Ornamental Stories

Come spend time in an extended two day workshop at Artfest with Nina, exploring at a relaxed pace all the many ways that can be used to narrate a wonderful story into a piece (or pieces) of your own jewelry design. If you are one who likes to gather assorted trinkets wherever you go, who loves to explore beaches, forests, and river banks in search of natural treasures, who is fond of incorporating a variety of found objects such as doll parts, old charms and beads, bits of stone and glass and mica into a memory that can be worn, then you’ll enjoy learning in a workshop stuffed full of jewelry techniques and inspiration . I taught a variation of this class at Artfest 2009 in a one day format, and workshop attendees enthusiastically requested that I teach the workshop again in two day form, saying they’d happily be back to take it again. This is a technique intensive workshop that covers many, many resources and approaches to free spirited jewelry construction: we’ll begin our first day with demos of assorted wire wraps (the “Nina knot”, my cocoon wrapped fabric and wire bead, hook and clasp, necklace chain links, and drawing wire with the torch into head pins), practicing until we’ve all – each and every student - conquered my different approaches to jewelry with wire. We’ll then dive into drilling holes and grooves into stone, shells, and beach glass. After a morning of techniques, we’ll discuss various ways to introduce a story into a necklace , and will explore how a simple combination of one or two words with one or two unique findings can begin an evocative narrative story for both wearer and observer of the jewelry. There will be no set sample here – rather, we’ll all glean inspiration from each other and from early class discussions; at workshop’s end, we’ll have a workshop “gallery” and will spend a bit of time discussing the stories behind our individual pieces. In the months to come, be sure to tuck away special stones, beach glass, charms, and found objects that you’ll like to bring to class and incorporate into your own unique creation.

Supply List:

• bent needle-nosed pliers, round needle-nosed pliers, and wire snips (all small sized)*
• small hammer, and small bench block* if you have one
• cutting helix pad to prevent marring table surface and to absorb hammering
• assorted junk chain; mismatched odd lengths are fine (enough to make necklace)
• at least 15 feet of 20 gauge wire; if ordering silver, be sure to get round dead soft; copper is a much cheaper alternative if you want to cut costs*
• At least 5 feet each of 22 and 24 gauge silver wire, dead soft round
• fisker’s hand drill, if you have one (can be found at michael’s in the sewing section); I’ll bring mine, as well as small clamps for securing item to table while you drill
• dremel, if you have one; universal chuck to go with said dremel. This can be purchased at any huge hardware store such as Home Depot or Lowe’s for about 8.00. I’ll bring my dremel, and I’ll provide use of diamond drill bits (stone and glass drilling)
• metal ruler
• masking tape, small amount
• assorted small treasures, i.e. THIN stones (please, no big ones as they take too long to drill and will wear out drill bits), shells, THIN beach glass, beads, small bits of driftwood, old small porcelain doll parts, whatever your heart wishes to incorporate into a piece of jewelry
  
  *all items with asterisk can be easily ordered from volcanoarts.biz. Please place your orders far enough in advance so they do not run out of supplies.
  
  I will request help at the first of class from three or four willing students to help arrange tables into small circles so that I can go from “station” to “station” to assist each of you during the workshop.