September Guild Meeting

The September Meeting

Kathryn Osgood and I were the only two members present at this meeting, but we managed to have a great conversation. Here are some things we discussed:
 
Progress on Current Projects
This summer Kathryn was productive in creating a series of 20 brooches for the upcoming faculty exhibit at COA (College of the Albemarle in Manteo, NC). She is in the process of mounting them on painted wood blocks for display. I don't recall the dates of the exhibit (I'll post that soon). Visit Kathryn Osgood's website for a look at some of her work. Her skillfully fabricated and enameled jewelry pieces are inspired by botanical forms and the flora and fauna of her coastal North Carolina environment. She has been published in The Art of Enameling: Techniques, Projects and Inspiration, 1000 Rings, 500 Necklaces, 500 Earrings, Contemporary Enameling: Art and Techniques, and The Art of Jewelry: Wood.  I love her work and I'm really looking forward to seeing her new series!


I'm working on the fourth of my series of ten chains made from aluminum sheet metal (& aluminum tubing). This project was inspired by a chain making workshop taught by Amy Tavern at Pocosin Arts Folk School's annual retreat. At right is an image of chain #4 in the works. Images of my first three chains can be seen on my blog, where I also write about my process. It is always nice to get feedback at guild meetings.

Dust and Safety
Another topic of discussion was metal dust in our studios. I recently purchased a dust collector for my studio. I have a toddler (and my studio is in my house) and I've become especially concerned about little particles of dust floating around and being swallowed, inhaled, etc. I'm sure I have inhaled some aluminum dust just from sawing and filing, and I haven't even attempted sanding or polishing which creates even smaller particles. The cumulative damage of ingesting aluminum dust is just not really well studied nor documented. I don't know what the risks are but I'd rather not take chances with our health when the dust can be pretty easily sucked up and then recycled, sent to the refiner. You can see in the above photo the dust on my bench pin. I'm glad I have this equipment now, before I get into production mode and it really starts to fly.

Kathryn also brought up issues of containing and disposing dust from the powder coating process (she is using this in her recent work and is offering a workshop at COA September 22nd & 23rd.) The powder is really fine and it isn't safe to vacuum. She does the powder coating in a box lined with newspaper then disposes of the newspaper in the garbage. She also uses wet paper towels to clean up the work area to capture any powder that escaped the box. And she wears a mask, of course.

STUFF - Making other Stuff and Having Stuff to Make Stuff
We also talked about the joys and challenges of working in other media and finding space to work with and store ALL OF THOSE materials. Sometimes simplifying seems like the best solution, but sometimes something different is in order - a soft sculpture might emerge from the brooch or the process of drawing or painting may relate to and inform choices made in fabricating jewelry. So we dreamed about more space to be able to work in other media we love and organize our spools of thread.

THE NEXT MEETING
We are still working on the dates/locations of the October/November meetings as we need to make some adjustments to the schedule. When we have that figured out, I'll do another post.



Lets try to communicate a bit more about whether or not we plan to attend upcoming meetings so our host knows about how many to expect. This blog is a great place to post a comment and perhaps grow some enthusiasm, but emails are fine too.

Thanks for reading! Hope to see more of you at the next meeting.

Hilary Anderson