Bataeff's

It's kind of hard to find where to go for cheap metal in a new town, but luckily my Dad and Dawn knew where to go in Santa Rosa- Bataeff's Salvage. They sell scrap metal by the pound (copper is $6, brass 15, I think steel is 1) and it's all kinds of gorgeous shapes. Also they sell a bit of new steel in consistent lengths, but the fun is picking through the bins and bathtubs to find treasures. 

I have been using a lot of this steel mesh in my rings so I picked up some more, also some tiny brass findings to supplement the ones I spoiled with resin. 

 I think these are for computer cooling, and they look like this even after sitting out in the rain every day forever.

 I think these pipes are galvanized so they can't rust, but the cut ends do for a nice contrast.

 Also the whole ground looks like this to some extent, this is a medium/high density of items.

They have bins and bins of ball bearings in all sizes.

 Since it's sold by the pound and I am working at jewelry scale, everything is nearly free, and then Dawn treated me so it was exactly like free. Yay!

What does the inside of a geode look like?

I wanted to properly see the inside of a geode, so I filled it with casting silicone

and peeled it out. 

The cast actually has glittery facets. 

And it looks nice backlit, kind of biological because of the color. It's pretty small. I could cover an led night light with it, or use it to cast a crystal texture.

Casting Silicone

 Beeswax is my preferred wax. When I was a kid, Dad used to keep bees, and I did so many little projects with the wax we'd harvest. It smells amazing and it just feels wholesome. Also I am not that good at making things out of beeswax because it is so hard and splintery. My models slated for casting in silver would take hours and be super prone to damage. Since they are intended for sale, I feel like I have to keep my labor hours down a little bit so I decided to cast some blanks and forms to work with.

 I mixed up too much of this Smooth On casting silicone, so I rushed to find little items to cast, and those ended up being great. This stuff is so easy to use. I just mixed the two bottles together and poured it over my sprued models. I wish that in school we used real modern casting supplies instead of learning the process/theory with plaster of paris cast in plaster of paris molds. You have to use specialty vaseline to keep the casting plaster from sticking to the mold, completely avoid undercuts, the plaster makes an enormous mess that can't be washed up, and the process takes days because each stage has to cure/dry. Also, you are an adult, a sculptor even, whose plaster cast has sealed permanently into your mold, and can only be removed in bits, before being presented for critique and grading.

 It is even a great color.

Ring blank, heart, house, bear, light bulb, person blank

I didn't carve the heart, so I wouldn't cast anything from it to sell. (The light bulb is fair game, I am sure.)  My boyfriend noticed me noticing it among the costume jewelry at a discount store and surprised me with it. The silver has worn off so I thought it would be sweet to cast it in silver, to show how much I like it.  

Structure #1

Up in Santa Rosa it's refreshingly rural. So many trees, so few neighbors. I am dotting the hill we live on with little structures. This is the first. It is a half tent (privacy and solitude for your upper half) made of a shoe rack and lace scraps, plus a bit of bamboo. And it's all sewn with dental floss. 

After spending so much time busily in transition- driving across the country and helping mom pack, and editing my belongings into a smaller and smaller pile, I was really ready to get to sculpting my first day up here. So I leapt right into building this shoe rack tent. The floor is a pair of giant pallets that Dad salvaged a while ago. And it's under a tarp, so maybe it doesn't have to be waterproofed? I would like to varnish it, but then I can't use the fabric on the next incarnation. I think it's actually pretty lovely, but it's definitely not going to keep weather out, and I have to store my toiletries and books in the house or my car. It's 34 or 39 degrees every night here. I think being an ascetic is good for me, but at the same time, I don't like it.

Here's an interior view. It really is pretty.

Moving, Moving Pangs

Life Goal: Everything I own can fit in my car, or is my car.
Ongoing, increasingly grueling performance piece: Everything I own does not fit in my car, and has to fit in my car.

Okay. I have been tied to a storage unit for the last year, but I moved away from it, and organization experts say that if you want to get rid of something, box it up and don't look at it and a year later you won't know what it is or care. But that didn't really happen to me, since my stuff is all my clothes, art supplies, and art (like my car). I just felt incomplete in my East Coast sublets, like where are my oil paints? Where is my yarn? Where are my paintings? Where are my shoes? I found that I have gathered my things as tools to be myself.

I have a bit of an aversion to storage units. I have a friend who told me a couple of years ago he feels overwhelmed by his stuff since he moves all the time. He said his ideal would be a totally clean, minimalist house (and this would fit his aesthetic and interests very well I think), with a storage unit for everything he wanted to hold onto. Now he has a remote storage unit that's huge and totally full, and also his house is one.

So, right now nearly all my stuff is in my car. But some of it is on the floor of the room I'm staying in because it wouldn't fit in the car, and some of it-cello, brick barbell- is at my Dad's house, and a tiny bit of it is in my mom's storage unit, and a lot of it is in my mom's storage unit but designated for a trip to the dump.  Oh no, and some of it is in the fridge and freezer.

I think this happened because I didn't do my idea of lining up everything I own in order of what I would save in a fire and then when I got to the first thing in the line I wouldn't save, the rest of the line is gone forever.

Scanner

Scanners are amazing! I got to use my brother's CanoScan to document a couple of old projects, and then I had fun trying to "paint with light" with them, making little arrangements. The scanner works best with things pressed against the glass, and renders things with depth as shadowy and blurred. I tried to exploit that but I don't have the hang of it yet. I used to be really good with a photocopier, though. 

This might be the background for a greeting card.

I tried to take a picture of the process I used to make the scan above, but my camera was super dead so I flipped over my assemblage and scanned it. It's a sweater, scale, mouse balls, chain belt.  The scale and mouse balls are pressing the sweater down to prevent shadows, and the scale is also helping the chain stay in place instead of getting dragged around by the sweater.  

Oil Pastel Resists for Watercolor

Today I discovered that oil pastels can be used as a resist for watercolors. This opens up a lot of possibilities because I am really bad with pastels, I feel like they just make smudgy impressions that get grayer as you work. I was excited to use my new technique to copy this blurry photo of the Jefferson Monument that I love:

Oh. It's not masking fluid. Once the pastel resist goes down that part will never be water colored. I put this pastel down very loosely, obviously, because I couldn't see it (white on white) and I usually put my fake masking fluid (rubber cement) down generally where I want it. 

 So I did a whole work up with layers- pencil sketch, ink pen, pastels, paint, ink. I think it looks perfect, exactly how I'd hoped, but the fact that it photographs so badly makes me think it needs a little more attention.