The Birth (and Naming) of a New Collection

I recently wrote a blog post  for my Metal Clay Heads Etsy Team.  In it, I discussed my newest sources for inspiration:  Some antique buttons from a client and textures and designs I have found in various pieces of furniture and other items in the small museum where I work. 

Working on new designs based on these things is a departure from the nature-based pieces I have made in the past, and I want to mark this by naming the new line.  After a lot of thought, I have settled on The Nouvelle Collection.

The name has many meanings for me.  First, nouvelle and nouveau both mean "new" in French.  The obvious is that this is a new line, but it is also a play on the term Art Nouveau.  I love designs from that period and my new pieces will be based, in part, on art from that era (and others).  This also marks a new phase in my life, since I have recently taken a new job, after staying home with my children for more than 10 years.

During the last few years as my children have needed me at home less, I have spent more time working on my jewelry as well as teaching metal clay.  Since I will now have less time to devote to working with metal clay, I would like to focus on pieces that challenge me.  I will be drawing and designing more of my own textures and using more advanced techniques in some of my pieces.

Having said that, my first pieces for the Nouvelle Collection are simple post earrings made using some of the antique and vintage buttons I recently received.  My next piece will be a brooch based on a drawer pull on a dresser in the museum.  I hope to chronicle the making of that piece from design to finish and will publish that on the Metal Clay Heads blog.

Something Unexpected

This is the second version of this post I have written.  The first strangely disappeared.  Remind me never to go to Blogger on my iPad again.

Last night I had a wonderful surprise from a customer.  Last week we had talked about making molds from old buttons.  I bought a few recently, which is what I made my button rings with.

So she brought me a whole tin of buttons that she had gotten from her grandmother.  I think she said that her grandmother had inherited some of them from her grandmother.   I'm  not an expert at dating old buttons, but I do know these are very cool.  The designs and textures are exquisite.  There are some metal ones, what I think is Bakelite, and some black glass ones.  I researched those last night and I learned that black glass buttons became popular after Prince Albert died in the 1860s and Queen Victoria went into mourning.  She wore jet buttons, apparently, but those were too expensive for most people, so less expensive ones were made from glass.

Lately I have been struggling with whatever the metal clay version of writer's block is.  And wondering whether I should continue making jewelry.  My wish for a while has been to make my jewelry and teaching into a full-time job, but the economy hasn't cooperated, and I have taken a job.  I really do like it, but adding it to the mix of obligations has given me very little time or energy to create.  Hence the block or lack of inspiration or whatever.

But the buttons have given me inspiration.  I have been fascinated with the Victorian and Edwardian eras for a very long time and, using the molds I have made from my own buttons as well as my those of my customer, I will begin a new line inspired by those periods.

I'm itching to start.

Six Rings - Part Two

 I had a partially successful firing of the first three rings.  A successful firing, to me, is something I don't have to do anything to after except for polishing.  Unfortunately, this wasn't quite the case.

Everything sintered just fine, so in that way it was successful.  The problem was with the shrinkage.  It seems that shrinkage in sterling clay isn't quite as simple as I thought.  In the last post, I said that the clay didn't shrink as much as the package said it would.  I would like to rephrase that.  The ring shanks don't seem to shrink 25 percent.  The settings for the stones, however, do.  The settings shrunk enough to pop out the stones on two of the rings.  One was pretty simple to fix, but the other took a bit more work.  In the end I did get both stones set.  

The second set, with the small stones was a bit easier knowing what to expect as far as the shrinkage went. 

 

All six came out of the carbon with a small bit of yellowish coating that was easy to remove with a scratch brush.  About an hour in the tumbler was enough to brighten them up.  They seem to be much stronger than the same rings in fine silver would be.  I cannot bend the bands.  

I loved making these rings.  My favorite setting is the one with just the four corners, with the channel on just two sides running a close second.  I will continue to work with sterling clay, and I want to explore the shrinkage issues a bit more.