A whole lot of earrings

 

I have managed to complete my leaf earrings and a few buffalo horn earrings. Not much time for art today as people came first.

The leaf forms vary in length from about 2.5cm to 6cm. Some have words stampede on them; and others are plain. All with the pattern from the silver-plated placemats and the rear side. Photos of earrings with differing ear wires.

I cut enough buffalo for 8 pair of earrings with metal rivets; but only got time to complete 4 pair.

Good to complete the earrings I started about 4 weeks ago.

Pendants and the press

 

Yesterday I reprinted a couple of my patriarchy posters to correct apostrophe mistakes; and today I made buffalo horn pendants as our Square was telling me I was low on stock. 

A couple of the black buffalo horn pendants are in the photo above; and a few process photos follow. Most of the toggles on the pendants are made from feet and handles from trays and sugar bowls.

The reprinted patriarchy posters are below.

I couldn't resist printing a few tea towels as well - they looked good drying on the grass in the sun.

All in all a productive weekend.

Bone jewellery

 

I got to finish a stash of bone jewellery (earrings and pendants) today - some of the earrings above.

Quite a bit of work goes into cleaning, cutting, grinding and polishing the recycled bone - and I'm not always happy with the end results so some bits are not used.

Some process photos follow including some metal and buffalo horn that was prepared for toggles on the pendants.

Photos of completed pendants and earrings.

A good achievement for the day.

What a weekend

 

The weekend was really about The Red Thread showing-exhibition at DEP - but I will leave that up to Fiona to report on. Photo of the Print Princesses at the start of the opening event.

As well as spending time at DEP in a support role and particularly for the opening event, I did some work cutting up and prepping metal (see above photo) for etched panels for the posts that Fiona and I will be making for the pathway in the upcoming community grief garden.

By careful measuring I managed to mark up most of the 2mm thick aluminium plates we will need for the 5 posts - each post requires 4 etched pieces. The sheet of metal was purchased from a fellow artist. Fortunately I had another couple of small pieces of plate that enabled me to cut the full 20 plates.

I also got to finish 9 pairs of buffalo horn earrings.

Whilst it was good to progress the metal work and earrings; the real highlight of the weekend for me was the fact The Red Thread was a great success - well done to Fiona, Tory, Susan and Steph of the Print Princesses.

Supply and demand

 

We advertised our open studio day for the 21 November - interesting that it has resulted in requests for me to make more tiny metal book earrings and black buffalo horn earrings.  One person asked if I could make 5 pairs of book earrings with the words joy and love stamped on the centre page. 

Eight pairs of buffalo horn earrings have been completed as you can see above.

I'm working on 10 pairs of tiny metal book earrings. I have got up to the riveted pages stage.

Now for grinding, polishing and assembling.

Quite a stash

©2020 Barry Smith - Black buffalo horn earrings 

Yesterday and today I did a big push to get the 24 pairs of salvaged black buffalo horn earrings completed. It is surprising just how much fiddling time goes into making the earring drops. Still it is good to have such a stash completed.

Some earrings will go to Maleny additions, some will go into our new studio-gallery shop at Deckled Edge Press and a few pair will be gifted.

A couple of production shots. There are two finishes on the earrings - the shiny finish is created by polishing the horn on the jewellery polishing wheel with a fine jewellery polish; the matt finish is created by grinding on the jewellery sanding wheel, leaving some of the saw marks and then giving the horn a thin coat of silicon grease. The later finish results in an organic twig-like look.

©2020 Barry Smith - Adding the rivets to the pieces 

©2020 Barry Smith  - Finished stash on the table

And photos of the various groupings.

©2020 Barry Smith  - Twig-like drops

©2020 Barry Smith  - Cross cut of horn tip - almost looks like a cat's eyes

©2020 Barry Smith  - More structured forms

©2020 Barry Smith  - Rough cut - almost looks like charcoal

©2020 Barry Smith  - Horn tips

©2020 Barry Smith 

©2020 Barry Smith  - Some odd shapes here

Doing multiples always seems to take a long time; but then the reward is a good bank of pieces.

Progressing from the ugly to black beauty

©2020 Barry Smith - Vintage black buffalo horn after grinding and polishing - the photo is of earlier work

I have put in quite a lot of time yesterday and today cutting vintage black buffalo horn into pieces for earrings The original horn is quite ugly as you can see in the photo below; but it ends up gorgeous as in the photo above.

©2020 Barry Smith - Not the most appealing sight - horn before cutting, grinding and polishing

As you can see I cut paired pieces that could result in about 15-20 pairs of earrings.

©2020 Barry Smith - Cutting pairs

©2020 Barry Smith - Most of the drilling has been done

©2020 Barry Smith - Drilled pairs - rough cut black buffalo horn - the red marking comes from the paint on the saw blade

This is a very dirty job and requires a really good mask. The cutting is done with a fine toothed hand saw to reduce fumes and dust. You can see the heap of powdered horn beside the vice in the photo below.

©2020 Barry Smith - Fine horn particles - horn dust really

I have all but finished drilling the holes in the pieces. The next stage will be grinding and polishing outdoors.