I figured this might be my only chance to do a snow ring. I made the sterling silver bowl and shank pretty quickly. The snowball itself had to be remade twice during the brief shooting session because it melted so quickly.

Wearing this ring was extremely unpleasant. I never considered how well sterling silver might conduct cold before; I now know that it does so very, very well. My finger almost froze off, even after I added a glove to protect my hand.

1/14/10

This little guy proved terrifically frustrating. I started with a swatch of faux snakeskin and a glass snake eye, and it seemed simple enough to cut a hole for the eye and sew the fabric together to make a band. Wrong! The hole I initially cut for the eye stretched too much and left a gap around the eyeball. I ended up ripping the plastic-y “snakeskin” from its backing fabric, stretching a tiny cut over the eyeball, and assembling the whole thing with superglue. Superglue was EVERYWHERE when it was finally done.

I love the way that material stretched over the eye, though. I may utilize this discovery in future.

1/15/10

Quick and easy. I cut the first two-and-a-half inches off my measuring tape, wound it into a circle, and secured it with a piece of thin bronze sheet folded over with pliers. I may wear this one out. I must remember that two inches are missing from the measuring tape if I use it to measure anything, however.

1/16/10

Today’s ring was also simple and easy. I cut a length of copper plumbing tubing off of a long tube with my jeweler’s saw. Several blades gave up their lives in an attempt to get one end to cut at an angle. I cleaned up the edges with a diamond bit, attempted to enhance the slight red tint on part of the tube with dye oxide patina (not very successfully), and gave up and pronounced it done.

This one’s very simple, but fits on the finger in an interesting way. I could actually bend my pinky and pick things up while wearing it mid-finger as shown, which is more than I expected from such skinny tubing.

Onward to next week! You can see more images of these rings at the Culp Baubles Facebook page and at my Flickr.

So.

Here it is, not much the worse for some wear and tear. The image inside the locket is a picture of my eye taken by the recipient himself in summer 2008. You can see more of his work here. The locket itself is copper, darkened with liver of sulfur.

My assigned recipient was one Mayor of Bethville, author of Welcome to Bethville. When I considered what sort of gift might please the Mayor, I couldn’t get her particularly hilarious series of posts about Andrew Jackson out of my mind. So, I made a mourning pendant for the Honorable Mayor to wear on occasions of remembering our still-deceased seventh President:

I had such a blast making it!

The metal of the pendant is copper, darkened with liver of sulfur and sealed (so as not to leave black smudges on the Mayor when worn). After fabricating the metal components, soldering them together, polishing the piece and applying patina and sealant, it was time to add some Andrew Jackson. I found a public domain portrait of President Jackson, shrunk him down to the appropriate size, and set his face in the bezel. I measured the pendant’s circumference and calculated the appropriate number of beads carefully, but still ended up taking a grinder to the edges of the very last bead to make it fit just perfectly.

I never expected aventurine dust to smell so awful. Who’d have thought?

My slight olfactory discomfort was worth it, however, to achieve the intended effect. Finally, I mixed a two-part epoxy resin and poured it over Jackson to seal his portrait under a hard, shiny surface.

It was terribly hard to keep my mouth shut about the gift once it was finished, but my patience was rewarded when the Mayor opened her present and loved it. It looks fantastic on her, too:

I look forward to reading many more laughter (and jewelry)-inspiring posts on Welcome to Bethville in 2010!

Photo of Honorable Mayor wearing pendant courtesy Laia of Geometric Sleep.

At the South Street Seaport in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, my boyfriend presented me with a ring of his own design and a proposal of marriage. I joyfully accepted, and began the new year with a beautiful emerald on my finger and a handsome fiancé on my arm.

I look forward to a fantastic 2010 and beyond with my partner in life, art, and crime.

Copper, brass, dehydrated clementine peels, epoxy resin

and…..

Brass

I like how twenty year old me called out my mad drawing skillz right on the page. These were idle scratchings about something I thought would be cool—a metal orange that opened on hinges, with something inside it. That little flicker of an idea sat around for a long time before anything came of it.In the fall of 2006, I was assigned a teapot project for my metals class. With no real inclination toward teapot-making, I remembered my scribbles from earlier in the summer and decided to shoehorn that idea into the current project. That, presumably, led to this page:

…and many others like it. I never did complete that project (life got in the way). All I have to show for it is pages of sketches of goldfish, oranges, submarine piping, and four copper bowls about the size of half-grapefruits, two of which (the intended ‘outsides’) textured and shaped to look like an orange, and two inside “lining” bowls, which are smooth. I really must do something with those some day.

As I mentioned, life became rather hectic for a time, years passed, and finally it was 2009 and I was preparing for my B.F.A. show when this long dormant orange/dead fish idea resurfaced. I made more sketches, I played with brass tubes, and finally this piece (Life on the Inside or Does your marriage smell like fish?) emerged from the chaos.

It retained the elements of the original teapot design, but rearranged them into a stronger, more mature and aesthetically considered piece than the original design. I find it interesting to look back and see exactly how long that particular symbolism floated around in my head before emerging as a coherent, three-dimensional work.

Some other scribbles found in that sketchbook that later made their way into metal form:

This is one of the more elaborate "harpies," as I dubbed them, who appear in sketches and margins of notebooks from the late 2006-2007 period.

In 2009 I impaled one of the harpies in "Little Prick."

All on one page: first appearance of a herpes ring, scribble of a harpy, and an adorable baby tortoise to boot!

"Herp sores are forever," 2009

Gather closer to the fire, everyone, and hear the story of an art attempt so flawed, so hideous, that its picture must be hidden after the jump. This is the tale of the Penis with an Eyeball. For your hand.

IT'S LOOKING AT YOU!

This project started out innocuously enough. After being cheated on by a long-term partner, penises began to drift into my previously more female-centric artwork. I doodled penises with eyeballs, a terribly obvious visual metaphor for a predatory, roaming male gaze. These little cyclopic dicks evolved legs at some point—the better to wander with, presumably. When I decided to create a collection of rings dealing with sexual politics and problems, I resolved to bring one of the Penis-men to life. He would look just like the penises I’d doodled: an eye would sit in his glans, the shaft of the penis would transition into a pot belly and tiny testicles, and he’d have little legs and feet to suggest mobility.

Like most failed art attempts, the actual construction included a lot of firsts. I initially made his body out of Plastilina clay, then made (for the first time) a silicone mold to cast a wax version of the body into. Here I made my first mistake. Having a great time sculpting the body, I neglected to include the head. I couldn’t cast an entire glans on top of the penis and still have a way to insert the glass eye afterward, so I assumed I could just fashion a bezel after the casting, set the eyeball into it, and it would be done. Simple, right?

See his vein and little pot belly? It's kind of grossly cute. I think. But maybe he's grown on me.

Wrong. The casting itself (outside the supervision of a professor, first #2) went smoothly. The creation of a bezel to hold the eye, however, did not. Soldering a thin bezel wire to a thick cast piece of metal (first #3) was difficult. After several attempts and lots of grinding and sanding to make the bezel the right height for the eye, I attempted to set the eyeball. Yikes. This wasn’t a first, but I hadn’t set a stone in a long, long time, and it was rough. Several tiny eyeballs died in the process of making this thing. After killing all the blue eyes I tried to stick in it, I went with hazel. It looked better anyway. Problem was, the nicely set eye in a smooth bezel looked nothing remotely like the glans of a penis. I showed it to my father at this stage, and he said gravely, “It looks like a bad circumcision accident.”

Funny though it was, that wouldn’t do. Short of casting a bronze head and gluing it on, which metalsmithing snobbishness made me loathe to do, I had few options. Strangely, I wasn’t as stuck up about using Sculpey (my local craft store’s brand of polymer clay) as I was about gluing metal to metal, so I fashioned a more suitable head for him and baked it on in the oven. Now, he had a semi-recognizable glans, but the eye was set at a strange, upward-staring angle, and the glans was an entirely different color from the body and clearly not metal. I covered the head in copper leaf (first #4) and darkened it slightly with patina in an attempt to blend, but it still looked strange. In a desperate, flailing effort to make it look right somehow, I scraped off the copper leaf and gold leafed the head. I wish I had a picture of this stage of the Penis-Eye-Man. I will attempt to replicate the effect with the magic of Photoshop:

It looked something like that, but brighter and shinier. Needless to say, it was not an improvement. I ended up scraping it off and giving the whole thing up as a bad job.

A month later, I returned to the idea with a better plan of action. Now, I realized that an anthropomorphic penis with a bloated stomach and skinny legs is creepy enough on its own without an eyeball sticking out of its glans. A silver bead was enough to suggest a feeling of being looked at to the viewer, while remaining much more ambiguous and subtle than a big ol’ glass eye. I made three “Cock Rings,” and my earlier experience with the Penis-Man-of-Terror allowed me to sculpt them much more proficiently, avoiding (amongst other things) the frog leg effect of the first.

Sometime during the process of my inadvertent torture of the first attempt, my rage at my philandering ex died to a minor irritation. Rather than a vengeful polemic about cheaters, the three final Cock Rings were able to grow into a more universal statement about the male gaze. As I put it in my artist’s statement: “The anthropomorphic Cock Rings address our society’s assignment of value to the female body based on its conformity to certain aesthetic standards. When worn on a female hand, the Cock Rings confront the viewer with the entitlement that supports such a male-privileged gaze, and betray the relative lack of importance assigned to male beauty with their own comical appearances.”

Droopy, who says all the struggle was worth it.

And that’s the way it goes with most of my tales of failed art: I end up learning valuable lessons and make better work for it.

That’s not a very good ending to a horror story, though. If you need to feel terrified again, scroll back up top and look into the vacant, wide-eyed stare of that polymer clay-penis-eyeball, and know that THAT THING EXISTS. Sometimes, knowing it’s in my house keeps me awake at night.

Sorta like hanging out with Australopithecus afarensis. BFFs!

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