PB Cohen Creations

Although sales were pretty slow, last weekend's art fair went well. Lathrup Village's Art in the Park is a yearly event, and if you ever have a chance to be a vendor there - DO IT! The show is very well organized, there are lots of volunteers to help unpack your car and set up your tent (just wonderful!), plus they provide food for the artists on Saturday night. Everyone is friendly, the location (Lathrup Village's Municipal Park) is very pretty, there's good music, and they had some great activities for kids on Sunday.

Here are photos of Jim and Nancy, who helped us with our tent (Jim's son also helped), and our booth on the second day (before we tucked those tubs out of the way).

The show organizers did a great job with advertising, but the economy being what it is, there were fewer vendors than last year, and fewer visitors as well. Still, overall it was a good experience.

I got started making jewelry fifteen or twenty years ago at the Ann Arbor Art Association. I took a few classes, became one of the studio monitors, hung out for awhile, then took a break for about ten years. The Association became the Ann Arbor Art Center, the pottery and jewelry classes moved from the headquarters at Liberty to the Felch Street location, I took a few classes, became one of the studio monitors, and then came last weekend: the end of an era. Here's the Felch Street location:

Although the Art Center has grand plans for its future, various issues, including the current economy, has the organization consolidating space. The pottery and jewelry classes are moving back to the main building on Liberty Street. And unfortunately, the jewelry studio will be closed for the summer.

This is bad timing for me and all my shows, but has at least a few positive things going for it: First, we won't be in the basement like we were the last time the jewelry studio was at Liberty. Second, we'll have a bit of air conditioning in the summer, and heat in the winter! So although there will be changes, like everyone just a bit addicted to playing with blow torches, I'm sure I'll adapt.

In the meantime, I'll be visiting my show partner's studio next week. And I might just get a plumber's torch for my garage.

My show partner and I have been accepted into a new art fair!

This one is the Wyandotte Street Art Fair in Wyandotte, Michigan, July 8-11. Wow! Four days. That seems like a lot to me, since I am, well, new to the whole art fair scene. We are both excited, and a little overwhelmed. If you go to the show, be sure to stop by!

I've made a permanent page listing all the shows I'm doing in the column to the right.

A few days ago I asked the internets for advice on drawing a bead on a wire, and struck up a conversation with Maxine. Thanks, Maxine! It worked! Since I was having such a hard time with this, I figured the success story deserved a blog entry of its own.

Here's the problem: one of my Monster Rings.

The "head" is a bead created via hollow form construction, which is then soldered onto a ring shank. The "arms" are made from 16 gauge fine silver wire, with a bead drawn at each end. I was having a really hard time getting the "arms" as short as I wanted them. Part of the trick is knowing how short to cut the wire before drawing that second bead, but I was really afraid my torch (acetylene and air) simply wasn't getting hot enough — and that the "head" was acting as a heat sink as the drawn bead got closer to it.

Maxine's suggestion that the material I was using to keep the solder from re-flowing during the procedure might also act as a heat shield gave me some much-needed confidence. See, once I made the mistake of using such a large torch tip that the whole "head" got heated up, and since I stupidly didn't have anything on the solder joins, the ring completely fell apart! Despite the fact that I've practically dunked the whole ring in "Liquid Paper" ever since, I was still afraid of destroying another ring, and — coincidentally? — never quite managed to get those "arms" short enough.

But last Saturday, with five rings to do, I was determined to get it right. It's been awhile since I've used yellow ochre powder mixed with water to paint solder seams (it's a little slow to dry), so I'm sure there are tricks to using that that would be helpful. But one notable thing about "Liquid Paper" and "Wite-Out" is that they burn. This gave me a reasonable indication of how hot things were getting. First the correction fluid gets completely dry, then it catches fire, then it goes all gray — and actually, I've never heated anything up enough to know what happens when the correction fluid fails. Or if it fails, for that matter: that would be a good experiment to try.

As I was drawing the bead on the wire, the side of the "head" closest to the "arm" I was trying to create was in the flame of the torch, and the correction fluid caught on fire, but it never got all gray. So despite my fear of destroying the ring, I could tell it was safe, and I successfully finished the "arms" on all five rings. It was a good day!

I've talked about cutting faces into 1/4" circles before. After having limited success with Rider's Hobby Shop brand glue, I tried using the Superglue brand of Cyanoacrylate. On the first try, this was almost entirely unsuccessful — and only in part because I almost glued three fingers together. Several times. That stuff takes a surprisingly long time to dry on your fingers well enough to get past the stick-your-fingers-to-your-face stage. I managed to keep my fingers free while gluing the metal, but unfortunately most of the circles popped right off. So I got serious, and am currently taking every step I can think of to make this work.

First, create a small indentation for eyes and any mouths that will be drilled with a center punch. Second, treat the brass strip and the backs of the circles with a grinding tool, so the surfaces of the metal will be rough enough for the glue to grip. You can see how rough I've made the surface of the brass by clicking on the photo above for a big version. Third, flatten everything on the bench block. Fourth, make sure all the metal is clean. Fifth, glue the circles to the brass, and let sit overnight. Sixth, slowly drill all initial holes with a very small drill bit, using larger bits later if needed. Seventh, when sawing out the rest of the details, try to make sure the brass strip is flat against the bench pin.

So far, I've had about an 80% success rate. Still not perfect, but much better than the whole tape routine I was trying before. Meanwhile, remember the drill bit I got stuck in a hole (picture below)? That turned into the little guy on the bottom of the Tres Amigos pendant on the right. I haven't finished the pendant yet- no final polish, no patina. But you can see it will turn out just fine.

My show partner and I spent a couple of hours yesterday going over some business details, and putting up the tent. This was her second time with this particular tent, and my first, so although a certain amount of time was spent trying to will the pieces into telling us how they were supposed to fit together (unsuccessfully, I'm afraid), I think the "dry run" went pretty well. You can click on this photo for a bigger version of the tent in the sunlight, without the sides or awning or sand bags in place.

Here's the list of shows we're doing so far in 2009, under the combined name of Shiny Things. These shows are all in Michigan. I'll put this list in a permanent link in the sidebar soon, and keep that permanent link updated.

You'll notice the first show is coming up very soon. Much sooner than I'd thought, actually! Turns out my organizing hadn't gone quite far enough. Hahahahaha! My head was exploding for about a day, but I think I'm okay now.

• Lathrup Village Art in the Park - June 27-28

• Shelby Township Art Fair - August 8-9
(This one is a PDF file.)

• Rochester Arts & Apples Festival - September 11-13

• Saline Harvest of the Arts Oktoberfest - September 26
(Looks like they haven't updated the website from the 2008 event yet, but it's still early.)

Be sure to stop by and visit if you come to the shows!