My hands always smell like metal now.

It isn't quite finished - it still needs a rim, a base, and a patina -

but here is my final copper piece for my holloware class.

This weekend, we had a workshop with pewtersmith Fred Fenster. Pewter is so strange to work with. All the things I know about metal are useless when working in pewter. It's incredibly soft, melts at a very low temperature, needs a gap for soldering, and work-softens rather than hardens. It also contaminates other metals and needs to be kept totally separate, which meant the workshop ended in a frenzy of sweeping, wiping, scrubbing, and vacuuming the whole studio. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.

Here's a piece of Fred Fenster's work:

I hope my own will eventually be ready to show.