Friday, July 30, 2010

Process Shot of the Week






Mark
petrified wood, picture jasper, vitreous enamel, china paints, found snail shells, silk

The first rosary I posted was Matthew. I suppose I should have mentioned that. Next up is Luke, then John. You get the idea.

I should also mention that I know that the rosary is suppose to have sets of ten beads and that these only have seven. They're not for actually praying the rosary, hence the number change on my part.

Monday, July 26, 2010

ECU on Art Jewelry Forum

I just came across a recent post about ECU on the Art Jewelry Forum blog. Check it out!

Quote of the Week

"When God gives this knowing,
inanimate stones, plants, animals, everything,
fills with unfolding significance."

~Rumi Joy at Sudden Disappointment

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Intriguing. . .


Totally loving this image I came across.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

If This, Then That. . . .

If gold is "heaven"
and stone is "earth",

then does that make bone "life"?

Hmmmmmm. . . . . . .

Goals

I can't believe how fast the summer is flying by! If I'm being myself in my usual mode of being, of course I haven't accomplished enough this summer. If I'm being more realistic though, I think I've done ok. Here are my goals for the rest of the rapidly ending summer. I think they're pretty realistic.

- finish Italy rosaries
- finish reading the Bhagavad Gita and The Power of Myth
- start reading the Upanishads
- make ten brooches for a swap arranged by Loring Taoka
- deal with the dead anodes in the electroformer
- make first thesis piece

Of course, there's a ton of other things I should do, and there's a ton of other little things I will do before school starts, but these are the main goals.

Happy Weekend!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Process Shot of the Week






I finished the first of my rosaries for my Italy credits. I don't think rosaries are supposed to be sexy, but this one is. 24k baby!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Etsy Update



Two new adds to the Etsy shop!

Quote of the Week

"Copper doesn't know it's copper
until it's changed to gold."

~Rumi The Mouse and the Camel

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Process Shot of the Week


Some enamels from this week. Just some test pieces as I work out my ideas for my Italy work.

Italy-Day 17 The Vatican

Our last day in Italy, we headed to the Vatican. We had a three hour tour, which didn't feel like three hours at all. I couldn't believe all the things that we in the Vatican, historical and contemporary. The above is a picture of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

This is one of the very first pieces I saw in my very first art history class.

The Vatican was one of my favorite things from the trip (I know, I know, I have a lot of favorites!) but one of my favorite things in the Vatican was the Map Room. The walls were all hand painted aerial maps of Europe, that were completed before the golden age of exploration. Before even hot air balloons. And they are fairly accurate.

The School of Athens painting, by Raphael.

This Sistine Chapel. We were in the Sistine Chapel for all of maybe five minutes, before the guards started clearing us out. It was packed with people. It was pretty crazy.

We finished up our tour in St. Peter's, which is huge. Totally blew my mind. We saw Michelangelo's Pieta, dead popes and a whole lot of marble. It was incredible. What else can I say?
After lunch and a quick break, we went looking for Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa, which is in one of the smaller churches in Rome. Well, after two other churches, and asking for directions several times, we were finally headed in the right direction, sprinting to the church, before it closed. Always sprinting for the Bernini's! But we made it, and it was awesome.

We spent our last night in Italy having dinner at the same restaurant behind the Pantheon and routing for Italy in the World Cup. We took a short walk after dinner to see Bernini's Four River's Fountain, before heading back to the hostel to pack and sleep, since we were heading to the airport at 6:45 the next morning.

Well, that's it! My Italian experience day by day. I hope you found these posts enjoyable. Thanks for sticking with me through these, and my more regular types of posts will resume soon.

Have a great weekend!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Italy-Day 16 Colusseum and Borghese

We got up bright and early to tour the Colosseum and the Forum. It was interesting, but this was not my favorite tour. For whatever reason I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe if I had done some research before hand, I might have enjoyed it more. All I could think about was all the Latin I used to know.
This is the interior of the Colosseum. It's pretty crazy to think about what went on there. Our guide told us about all the animals they captured out of Africa for the games, about how many of them didn't survive the journey back to Rome, and how they had to be trained to like the taste of human meat in order for them to want to attack the gladiators.

Ruins, including the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, in the lower left hand corner.

After lunch, a few of us had tickets for the Borghese Gallery, to see the Berninis and the Caravaggio's. Here's the thing about the Borghese. You must reserve tickets ahead of time. You're only allowed to be in the Borghese for two hours, so you have to pick the time you want go. You must be there half an hour before your scheduled time to pick up your tickets. If you don't show up on time, they give them away.
Well, lunch went longer than we expected, and of course we thought we knew where we were going, and of course it took us longer than we expected to get there, so we wound up sprinting through this huge, beautiful park to the Borghese:
We were a little late, but we still got our tickets. We had to check everything. You were only allowed a sketchbook, a pencil and your wallet. No purses, bag, cameras, etc.
But we finally made it in and saw the Bernini's including Apollo and Daphne,
And we finally saw some Caravaggios. I stood in front of this one, St. Jerome, for quite a while.

Two hours was enough for the Borghese, and, as I said in an earlier post, we were getting a little burnt out on art. We walked around Rome for a little while, and made our way to the "Bone Church." The walls of the crypt were covered with the bones of 4000 Capuchin monks. Even the chandeliers were made of human bones. It was incredible.

After that, we went upstairs to the cathedral. A Friar was leading a few people in prayer, either Latin or Italian. It was enough to give you chills.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Italy- Day 15 Pisa and Rome

This day was mostly travel. A lot of time spent on the train. Here's Cinque Terra early, early in the morning.

Photo from our 30 minute stop in Pisa.

We did a short walking tour with Linda through Rome on our way to dinner:




We had dinner in a place behind the Pantheon. It was also the first US game of the World Cup. Picture 24 American ladies belting out the National Anthem in a restaurant in the middle of Rome.

We were a total hit.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Italy- Day 14 Cinque Terra

Our second day in Cinque Terra, we took the train to Corniglia, and picked up our hike where we left off the day before. Linda had told us about a church in Vernazza, that was right near the water, so that was our goal. The hike started with 300+ stairs. Here's a view from part way up:
We had heard that the hike between the last two towns of Cinque Terra were a lot more difficult than the first between the first three towns. Some of the girls had hiked the entire thing the day before and said that it wasn't so bad. They were lying. I think this was the hardest hike I've ever done in my life. Not, that I've hiked a whole lot, but this was pretty brutal. Beautiful, but brutal.

A shot from the trail. We kept going up. And up and up and up!

One of the few level parts of the trail.

Going down wasn't much better than going up.

The path was narrow, with a steep drop off to one side, for most of the trail. I think it took us almost two hours to get to Vernazza.

Fianlly we made it to the church. It was right by the rocks and the water. It was small, and simple and beautiful. I really loved this church, I think it might be one of my favorites. While I was sitting in the pews, contemplating, an honest to god crazy man came in and started yelling at all of us in Italian. I'm not sure what he said, but I'm pretty sure he called us fascists.

After that was swimming on the rocks outside the church for awhile and then back to the beach in Monterosso for more swimming and rock collecting.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Flickr Update

I've posted some of my studio shots from Florence over on Flickr. Enjoy!

Quote of the Week

" You see a reflection of the real moon,
in all the stones that lie at your feet."

~Rumi The Ninth Month

Italy- Day 13 Cinque Terra

Cinque Terra is made up of five small towns along the coast. You can either take the train from town to town, or you can hike the Via dell' Amore, between the towns. We got up early and took the train to the first town and began the hike. He's me in my "geologist" get up:

The rocks along the walk were amazing. To one side were these huge, layered cliffs, that would fold you in like a womb.

The streets and trails were so steep. We actually hiked straight up these terraces a little ways, looking for an olive oil museum, which we didn't find. But the views were spectacular.


Manarola (I think)

I couldn't get over the color of the water.

We made it to Corniglia, which is about in the middle of the whole long hike, then hopped a train back to Monterosso, for an afternoon on the beach.