I'm soooooo excited........

I had my first Art Museum class tonight.. It's called "colorization of Titanium, Niobium, and Copper Surfaces" I'm going to have so much fun, I can't hardly wait!! First thing tomorrow I"ll be ordering a small stash of Titanium and Niobium to play with in the class.. Later in the class we will work with copper. The Teacher is Rob Sunderman ( http://www.robertsunderman.com/portfolio.html ) and he seems very kewl. His style is laid back, which I really appreciate, cause I've taken some classes that weren't. Nothing squelches creativity and learning like being afraid of doing something "wrong". He's all for experimentation. For example, he demonstrated how anodizing is done, and discussed resistance for doing special color effects. The typical resistance material is a sticky tape substance. However we started making other suggestions (like fingernail polish or glues) and he was all for trying them, as long as they wouldn't cause a harmful reaction or contaminate the dipping solution. Did I mention how much fun I"m gonna have in this class??

I originally took this class because it hi-lights cold connections, something I'm really trying to explore right now. I looked at the colors as sort of a secondary thing, despite it's what the class is about. Since Titanium and Niobium are hard/impossible to solder ( the melting temps are insanely high, 3038 f and 4474 f respectively) cold connections are the way to go. I've already sketched several ideas, and some might even be possible! Man, I'm gonna have fun in this class!!!!

Hopefully in a few weeks I"ll be showing off some of my new skills... til then, I'll keep working on my other projects.

One of those is making more of my own findings. Some designs just work better with custom findings, but I like the "plug and play" nature of purchased findings. So I'm trying to make some every week so I'll have stash for show season in May. I'm also selling these on Etsy (you can see them here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5543133&section_id=5871174 ). Below is a few pics showing some of my styles. My favorites so far is the leaf earwires. I'll be making more of those!

I'm also working on my South Dakota Challenge for 2009-- here is a sneak peek... yes these are soldered. More to come!