PB Cohen Creations

Remember the "Relic" rings?
(And yes, I originally called these "Julia" rings because I made some for my niece. But I've started calling them "Relics" since that takes less explaining.)

I made a big one ("man-sized"), and realized I'd created a weak spot. See where the end of the arrow comes to the edge of the ring band? Click on this mediocre photo of the ring before final polishing and a patina to see a bigger version. I was pretty sure that even regular wear could break that spot, since the single layer of silver is only 24 gauge thick, tops. Rather than make a repair after it broke, when it was bound to be harder to do (since the break probably wouldn't be clean), I decided to repair it before anything untoward happened.

This mediocre photo shows the inside of the ring, where I soldered a small patch of silver right against backside of the arrow's shaft. Lots of sanding made it smooth.

Again, click on the photo for a bigger version. Still no patina or final polish.

I bought this ring a couple of years ago at an outdoor art fair. I'm not showing you the whole thing, because I have a complaint about it, and I don't mean to give the artist a negative review. I love many things about this ring, including an aspect of the very thing — I'm pretty sure — that has me complaining about it. So I won't identify the artist, or even show you the whole thing, so that I don't give you the wrong idea.

As you can see, the ring shank is made out of square wire. (You can click on the photo for a bigger version.) The sides have a nice random line texture, but the inside and the outside were left smooth. The artist had a range of ring sizes available at the show, but if she didn't have one that fit exactly, she'd take a slightly small one, pop it onto a steel ring mandrel, and tap it evenly with a small hammer to stretch it out. What a great way to size a ring on the fly! And this would really only work with square wire, since round or half-round would lose its "round" from the hammering.

The problem I have with the ring is — I'm pretty sure — that the corners of the square wire ended up getting a little sharp from the stretching. As I recall, she ended up stretching the ring quite a bit — and apparently enough to leave sharp edges on the square wire. I keep meaning to "fix" is, all it would take is a few minutes of gentle sanding or filing. And then I'll love everything about it.

Probably. Truth is, most of my rings are either wide, or have shanks made out of larger gauge wire. So maybe I'm just used to wearing differently-shaped rings.

My friend Rivka Siden and I are doing a small show from 2-4 p.m. this coming Saturday, December 5, at the MoonWinks Cafe, 5151 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Here's a flyer in PDF format.

I think this will be my last show for the year.

I use a lot of jump rings as bails, either soldered onto the back of a pendant or — more often lately — linked through the pendant. I solder all of the jump rings closed. This is a little easier to do if the ring will be soldered onto something later, since you can lay the circle of wire flat on the soldering block: there's less of a chance it will melt since the whole thing is evenly protected by the block.

[Note that there are many different ways to solder a ring of metal, whether it's a jump ring, a finger-sized ring, a bezel wall, or whatever. One of the current instructors at the Art Center holds a ring in a tweezers locked in a third hand: the tweezers draws some of the heat away...or something...and this is good...or so it seems. Except that I didn't learn to solder rings that way, and my first few attempts didn't seem easier (change is always hard!), and I haven't spent the time to practice the technique. So I solder single rings flat on a block.]

When you're soldering a jump ring "in place," the ring is looped through another piece of metal, and the two ends to be joined are sticking up in the air — as far from the metal as possible, so solder isn't likely to jump to it, and thus the ring is almost totally exposed. Read: easily melted.

The other day I was finally finishing up some fish I'd made a few years ago, with something completely different (now mostly forgotten) in mind. Since they'd been sitting so long (and I still like them) I decided to solder bails on them and string them as pendants. The thing is, I chose to use thinner, bigger jump rings than I'd been using lately, and disaster struck.

Lately, usually — and let me first say that all measurements are approximate, but I just sat with all three jump rings and a ruler, so theoretically the data should be, you know, useful enough for comparison. So, lately I've been using jump rings that are either 1/8" inner diameter (3mm) 20 gauge, or 3/16" inner diameter (4mm) 18 gauge. The first is thinner wire and a smaller circle, the second is thicker wire and a bigger circle.

The jump rings I chose for the fish (why? you ask. Because the other two jump rings were too small, and mostly because I had these on hand) were 7/32" inner diameter (5mm) 20 gauge: the thinner wire and an even bigger circle. Out of practice with this size and with half of it sticking up in the air, it was really easy to melt these while trying to solder them together, and melt them I did! I managed to solder four jump rings, but I also melted four (maybe five) others.

The thing is, when I worked on the jump rings for the next three or four fish, I only melted one or two. Practice really does help, whether you're completely new to a technique, or you simply haven't used a particular size of jump ring since you threw together a delicate chain two years ago to wear to a fancy dinner.

I always tell students the best way to get over the fear of melting things with a blow torch learn to solder is to make a chain: you're working on very small things, so you're gonna melt some, get over it! And you're using a lot of them, so there's lots of practice. Obviously, making a chain means you're working with small objects. This won't help you learn how to solder really big things together. But it will help you learn how to solder, and get over some of your fear of melting things.

The Ann Arbor Art Center's jewelry studio is now up and running at the Liberty Street building. It was a little dicey for awhile there. The room was used for a summer kid's camp, and then some of the other upstairs rooms were used for a wedding, so the jewelry studio was, well, pretty much a mess. Here's the room, before (on the left) and after the big push to get everything ready that last week. Click on the photos for bigger versions.

We brought the soldering table from the old facility, and realized that the floor in the old building had been on a slight slope, and the legs had been trimmed accordingly. Rather than simply add an inch to the left legs and half an inch to the center to make it all level, we decided to raise the whole surface by a few inches. And so the jewelers-who-stand-to-solder won!

Overall, the space is smaller, but the move has forced us to be more efficient. Theoretically. We still need better lights for night classes, a second sink, and replacements for a few things that got lost in the move, but apart from having to pay for parking now, I think it'll work out pretty well.

There's a lot that goes on in the Art Center building that we didn't know about before, being on the other side of town and all. For example, there's a lot of wine hanging around for all the parties — like the 18th Annual Sommelier Dinner. There are a lot more people wandering around the building, like parents looking for pots their kids made at camp. And there are art classes going on all the time.

This picture is looking out the door of the jewelry studio. You can see into one of the classrooms. See the guy in the orange (click on the picture for a big version)? He's drawing a nude model.

Interesting.

The annual Ann Arbor Art Walk gives people the opportunity to visit galleries, special installations, and artists' private spaces. People, galleries, studios and exhibit spaces in and around Ann Arbor open their doors Friday and Saturday for an intimate look at what's going on in the arts community.

I have a few pieces on show at the Annual Student Pottery Sale at the Ann Arbor Art Center.

There's still time to go on the tour! The 10th Annual Ann Arbor Art Walk is Friday, October 9, 5:00-10:00 p.m., and Saturday, October 10, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

I also have one of my "Relic" rings on display at the Ann Arbor Art Center's 2009 Instructor & Student Show. This show lasts through November 22.

As always, click on the pictures for bigger versions.