I am an engine and I'm rolling on through endless revisions.

After an intense all night session in the studio,

I finished two enamel brooches for my surface class.

front:

back:

front:

back:

Actually, the second one is reversible

because you can swing the pin back around

the other way and wear it with the blue side out.

I'd like to take some photos of these being worn too.

I write my blue songs with my blue pen.

In honor of the warm weather and fresh breezes,

I've compiled an artistic ode to my favorite flower -

the tulip

This is the best photogram I've ever seen.

[A photogram is an image you make by placing objects

directly on photo sensitive paper and exposing it all to light.]

This one has had the blacks and whites reversed -

photograms are usually black where the light hits and

white/grey where the objects have blocked the light.

Next, a wonderful quilted and woven tulip tapestry,

by fiber artist Connie Akers:

And here is proof that you can do cool things with a camera and

without a computer (of course, you will need a tulip):

This is a digital drawing I did several years ago,

just playing around with layers of different translucency:

And because I'm a metal artist,

here are a couple of pieces of jewelry

which make me think of tulips. Do you see it?

This one's a bit of a stretch, but there's something

very simple and graceful about the setting of this stone.

Simplicity and grace are both tulip qualities which made me fall in love.

I almost forgot this.

It's nature's art - a blue tulip.

I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel alright.

I've finished my final design in wax for casting.

It's a simple design and I love it for that.

It's sort of chunky on the outside, but it's hollow on the inside so it's quite light.

Which is good, since I'm seriously considering casting this in gold.

The stone is just dropped in place for the photos -

it will be set after the casting is complete.

If you promise to ignore my roughed-up hands,

I'll show a photo of the ring while it's on my finger.

The stone is an opal from a ring that belonged to my great-aunt Irene. It was her birthstone and it is mine as well. Unfortunately, her ring is much too large for my fingers and is missing one of the accent diamonds due to broken prongs. Also, the opal itself was loose before I removed it entirely. All these things probably could be repaired, but I think there's something really nice about taking the stone and the gold from an old piece of jewelry and making it into something new. Recycling in this way is way cool.

There are power lines in our bloodlines.

I've been stretching out scraps of copper until they are paper-thin,

then cutting into them and shaping them into crinkled and tendrillar shapes.

A bit of solder tacks them in places

and attaches bases.

Tonight, I started to apply layers of enamel.

They go into the kiln at about 1450˚.

After multiple firings, the transparent enamel starts to take on a radiant sheen.

The enamel can't touch anything while it's in the kiln,

so each piece requires its own weird method of propping it up.

Well, hello there. My, it's been a long long time.

I haven't been working on much lately, so I haven't had anything to show off here. I'm finally back in the saddle and starting to carve some wax rings for my casting class. They'll be lost-wax cast, in which the wax is melted out and molten metal is poured in to take on the shape of the wax. These are rough carvings, just sort of playing around with the material to see what I can do. I'll show more photos of the actual steps of the process when I finalize a design.