MCHs Team Challenge: Add some color/enameling challenge

Welcome! This time we challenged our Metal Clay Heads to add color or enamel their work. Member can use alcohol inks, ceramic/glass paints, enamel, resin, epoxy or colored pencil. The style or design is completely open. As is the metal. The possibilities are simply endless. 

These are the fabulous, handmade entries.

1) Rag-A-Dolly Necklace from YorkAvenueStudio

Little girl necklace is 1.25 inches. Kathy named her Rag-A-Dolly because through all the steps to design and enamel her, that was what was going around in her mind. This project was specifically intended to push Kathy to try enamel and learn something new. View more pictures here.

Check out Kathy's creation here.

2) Ginkgo and Lizard Necklace from LynnCobb

Lynn used enamel powders and pmc3 combined to make slurry, molded, kiln fired on pmc3 a ginkgo leaf. View more pictures here.

Check out Lynn's creation here.

3) Shelyn's Holy Symbol from CarrieMichael

This is Carrie's first attempt at a champleve finish with enamel, and using 24K gold foil with silver so that warm colors won't react and turn brown. View more pictures here.

Check out Carrie's creation here.

4) Leaf Earrings from Envydesignsjewelry

Jennifer used alcohol inks on her design this time to achieve the vibrant colors on metal clay.

Check out Jennifer's creation here.

Please vote using the Poll to the right.  Share this post with anyone that might not otherwise know about the Challenge.  The Poll is open to the public.  Any comments are welcome! 

Don't forget to check out the Artist's work as well by clicking on their name/shop name! Enjoy!

Winner Announce for our August Giveaway!

The lucky winner is Susan Jolly Lokaj! She will receive the amazing Tree of Life Silver Pendant handmade by Lynn Cobb.

Congrats to Susan. Big thank you to Lynn. Thanks to everyone for your support. We will have another feature + giveaway coming in September, don't forget to come back and enter again!

My inspiration? Creative process? Challenges? Ambitions?

August Featured Artist Lynn Cobb

Welcome to Metal Clay Heads Team Blog Feature and Giveaway! This time we have well-known and talented metal clay artist Lynn Cobb talking about her inspirations, her creative process, her challenges and ambitions on metal clay art. 

My  challenge, overwhelming at times,  is to remain fresh and creative. I feel best about my work when it feels really authentic to me. Something that has welled up from within my psyche.

A question that artists often consider, "Is this original?" raises so many others. Most of us probably agree that since women started painting the walls of the caves at Lascaux over 17,000 years ago (yes, recently, archeologists have determined that the hands pressed on the walls were female) that there have been millions of men and women artists who may have designed just about anything and everything the human mind can imagine. And, so, by calling a piece of art an original design, an artist may be saying that the piece is their own interpretation of a style or representation that most probably has been interpreted by many others over the millennia.

Silver flower statement ring with gold accent by Lynn Cobb

My flower necklaces and rings are a good example of this. They are certainly not the first flowers created in metal and worn to adorn the body. And, yet for me, they felt very authentic in that they were a culmination of my use of simple leaves as design elements, my admiration of Georgia O'Keeffe and Judy Chicago as strong women artists and my own feminist sensibility.

Those flowers came together after I had accumulated a dozen or so leaves using metal clay paste. Just playing with them, unfired, I realized that I could make them into flowers. Oh, that all designing could be so organic!  Frequently, I find myself with an idea, and having a pen and paper at hand, I will often either just make a note or a very rough sketch so that I remember. At the bench, later, I may begin to build on that idea.

Taking an idea  into a solid piece of jewelry leads me to think about how to execute it. This inevitably brings me to the work of others, and how I want to emulate the skills that I admire in others' work.

• I see the production work of very successful metal clay artists and business women and men, and I admire their ability to see their creations as a job, a way to make a good living working with their hands and to be able to make more creative pieces during "off time."
• I see the work of others who make exquisite classic designs, fine jewelry, by anyone's standards. I admire their perfection in fabrication and stone setting.
• I see the work of still others, driven by culture, and other iconic symbols, to develop complex pieces from their own drawings, but that bring together those deep psychic connections that many find relevant.

These are just a few of the skills that I want to bring to my work, in equal parts:  Marketability, Perfection, Meaningfulness. And, add these:  beautiful, unusual, cost-effective, humorous, personal, prolific, dynamic...and a hundred other adjectives that I would like to apply to my work.  Such a mountain I have placed in front of myself!

Tribal shield silver necklace with purple and yellow enamel by Lynn Cobb

All of this brings me to today. STUCK! I am still jotting down ideas and sketches, but being drawn to the bench to execute those ideas is currently alluding me. I hope to pull all of this together, make an exciting piece, enter it in Saul Bell, or send it off for publication, but not sure of when, what, or how that inspiration will return.

I do enjoy using natural elements, leaves, shells, plants...molding them, sometimes adding stones, gold or enamel. These are not pieces that I consider particularly creative, but, they can be pretty, and others do seem to like them. And, I use abstract textures from my own polymer carvings to mold the clay. The immediacy of metal clay makes these kinds of pieces fairly easy to make and they aren't too costly.

One of the best things about metal clay is its universally accessible process. Although I love the silver the most, and it is expensive, it requires few tools to get started, keeping it available for many to try. It drew me in, and, like many, I didn't have a ton of money to invest in major equipment in order to begin. I was able to add tools, a kiln, more tools, oh, and more tools, and some more, over the years and I believe many of us who love metal clay have found this to be one of its greatest equalizers...we are able to make beautiful metal jewelry, sometimes from the very first day.

Tree of life pendant by Lynn Cobb

Which, brings me to my giveaway piece. This is a simple pendant, and, it is a copy of  the very first piece that I ever made! (It is a little thicker...that first one was not very evenly rolled. And, the patina is more interesting, took awhile to learn that variations in temperature and additions of salt and ammonia could ramp up the colors.)  The design is my own, a carving that I made in polymer clay and have executed in polymer both with texture and using mica shift, and in silver.  While trying to figure out a tag to use on etsy, I came up with "tree of life" which seems to fit it, although, this one is more wintery, having lost its leaves. And, it has a bit of feminine symbology as well. Over the years, it has been one of my most popular designs. I hope you like it.

So here are the rules to enter the MCHs blog giveaway:

Every person is eligible to enter the blog giveaway with up to FOUR (4) entries. How can you get an entry? You can do any of the following and then let us know that by leaving a comment here so we can keep track.

1. Follow our blog = 1 entry
2. Check out featured artist and post favorite piece on the blog = 1 entry
3. Heart featured artist’s shop = 1 entry
4. Follow featured artist on Facebook = 1 entry
5. Make a purchase = 2 entries
6. Refer a friend = 1 entry
7. Tweet about the giveaway using key word metalclayheads = 1 entry
8. Share the Metal Clay Heads blog giveaway link on FB (Go to http://www.facebook.com/MetalClayHeadTeam and click Share) = 1 entry
9. If you voted and commented on our last challenge = 1 entry

The giveaway will run for two weeks. We will announce the winner on August 28th. Good luck!

Last Chance My Valentine

Check out this lovely MCHs team treasury created by Lynn Cobb. She handpicked a list of precious gifts just in time for your Valentine. Grab one before it's too late!

Lynn Cobb: Saul Bell Award Finalist

We have many talented and award-winning members on our Metal Clay Heads Team and it's always so exciting to "talk" to those about whom I have read or whose work I have seen in books.  I love to say I know these people!  One of our newest members is Lynn Cobb, who recently announced that she is a finalist for the 2011 Saul Bell Design Award in the Metal Clay Division for this beautiful Fine Silver Flower.

Photo by George Post

Lynn has been working with PMC for about six years.  Her background is in painting (mostly abstracts with acrylics) and polymer clay jewelry and she says the transition to PMC was a natural one for her.  She has always loved abstract, sensual, flowing forms and continued using them in her PMC work. 

The inspiration for her beautiful flowers is best left in Lynn's own words:

Of course as with most of us, I have made plenty of silver leaves by building up layers of paste on the back of actual leaves. They sometimes seem a bit trite perhaps, and yet I have been able to keep a steady flow of these flowing out of the booth at craft fairs. One day, I had a group of ginkgo leaves that I had not yet fired. When completely dry, the actual leaves pop right off the clay, so I began to play with arranging the leaves into a flower and realized that I could form them by using a small lump to hold them together, I began with two leaves and added as I went along, after each addition had completely dried. I added tiny balls of silver clay or slithery forms to draw the eye into the center of the flowers. (I add gold by painting gold paste on to the unfired silver, 2 layers before firing and another 2 layers, torch fired after the whole piece has been kiln fired.)

After I finished the first few flowers, I realized that I had created these sensual flowers that brought forth the beauty of Georgia O'Keeffe's spectacular flower paintings in three dimensional pieces of jewelry. I have been very strongly influenced by her flowers that just pulsate on the canvas.  I also love the work of Judy Chicago, particularly The Dinner Party which, you may know, was an installation of dinner plates and place "mats" representing 99 women from his(her)story. These plates in some cases were painted flowers and others were far more representational, in three dimensions, of a woman's own flower, her vulva. Not in the least bit vulgar, Chicago's work was meant to show the power of women's art and craft and indeed, women's bodies. This work was done at a time when women artists were beginning to demand that the male dominated art community exhibit art done by women. And, to demand that women's art be accepted equally with art done by men and that women's art is as legitimate as men's, regardless of the subject matter, materials used and style.

All of this has been brewing within me, as an artist for the last 30 years. I feel that with metal clay, I have finally found the medium that allows me to express myself, in a way that feels very authentic and this flower series, I would like to think, is my own contribution to women's art. Our art, often relegated to the back of the gallery in the past, has begun to truly flower within the art community.

It is no surprise to me that a majority of metal clay artists are women. We have always been drawn to craft, art with function: needlecraft, pottery, jewelry. We have added beauty to everyday items throughout the millennia and we, as women, should be proud of our heritage and continue to create real art as we see fit, whether to adorn ourselves, our homes or gallery walls!

 Lynn has made other beautiful flowers in this series as well: 

Photo by George Post

Lynn is a Certified PMC Artisan, Level 2, and is currently working toward the Metal Clay Masters Registry professional development program.   Her work has appeared in Metal Clay Beads by Barbara Becker Simon, Jewelry, the 'zine by Catherine Witherell, the 4th PMC Guild Annual and in Mixed Metal Jewelry Workshop, by Mary Hettmansperger.

Lynn lives in the San Francisco Bay area and teaches classes in PMC.  Her work can be seen in her Etsy shop as well as at fine craft shows in the Bay area and at www.lynncobbsilver.com.