Yuma Symposium 29

So, yes. I am finally posting about Yuma a month after the fact! Yuma was great, as usual. Fun people, fun times, and here are some of the pictures. If you don't know about the Yuma symposium, it happens every February. It's a three day event with a pin swap, lots of artist lectures, slide shows and demonstrations. There's also a student show, a pin auction, a show for presenters, a relay race called the saw, file solder sprints and a nice dinner the last night. Plus, there's lots of alcohol and junk food. This is really just a small percentage of the pictures I took. I tried to pick the ones that show the whole experience without making anyone look silly, myself included. (Remember how I said there was alcohol involved?) Anyway, without further delay...

This was on the drive over. Don't worry, I'm holding the wheel with my other hand :)

The famous Yuma pin swap. Yep, I got a few!

Victoria, Lynette and Ellie at the pin swap.

Flavia at the pin swap putting ketchup on each individual fry.

Ok, I just love this picture of Ellie, Lynette and Vic. They didn't even plan it!

Lynette, Vic, Jim, Jonathan and Ellie in the hotel room.

The campfire.

Aw, Lynette and Ellie are cute!

I wish I knew what was so funny. Vic looked cute in this picture, so I couldn't resist.

The next morning (too early) we went to see David Clemons give a talk and demo. Very interesting guy with very intriguing work.

At Diane Falkenhagen's demo. Her work is really beautiful. Look at her website: http://www.dianefalkenhagen.com/

I liked the fountain...

It was mesmerizing.

These are the lights in the theatre where I went to see Robin McClosky and Margorie Schick (http://www.pittstate.edu/art/marjo.html)

So, this is Lute's Casino, the restaurant we tend to gather at. It's also where the pin swap takes place. I recommend that you order the especial or the Cesar salad. Both good.

Ah, so here we are at the saw, file, solder sprints. Jonathan is sawing.

Lynette is filing and probably also yelling back at the people who are probably shouting things at her. It's a noisy affair, lots of cheering, lots of well... anti-cheering.

And Vic is soldering. Those torches suck, by the way.

Jacie did the sawing for our team. What a trooper!

Flavia, who got a new nick name (Flavo-flave) did the filing.

And I did the soldering.

This little guy became the unofficial Yuma Symposium dog. I guess he was wandering the streets of Yuma was adopted by some of the symposium attendees.

Walking back to the hotel just before dinner.

The sun sets on the final day of the symposium.

So I headed home that night. It turns out I drove through Gila Bend that night at the exact time a murderer was on the loose. He carjacked some poor man around that time too. Glad I didn't stop to pee! So you can probably see that Yuma was a blast. I really can't wait until next year, but I think maybe we'd all like a little more space in the hotel room next year. Maybe we'll get two. Two fits seven better than one does :)

Workspace

Each person's workspace is a very personal and important part of making artwork, whatever the medium. I know that at ASU, each of us had "our" desk that we always worked at and we rarely (if ever) and very reluctantly worked anywhere else. Personally, I would not work anywhere else. I've known people to kick lower level students out of "their" desk, but I could never do it. I'd make a pathetic effort at working somewhere else, decide that I had other homework to do and then leave. There's just something about one's workspace that is so personal and truly vital to actually producing artwork. You get to know your torch, your workbench, your flex shaft, your drawers, the perfect chair to go with it all...

That being said, I still have to get used to my space here at home. I got a beautiful new workbench with all of the drawers and compartments I could ever want. It's got lots of space, and I finally have most of the tools that I need, including a new flex shaft that, I must admit, still feels quite funny to me. I still need a good torch set up and a good stool/chair. The one I'm using is just too high and it hurts my back. But anyway, we make do don't we?

I thought I'd share a couple pictures of my workspace and workbench:

So, all of those drawers are full. Not full to the brim or anything, but there's stuff in every one of 'em and all of it is lined up and evenly spaced, like the OCD freak I can sometimes be.

But really, I think you can tell a lot about a person by his/her bench and workspace. This whole thing was really sparked by a picture that Tedd had on his blog of part of his workspace. When I thought about it I realized how difficult it would be for me to work in a space like his and likewise that he probably wouldn't want to work in a space like mine.

I know you might look at my pictures and say, "Yeah right Lauren. I'm so sure that your bench really looks like that. All neat and clean, sure..." But seriously, it does. I'm obsessive about it. When I'm actually sitting there working, of course it gets a little cluttered, but I clean it up continuously. Otherwise, I can't find things that are right in front of my face. And when I'm done, yes, this is exactly how my bench looks. I put everything back in its proper place, my current projects go in the cart on the right, I wipe everything down, I oil my steel tools, I clean the pickle pot, I change the quench water, I unplug everything, etc. You get the idea. Obsessive.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my workspace with you and my thoughts on how important that space is. I really find it fascinating. It's like Paho's photos of people's medicine cabinets and junk drawers. By the way, my medicine cabinet is exactly the same as the workbench. Every bottle, tube and container goes in one specific spot, faces one specific direction and has a perfect little zone of free space around it. Weird, I know, but that's me I guess.

So what about you? How do you like your workspace? What does it say about you? Do you find some sort of relationship between how you use/organize your space and what your work looks like or represents?

Let me know, because I really am interested.

So, that's all for tonight then.

Have a good one!

Also, I got a couple of jobs (yay)! And still need another (yikes)!

So come visit me at the Coyotes team shop or come take a class with me at the Tempe Center! Woohoo!

Belt Buckles

The more I make, the more I want to make!
Here are two of my most recent pieces, my first and second belt buckles:

This buckle was made for Tedd McDonah's patterned metals class. It is about 2" x 3" and contains forge welded steel. The back plate is nickel and the wire between the steel is sterling.

This buckle was made for the Andy Cooperman workshop. I used some sheet bronze that he provided and some Mokume Gane material that I had made in Tedd's class. I actually really like the way this one turned out!

The Andy Cooperman workshop was really fun. He taught us a lot of handy tricks and he's quite an entertaining guy, too. I'm glad I went!

If you are interested in seeing more forge welded steel and damascus, I like this site:

http://www.crandart.co.uk/index.htm

If you want to see more examples of Mokume Gane, I like this site:

http://www.shiningwave.com/index.html

They have some pretty cool patterns on that site. Of course you could just Google the terms and come up with these sites and a few others.

Well, until next time, Enjoy!

Post Edited on 3/14/08 (better pictures (Thanks Becky!))

A story about a jar.

Last week, my dad told me that we might take a fishing trip, my first in years. I decided to go through my very old collection of fishing whatnot to see what I still had laying around. I had a three and a half foot fishing pole and a snoopy tackle box. Here's the tackle box:

I opened the tackle box...

This is what I found at the bottom of the tackle box...

So, there were these eggs in there. I figure they had to be about...

Oh, about 12 years old. Give or take...

The last time I saw these eggs, they were fluorescent red.

Not so anymore...

Notice the quote on the side of the lid.

"Soft but satisfying"

I thought to myself what a nice little jar it was and how useful it would be to hold small metal objects. But, you may think, is it worth it?

Of course :)

So. I readied myself for the opening of the jar...

Wait...

Ok, now I'm ready.

Ew.

It turns out that they had solidified into an egg brick sort of thing, and didn't end up smelling that bad. At least from a distance.

I had to do some prying, but...

They came out!

Egg brick!

Now, time to attend to that jar!

It kills the Flu! And hopefully whatever was growing in there for the past dozen years.

Now, Clorox is wonderful, but I think it smells worse that 12 year old rotten, solidified, salmon egg brick. So, we'll let it hang out and do it's thing in the sink for a while.

Et Voila!

A nice pretty, clean, handy, little jar for me to use. I'll collect pennies in there for next year's Yuma pin swap. (The penny pins were a hit!)

So, we didn't end up going fishing :(

We didn't have the money to buy new fishing stuff because of the three flat tires we got on two of the cars this week. Yeah, I know, right?

On another note, Yuma was a blast. I still have to go through all the pictures, edit, then post them. Stay tuned, they'll be up soon enough.

Also, I'll be posting a couple of pictures of belt buckles I made. Those will probably be up before the Yuma ones.

So. Hope you all enjoyed my jar story :)