Rustnstuff

Friday, January 11, 2013

Metal Peace Book Pendant

Last Friday I posted on a layered hinged pendant thingy. So of those who left comments said it reminded them of a book. So whilst I was working with Sue in the garage-studio on Monday I took the book pendant idea one step further and so created a Peace Book pendant for Fiona.

Basically it is a layered pendant hinged via jump rings.

As you can see from the photos above the 'book' has 4 leaves (8 pages): front cover - formerly scrolled worked silver plated coaster; second leaf - slotted trim from a silver-plated drink tray; and third and fourth leaves - formerly small silver-plated cake-biscuit tray.

The slotted leaf allows the words stamped on the third leaf to show through with a bit of mystery. The third leaf (5th page) is stamped with one of Fiona's favourite quotes: Peace is every step. The 7th page (fourth leaf) could provide the owner with the opportunity to add a paper page.

A piece of wearable peace art?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Playing with hammers and metal

On Monday our friend Sue and I spent a good half day playing with recycled silver-plated EPNS, hammers, metal shears/snips, anvils, polishers etc etc.

Sue wanted to see what simple but beautiful things she could create. She thought she might make a pendant. Well the hours in the garage-studio resulted in a bit more than that - in the end Sue made 5 pendants.

And after a little encouragement she made these delightful set of beaten earrings with punched holes.

It is always great to see someone get into the metal and workshop. To see the smile on her face just showed how much Sue enjoyed the experience.

Now of course she is planning to buy a few basic tools to continue to make a few more pieces for herself when she returns home.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Test and recycling metal scraps

Fiona's friend Sue and I will have a bit of a play-day with metal tomorrow. She indicated that she would like to "make something square" by way of jewellery. I had a couple of hours this afternoon so I headed into the studio-garage to test a quick way of cutting a square hole out of some silver-plated copper using a sharp wood chisel.

Anyway the cutting worked - though a bit rustic in look - so I went on to make a layered pendant. The top layer is silver-plated copper from a small tray; the second layer is the side out of a silver-plated EPNS wine coaster; and the base layer is silver-plated EPNS from a small tray again. The chain is stainless steel recycled from salvaged piece of jewellery that resulted in a stash of about 6m of chain of different lengths and gauges.

Recently whilst cutting a thin strip from the edge of a length of silver-plated EPNS it peeled off in a neat spiral about 1cm in diameter and about 9cm long. This scrap was put aside for later use. Well today was later - so I cut the spiral roughly in half tapered the blunt cut ends; drilled holes for jump rings; and gave it all a grind and polish. Jump rings; a recycled piece of stainless steel chain; and ear-wires by Shannon completed the earrings. The spirals are about 40-45com long.

It was a good couple of hours; and I think I'm ready to do a bit of creating with Sue tomorrow.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Foibles and Follies on Friday

Fiona's best friend and her husband Steve arrived today for a few days R&R. People come before art processes so I caught a couple of hours to create a couple of very simple Light Catchers.

One just uses the contrast between a square rust iron block and and an elegant thin crystal Fiona and I bought at a market in NYC. I named this piece Slice of Light.

The other is influence by our trip to Steampunk HQ in Oamaru in NZ - therefore has a Steampunk look; but again simple lines.

And they actually do catch and shatter light as seen in the photos below: three rainbows on the table; and a rainbow on the gauge Point of Light.

Always good to squeeze a little creativity in on Friday - now off to join the others and drink a glass or two of red.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

2013 - peace, joy and creativity

A new year has begun; and 2012, a year that offered challenges on many fronts, is behind us.

May 2013 be a better year with: less violence; fewer natural catastrophes; better health; ongoing inspiration and creativity; a little more joy; and heaps of peace.

As is the tradition in the Dempster-Smith household we do new year cards. My 2013 card reflects some of those things I like: recycled metal; patina; rust; and stamping and beating of metal.

Go well and may 2013 be a good year for all.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Spiral cylinders

Sometimes mistakes offer opportunities. Recently I was cold-forming a leaf-form from silver-plated copper from a recycled small tray. I thought the metal was 'soft' enough to fold and unfold - wrong - it split after the forming process as I opened it. So I thought what could I do with two half leaf-forms? Well I decided to beat them around a rod and created these neat spiral cylinder earrings which are about 75mm long.

Fiona said they reminded her of the curled bark that we see on the side of the road on our walks along Treehaven Way. The bark comes from a particular Eucalyptus tree. The bark often has marks on it from both growth and insects.

So now I think I have a new nature inspired form - the bark-spiral.

The pair of spiral above were made from slier-plate over brass - former life a champagne goblet. And as in nature no two spirals are exactly the same. Fiona took the photos - she thought these rough spiral cylinders reminded her of nibs - could appeal to calligraphers? The pieces above still need trimming and polishing etc.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Raising new bowls

In between making leaf-forms, Found and Formed jewellery, and Christmas trees, I have been continuing to work on my bowl raising. This form of metal work is quite taxing as each bowl needs to be annealed many times; and beaten many times to take the metal from the flat sheet to a curved form.

Sometimes I get it right and can curve the bowl past what I call the the semicircle open point as with this small copper bowl.

Other times I push hard and end up with a good shape but the metal begins to fold and stress when I reach a certain point as attempt to push it past the semicircle open bowl point.

And sometimes I just like the fact that I have taken a piece of metal and created a beautiful open bowl with beautiful markings.

None of the bowls have been polished - and I'm a bit inclined to leave them like that as I like the shine created by the hammer strokes and the hammer marks themselves.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

A little more Peace

It is so good to see the all peace messages being posted by our blogging community. So why not add another to the mix - there can't be too many ripples and wishes of peace for our world in these troubled times.

I made the recycledsilver-plated EPNS leaf-forms above in the days leading up to Christmas. Some have been given new homes as gifts. This period of peace has encouraged me to stamp peace words on one side of the leaf-forms. I think I will do quite a few more of these this year.

To all who have followed my blog this year and provided encouragement and comments - thank you. May you have heaps of peace in your life.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Let Fragments of Peace Fly

Fiona and I were heading off for our morning walk a couple of days ago; but as we got to the top of the drive we noticed that many of the Peace weather-grams Fiona and others had tied to one of our trees as part of Fiona's Flags for Peace 2012 contribution were still attached.

It was a beautiful overcast morning so we agreed to miss the walk and get the ladder and unfold weather-grams that has become entangled; and of course take a few photos as they just look beautiful amongst the foliage. Untangling the weather-grams was like giving them new life and letting the peace energy ripple out again.

Fiona will probably post on her photos of the remnants; but I thought given it is Christmas maybe it can't hurt to have more than one peace post from the mountain.

And a few flowers from the mountain to add colour and joy.

Wishing peace to the world; and to our blog community. May peace be yours now and always.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Healing & Peace

Fiona and I collaborated on a Christmas tree for the festival of Christmas trees. Peace Cranes by Fiona and tree and leaf forms by Barry. I thought I would share an image of the tip of one of the 'branches' - brown paper Peace Crane and leaves.

Over the last couple of weeks I have made a couple of sets of Daily Words that focus on healing. These are gifts for folk who are dealing with the challenge of threats to their health and life. When making these sets I focussed on the recipients with the view to adding a little more positive healing energy to their daily lives.

In these challenging times may a little more peace and healing ripple out to those who need it.