PMC... I love you!

A few months ago I decided to take a class in Precious Metal Clay (PMC). This stuff is nothing short of miraculous. It's made of tiny bits of ground up silver in a clay-like binder that leaves fine silver (.999 silver) after firing by torch or kiln. The first class pretty much turned my world upsidedown. After a decade of working with fiber and beads using color as my main focus and inspiration, I was suddenly without a palette. Texture and form would have to become my new muses. I was overwhelmed with the possibilities and I struggled with learning how to manage this material and not wash it down the drain.

I'm currently taking another PMC class taught by Alicia Fink and this time I came prepared. I read some books and articles by CeCe Wire (yes, that's really her name) and Barbara Becker Simon, and found much inspiration by seeing the amazing pieces that they and others have created. I learned that I can make the shiny metal jewelry that I love to wear, but still add color with stones, patinas, or enameling.

Tonight I decided to try my hand at torch firing. (Note: These are made from PMC3. It's my understanding that only PMC3 can be torch fired.) As pictured, it was like breathing life into little lumps of clay. Never mind that I partially melted at least 3 of the 6 pieces. Fortunately they are small and had a funky texture to begin with so no harm was done.

The best part is knowing that I'm just beginning and imagining what I'll create.

Time to Excel

I've fallen off my schedule of completing 1 woven item every 2 weeks. The wedding shawl is still on the loom, and will probably stay on another week. It would have been completed yesterday were it not for the intense upper back pain I was experiencing and 40 minutes of weaving aggravated it quite badly. Reluctantly I realized I could not finish it off.  I had to leave the house though, or else I would have finished it, back pain or no, and probably made a sore muscle into a muscle spasm. Today it's still sore and I haven't dared to weave, but I will try again before I sleep tonight.

One possible source for a stressed back muscle is the sawing I've been doing in my jewelry class. Two weeks ago, I completed the first project, a simple brass ring, and I couldn't wait to move on to the next. Last week  we started a sterling silver ring which will have a cabochon (flat backed, domed stone) on it.We had learned to pierce and saw out during our first class so I wanted to apply that to this ring. When one of the other students noticed I had pierced and sawed out a design in the shank of my ring rather than keeping it solid, she dubbed me "Ms. Fancy Pants". I was amused!

I have to say that this jewelry making class may have changed the course of the rest of my life. I have read about people having moments of clarity, enlightenment, or epiphany and this is as close to one of those as I have ever experienced. I talked a classmate about my struggle in deciding what to focus on. I explained that with my energy going in so many different directions, I felt that there was a limit to how "good" I could get in any  medium, and that I really wanted to do exactly that.  "Time to excel?" she said.  Past time to excel. Way past.