Imago Corvi's Enameling blog

Georgian Enamels

2011-09-13T05:29:00.000-07:00

Help needed for Georgian Enamel Gallery and School

Enamel Art Gallery [Ornament] is a unique institution in the small world of enameling. Not only is it a sophisticated gallery space in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, but it also has a concurrent school with prominent instructors. Over 400 people have learned traditional Georgian cloisonné enameling through Ornament and have gone on to earn their living from enameling. Thea Gugenidze, one of the leading founders of the current revival of enameling in Georgia, is co-owner of Ornament and teaches at the school. Her passionate commitment has been to the revival of cloisonné enameling as a part of Georgian history and culture as well as a means of economic development for underprivileged Georgians..

Ornament was founded in 2000 and is located in Tbilisi’s old town, which is prime territory for gentrification. The Georgian government has decided to “privatize” a lot of prime real estate once owned by the state, including the site that is now Ornament and the Enamel Art Gallery school. The gallery owners cannot afford to buy the building and are seeking some kind of state aid to help them Otherwise the building that houses the gallery and school will be sold to the highest bidder and the space most likely used for either an upscale restaurant or shop in this very touristy area of old town Tbilisi. The deadline for help is the end of September.

Mary Chuduk and Judy Stone, who have both gone to Georgia on behalf of the U. S. State Department to work with Georgian enamelists, are asking all enamelists, enameling organizations, and related organizations to send a letter of support to the Georgian Government to help the owners, Thea Gurgenidze and Khatuna Babaunashvili, purchase the building they are currently leasing.

Letters of support [no digital signatures please] can be sent via PDF file attachment to enamelart@gmail.com. Address the letter to “To Whom This May Concern” or to “Dear sir/madam.” Letters will be sent on by the gallery to the authorities that are dealing with their situation. If you would like to make a direct financial contribution, you should contact the gallery at the above e-mail address as to best way of sending a donation.

Visit Ornament on Facebook.

George Brown Continuing Education Enameling Class

2011-09-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Casa Loma Campus, 160 Kendall Ave, Toronto

Yes, it's time once again to encourage would-be enamelists in the Toronto area to come out and take the challenge!

I have been teaching at George Brown College (Casa Loma Campus) for over 6 years now. This is the most comprehensive class that is being taught in the area, providing an introduction to all aspects of enamel practice. I really enjoy teaching the class at George Brown. My students there are the most serious - and quite a few have gone on to become enamelists in their own right.

Three large kilns (area 5 on the left)

Teaching at the folk schools can be fun - but the reality is that most of those students don't actually want to learn. They will never buy a kiln - or experience the joys and pains of mastering this demanding medium. They want me to guide them in a fun and interesting way through the steps of making something that they can take home. After all - for most of them folk-school is a holiday - not a true learning experience. However it does give them a greater appreciation for the dedication and skill involved in being an enamelist - and that in itself is a worthwhile goal.

12" x 12" x 6" interior

But those who really are smitten by the alchemy of glass and metal fusion should join me at George Brown. We can really build an understanding of what enamel is and how it works (and what it can do!) For me enameling is not just fun - it is a passion. Every time I put a piece in the kiln I get a rush of excitement to know what it will become under the transformative influence of fire!

If you want more detail on what the course entails - please follow this link to my teaching site. To register go here

Hope to see you there!

Enameling basics: Annealling

2011-08-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

Fired 12-20 times

One of the difficulties with enameling is that sometimes - when you don't follow best practice - everything works fine. Countless times students say - "but I did this before and it worked fine". If you don't mind sometimes failing, you can be careless - and things might even work out frequently - but if you want to gain control over the outcomes - meticulous attention to detail becomes important. I have found that developing meticulous habits is the only way to reduce your failure rate.

Fired 3-4 times

For the first few years of enamelling I would say that my failure rate was about 25% - that would be typical for a beginner. After 25 years of enamelling my failure rate is less than 5% - but it's still not perfect. That is simply the reality of the world of enameling. The failure rate will, of course, depend on the difficulty of the technique -- but it will always be there. There are literally hundreds of variables and sometimes a few seconds too long in the kiln can ruin a week of work. Enamelling is not for the faint of heart!

Fried to burn-out (usually undesirable)

The good news is that sometimes when things go wrong the results are quite beautiful! However learning to diagnose what has gone wrong will enable you to reproduce those beautiful results. If you want to make a living as an enamelist this becomes important.

So I am going to do a series of blogs on the basics of enameling. Enameling is an art that requires meticulous attention at every level. The more care that is taken in the initial steps - the less likelihood that unexpected or unwanted results will ensue!

ANNEALLING

The first concern of the enamelist is to prepare the metal. It must be perfectly clean before the necessary molecular bond will be formed.

Different enamelists develop different procedures for cleaning the metal depending on what techniques they use - I will outline a standard procedure here.

The first step is annealing. This means heating the metal to around 1500 degrees. This may seem simple - but there a quite a few things that need to be kept in mind. Accuracy in annealing will make all the other stages go more smoothly.

In a perfect world - when you bring the piece out of the kiln it will have a thin layer of grey firescale, which will flake off immediately upon dropping the piece in cold water (quenching) The metal will look light pink and be only slightly mottled.

If the piece has not been heated long enough it will be a dark or yellowish red even after quenching. If it has been heated too long it will have heavy firescale that will take a long time to get off.

As in many cases in enameling - it is possible to give an accurate diagnoses of the problem after - but not possible to give exact times/temperatures before the fact. Success comes only with practice.

As you place the piece in the kiln there are a few things that will give you clues as to when the piece is ready.

First the tray will start to glow the same colour as the kiln and then the piece will, but you want to get the piece out just before that. There is a fairly small window ( a few seconds) when this happens and the piece is perfectly ready. Once you take the piece out of the kiln it will look different. The tray will no longer appear to be glowing, but the piece should be glowing a dull cherry red. This will only be noticable once the piece has come out. Inside the kiln it will look greyish. These observations are VERY subjective. There is no substitute for making your own observations.

This does not accurately represent what the eye sees - but shows how subtle the changes are over a few second breaks

Careful attention to kiln temperature and time at the annealing stage will give you a benchmark time for firing later.

After quenching the piece should only he held LIGHTLY by the edges, or by the underside (the side you are not working on.

A short time in a COLD pickle of Sparex #2, citric acid or vinegar and salt. Enamel should not be put in a hot pickle as this may cause deterioration of the enamel.

After the piece looks completely pink, remove it by the edges and neutralise it with a bit of baking soda. If the firescale doesn't come off with a LIGHT brushing it needs to go back in the pickle.

Now you are ready to apply enamel!

Enamelling Classes

2011-08-11T04:35:00.000-07:00

The Devil's Workshop, Toronto ON

25 years ago I started on my own personal odyssey with enamel. At that time, unless I joined a full time jewelry course (of which enameling was only a small part), there were no classes in available - especially in the somewhat unusual technique of champleve that I was specifically interested in. It didn't occur to me at the time that I should learn the basics before tackling this difficult technique - I had a very specific vision. I got a lot of books from the library and experimented for a couple of years. I found a night class taught by Allen Perkins - which gave me the basics and I struggled on alone. I now know that there were other resources available for me - but that was in the days before the Internet - and no-one (least of all me) knew how to access them.

Catskills Irish Arts Week, East Durham NY

Now that I am a teacher myself, and know that it is best to start with the basics, I try nevertheless to honour the passion that people bring. It was my passion and vision that carried me forward, and it was 15 years later, on taking a class with Fay Rooke, that all of that experience came together in my mind under the expert tutelage of a master.

Public Library, Lindsay ON

I don't think of myself as a master (yet!). As a working enamelist who has to make a living at what I do - I don't have the leisure to explore really advanced, or experimental techniques. Whenever I sit down to design a piece I am conscious of the price it will demand and who will be able to afford it. But I do think of myself as having some mastery - and a thorough understanding of the relationship of glass and metal. But mmost especially I have a passion and love for the medium, and this is what I try to pass on to my students - so that they will be able to take enamel where their dreams lead them. I never teach design in my class - and never tell my students that their ideas are not 'modern' or 'relevant' or 'traditioal' enough. I feel that their vision is their own, and my job is to give them the best tools to realise it.

Cedar Lakes Craft Center, Ripley WV

Even before moving to Toronto 5 years ago I was given the opportunity to teach at George Brown College in the continuing education department. I used to commute from Lindsay once a week! My class is not required for a jewellery certificate - but is a credit towards one. The studio is large and spacious and has three large kilns. I love teaching there because the students come with some skills that they can then adapt - and some have even gone on to become working enamelists in their own right.

Current Classes

George Brown College, Toronto ON
Devil's Workshop, Toronto ON
Catskills Irish Arts Week, East Durham NY
Augusta Heritage College, Elkins WV
Road Scholar's Program, Cedar Lakes WV

I also do travelling classes: if you can get 6 people together (including yourself) I will bring a class to you!

Upstate New York

2011-07-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

Now that my life on the road is getting less and less and my life at home more settled and even organized (!) I thought I would do a retrospective on one of my favorite places: upstate New York. Having just returned from a visit there I was remembering how much it has to offer. When I was making my decision to settle down - I looked at two places: Toronto and up-state New York. Many of my best shows are there, and certainly many of my best customers.

The combination of great natural beauty and access to culture is very seductive - but I also really like New Yorkers - I like their attitude. When I do a craft show in canada the comment I get most often is "This is different" (said in a way that makes 'different' sound more than slightly disreputable.) In New York they love different. In canada I often get customers who need to ask at least 5 of their friends if they like the piece too before purchasing - that NEVER happens in New York: New Yorkers don't need anyone's permission to like something ;-)

Don't get me wrong - I don't regret my choice. I chose Toronto, and I love it. I have good Canadian customers. Both here and in the US people who really like my work are in a very small percentile. That percentile is just bigger in New York than anywhere else.

And, sadly, the Canadian stereotype of the crass American does truly exist there too: not all my experiences have been great - there was that Syracuse Arts and Crafts Festival - the only time I have ever left a show before it was over. It was the last Craft show I ever did - finally learning the lesson that they were NOT my market. I remember the people in the booth next to me vividly. They were from Romania and the wife, Maria Ciucur, painted icons. Beautiful little luminescent gems - and the crowds (over 15,000 attended I heard) just walked by as if they saw Byzantine Icons every day of the week. I sold only one pair of earrings in two days, or I would have bought one of the icons...

But this has been more than compensated for by Old Songs (which I have been doing for over 20 years) Catskills Irish Arts Week (over 10 years), The Hunter Mountain Fine Craft Fair (sadly now defunct but a really fine show), the Dance Flurry (which is new to me - but has been going on for 25 years), and there was even a World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs in 2007 when I spent a magical week at the hand built home of a friend out in the woods.

My market is smaller than the big craft shows can accomodate (one of lifes paradoxes - that what is small cannot fit into something too big) My customers (and friends) are found at the places where people have different priorities than just shopping: folk festivals, cultural schools, conferences and conventions of people with interests outside of the mainstream: mythology, history, folklore, music and stories.

That's where I feel I can best do my work. So I will be going back to upstate New York soon ...

Festival Fever

2011-06-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

Well - I am back from Old Songs. I had an amazing time. Caught up with old friends - and made some new. Heard some amazing sea chanties at the song session Sunday night - and listened for a while to the French-Canadian fiddle session with my friend from Ottawa James Stephens.

James on the Old Songs stage with his new fiddle

He had just purchased a new 5 string fiddle from my booth neighbours - a delightful couple from the Adirondacks: Pat and Brad Higgins. Brad spent years repairing violins - and noticed that they always had the same problems - so he designed a new one to address those problems. Apparently James had his eye on these fiddles for 9 years - and finally made the leap!

It's a very beautiful instrument and has gorgeous tone. I can attest to that as I listened while numerous people dropped by to try them out. From Irish to bluegrass to classical - they all sounded great! Brad's fiddles (which he humourously calls "Bradivarius") have been getting a lot of attention. Natalie McMaster has one, and Donnell Leahy. And now James. (apparently Canadians really like his fiddles ;-)

I went to hear the huge Shape Note (Sacred Harp) sing that always happens Sunday morning. I tried to capture the sound but my poor little microphone couldn't handle it. Just when I was giving up this woman stepped in front of my camera and I loved her graceful accompaniment to the music (please forgive the appalling sound quality!)

Festival founder and director "Andy" Spence (now in her 70's) and her amazing volunteer team spend the entire year fundraising to make Old Songs happen. And while she gets lots of support - many more people just don't realise how much work goes into making a festival like this happen. She does it for one reason only - becasue she LOVES the music. And she understands the importance of these gatherings in preserving it.

As someone who has been attending festivals for years I can tell you that there has always been something special about Old Songs. While all the other festivals would often have an identical line-up (taking advantage of whoever happened to be on tour) Old Songs always has something different. Always something that I have never heard before that is amazing.

But I also benefited from Andy's personal patronage as she has purchased an animal brooch from each of the 23 years I have been attending this festival. I am sure she has more of my work than any other single person! This year she got the Scythian Stag.

Sadly this festival struggles from year to year to make ends meet and to continue to do their important work. Put it on your calendar for next year! You won't regret it!

Camp Wyoka

2011-06-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail (as I often do these days) with questions about enamelling supplies. The call was from Camp Wyoka, which is a Girl Guide camp in Southern Ontario. Someone had donated a kiln and they were excited about being able to add enameling to their art focused week which happens in August. But the kiln was all they had! After some discussion we decided that a couple of their leaders needed to be trained, and then together we would come up with a list of supplies that would be useful.

So I was very focused on thinking about how I would do this: I couldn't possibly expect these young women to retain ALL the tiny bits of information that go into this art -after one day's trasining! but I had to give them enough to pass on - and make sure they did it safely.

Me, Shawn, Mike and Dad

Then I consulted a map to plan my driving. Imagine my surprise when I realised it was about 15 miles from the tiny town where I grew up (Mt Forest) where I had been a Girl Guide myself! The first thing I asked when I got there was "How long have the girl guides owned this property?"; the answer "50 years". I had surely been there myself as a small girl! I didn't remember the place specifically - but Guiding had been a very big part of my childhood. In the days before the Internet this was the only real activity a non-sports minded girl like myself could really do. My dad was a Scout leader, I was in Brownies and then Guides and my brother was in Cubs and then Scouts. It gave us a love of the outdoors and a chance to learn about nature in a fun and supportive environment.

But I also had a very vivid memory from my childhood about a particular "Weenie Roast" as we used to call them. I loved going on these outings as it meant staying up late in the forest around a campfire and it felt very adventurous. But just before the week-end I got a bad cold. I begged and begged my parents to let me go and to my surprise they did. I felt miserable but still had a great time. I always appreciated the lessons it taught me: that I could push beyond my own limitations, that weakness didn't have to hold you back, and that some times things were worth doing even if they were really hard. I was so grateful that they trusted me with this responsibility. I am grateful still, for this and for all the support my wonderful parents have given me throughout my life. You appreciate these things even more as you get older...

The class was easier than I had supposed - the girls were bright and quick - and had a real understanding of how much their younger charges would be able to absorb. It was cheering to see that the Girl Guides are still doing their wonderful work. Summer camp is a great experience for the kids - and a great way to grow into creative and supportive young women in a stunningly beautiful environment.

Old Songs Festival

2011-06-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

After a cold and wet spring summer is suddenly upon us. In the past I would have been already on the road - but these days my schedule is greatly reduced. Not by choice! I miss my summers on the road, camping at beautiful state parks between shows. I thrived on the extremes - extreme solitude in nature and extreme socializing at festivals! But financial pressures and the way the world is changing have conspired to force me to find new ways to be and life on the road is out of the question. It hasn't been an easy transition - changing the habits of a lifetime - but I am an optimist and and existentialist - so I believe that I CAN change - and that is half the battle.

Part of the secret is not giving up my shows entirely! And soon I will be off to Old Songs - certainly one of my favorites. I have been going to Old Songs for over 20 years.

I have many memories - like the gentleman who got the very obscure medieval joke that is my business name: "Imago Corvi". He's the only person who has ever gotten it. In 25 years of bsuiness. (Medieval manuscripts of the gospels each begin with their evangelical symbol Imago Utilus for St Luke, Imago Leonis for St Mark, Imago Hominus for St Matthew and Imago Aquilus for St John. Imago Corvi is the gospel according to me ;-)

Among the many musicians that I deeply respect, I saw Martin Carthy there when he released his retrospective a few years back. It's one of the few places I can see artists of his stature in a small and intimate setting. I was delighted that he brought some feild recording with him, of where he learned his songs - so I could make connections with where his style comes from. Old Songs is good at that - making connections.

It is at Old Songs that I have some of my most loyal customers. Generous people that have supported me over the year purchasing some of my most expensive pieces - and thereby encouraging me to push the boundaries of what I do. Andie Spence the festival director comes to my booth every year and buys something. I know how long I have been going there by the number of pieces she has!

I often feel that Old Songs is a microcosm of what the world should be. Great music is at the centre. And dancing and storytelling. As a consequence of that - great discussions and great food: conviviality. Inclusion. Around the periphery a little commerce - but no one cares about getting rich - just making enough to get by and to move forward with their projects. Singing and playing around campfires late into the night. Creative, sustaining endeavours that give meaning and purpose to life. There is a lot of space for growth, for reflection and for re-assessing priorities and re-affirming principles.

Come and join me!

Guilloché

2011-05-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

Guilloché is a term for a pattern that has been applied by a 'Rose Engine' which is a hand turned engraving machine. These machines are quite rare now - but the few remaining technicians are passionate about their art. A rose engine is a specialized kind of lathe. The headstock contains a small engraving tool. It rocks back and forth controlled by a gear moving against a rosette while the lathe spindle rotates. The gear is turned by hand and the pressure on the engraving tool is guided by hand. It takes a great amount of skill to control the machine. Rose engine work can make flower patterns, as well as convoluted, symmetrical, multi-lobed organic patterns. Sort of like a complex spirograph in metal.

Recently I met a gentleman from Burlington Ontario who has one of these machines and a passion for turning. he was also aware of the tradition for enamelling guilloché , and was interested in learning some techniques.

trapped bubbles

So I did some research and we spent a day trying some different techniques with good success. The problem I had run into in doing some preliminary samples was tiny trapped bubbles. In most enameling applications this is not a serious problem, as they are not usually obvious, and they decrease with repeated firings. However with the fine pattern of guilloché , the bubbles obscured the design and the typical single firing required the bubbles to be gone in the beginning. It was also important to fire the back and front at the same time, as turning the piece over to fire the back would result in trivet marks, and firing the back first would anneal the front and take the edge off of the fine engraving cuts.

The advice that I had gotten was to use very fine (325 mesh) grounds. This was directly against the perceived wisdom among enamelists that bigger grains give more clarity.

test piece

Some enamelists use only 80 mesh grain for clarity - in my own pieces I generally use a mix ranging from 200-80 mesh. I feel that a variation in size will minimize the trapped air bubbles by preventing the "boulder effect" (the theory that large grains only will trap more air)

under-fired - oxides trapped in cuts

So the process we worked out was to sift enamel on the back that was saturated in gum binder, and then turn to the front and wet pack 325 mesh enamel tightly but thinly on the front - and do a very high firing (up to 1600 for 2 1/2 min) when the piece was dry. We tried grinding the enamel from lump form to see if the results were any better, but concluded that it wasn't worth the trouble.

Different colours will require different times/temperatures, but I think he has enough information to go forward with confidence and produce some really beautiful enamelled guilloché

Light green on fine silver

The Bare Bones

2011-04-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking alot about bones lately.

A couple of years ago I was introduced to the myth of skeleton woman. This is a myth of the Inuit people, but (as usual) there are versions from around the world. It is the story of a woman who either because of a misdeed or an accident has fallen into the ocean and had all of her flesh and tissue eaten away leaving nothing but her skeleton. After many years, an unsuspecting fisherman hooks her. When he hauls in his line, he doesn’t realize that he has also hauled in skeleton woman, and is horrified when he turns around and finds her in his boat. He flees in terror, unaware that he is actually connected to her with his fishing line. He runs and runs to escape her – but she is always just behind him. Finally he dives into his own house believing that he has at last escaped her.

He sits in the dark recovering from his fright as his heart beats like a drum. When he finally lights a fire she is sitting right across from him! She is tangled in his net, her bones all in a tangle too. Suddenly he no longer fears her, but actually feels compassion for her and begins to untangle her from the net, gently placing her bones in the proper order and cooing softly to her. He wraps her up in a warm blanket, lies down beside her and goes to sleep. As he sleeps a tear escapes from his eye – and skeleton woman drinks from it, slaking her thirst as if drinking from a river. She then takes his heart out of his chest and beats on it as if it were a drum. She sings, and as she sings the flesh returns to her bones, skin covers her and thick black hair grows from her hard skull. Finally she returns the hunters heart to his breast and gets under his blanket with him.

It is a beautiful myth of regeneration, and, according to Mircea Eliade, echoes the coming-of-age ritual where initiates, after extensive fasting, privation, and meditation, see themselves as skeletons entirely divested of muscle and tissue and then name every bone in a sacred language. The re-fleshing of the bones finalizes their transformation from children to adults. This reduction to a skeleton is characteristic, and the ancient symbol of hunting peoples: bones as the final root of life; the mold from which flesh continually rises.

This ancient hunter/gatherer myth has been somewhat superceded by the agricultural myth of the seed falling into the ground to die and be re-born, and the idea of the earth as a womb from which we can be re-born – but there are remnants of it even in Christianity. In the words of Ezekial:

"The hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me forth in the spirit of the Lord: and set me down in the midst of a plain that was full of bones. And he led me about through them on every side: now they were very many upon the face of the plain, and they were exceeding dry. And he said to me: Son of man, dost thou think these bones shall live? And I answered: O Lord God, thou knowest. And he said to me: Prophesy concerning these bones; and say to them: Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you with skin: and I will give you spirit and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord."

In Mexican culture apparently these older traditions have been superimposed on Christianity, and Mary is sometimes seen as a skeleton. This is not considered gruesome or morbid, but a symbol of her regenerative power. It harks back to an ancient Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl whose role was to watch over the bones of the dead

For me it also symbolizes my hunt for the roots of things. I have a philosophical and spiritual desire to strip away, to find the reality at the core of things.

So all of this combined with a desire to get back to sketching lead me to start drawing animal skulls. Again I have chosen animals that are especially significant in Irish mythology – though perhaps not surprisingly they are also the same animals that are significant in other cultures: deer, stag, boar, bear, horse, fox, wolf, rabbit, owl, eagle, crow…

I started with sketches on paper but am now moving to enamel. Graphite (just simple pencil) can be fired into a coat of enamel retaining all of its characteristics except it’s fragility! Once fired the drawing will last forever, and never fade. Rather than try to make this a really unified series, I am approaching each skull in a different way – sometimes making jewelry, sometimes framed pieces, sometimes on a white background, sometimes on bone or eggshell…

I have to build up several layers of enamel on both sides of a piece of copper, and then stone it down to give it a ‘bite’ that will take the graphite. The piece is then fired a final time to fix the drawing in place. Too much heat will cause the graphite to sink into the enamel and be lost, so I have to be careful…

Transformation has great power in our lives, however we choose to see it: the re-fleshing of stripped bones, the re-birth in the womb of the earth, or the transformation by fire which is my chosen art…

Special Order: Tree Forge

2011-04-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

I have been finding that videos are a great way of letting people in to the process of making an enamel. Even after describing the progression people are often quite mystified as to how it all happens. This is a symptom of an over-mechanized society where people are so removed from the source of things that they no loonger understand what a process is.

An enamelist must understand process! Enamelling is a perfect balance between a scientific act and a creative act. The relationship of the molten glass to the hot metal is a relationship of physics - the more understanding you have of this aspect - the more control you will have of your firings. This understanding is also a balance between information (on molecular structure etc) and experience (making samples!) Having a clear vision of what enamel can do makes transfering that vision to the medium possible. Simply having an idea and trying to make enamel do what you want will only result in frustration!

Etch Batch

2011-03-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

I have done a post on production work before - but I find that stills often don' t do justice to the labour and care involved - so I decided to make a movie! This movie chronicles the first 4 days in the making of a champlevé piece. I know people don't often believe me when I say it takes 5 days to make one piece - but it's true! After years of practice and trying lots of different methods - this one has proved to be the best and most reliable for me.

Production work for me is very small batches - but it is still production. I feel that it actually improves the quality to do them this way, since spending all day at one task helps you to get really good at it! And that enables you to be more creative in the future!

And feel free to put any questions you might have in the comments - I will be sure to get to them!

Enjoy!

Volunteering

2011-03-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

I have lived in a volunteer culture since I was born. Both of my parents volunteered when I was young - and encouraged me to participate in community life. Dad was leader of the local boy scouts - and my brother and I were in Cubs and Brownies. Dad also coached the kids hockey even though he couldn't skate! I remember him shuffling around the ice in his boots! Mom watched over the neighbourhood kids, contributed to bake sales and worked with local women's groups.

My parents are now in their 80's and they still volunteer. They visit people in old age homes - which I find hilarious! Mom volunteers in the hospital Gift Shop and Cafeteria and spends half days at the Food Bank. They only just recently stopped working for the Vincent dePaul Society which offers financial assistance to those who need it.

All this is just going to say that when people ask for help - it is a natural response for me to say 'yes'. The volunteer work I have done in my life has been more related to the arts than to the poor but I don't think that makes it less valuable. How we deal with our weakest members and how we communicate creatively are the two cornerstones of culture. My volunteer work has ranged from performances in theatre and music, building sets, organising community events and art exhibitions (sometimes on an International scale), writing newsletters, building websites and much much more. Mostly I don't think of these projects as 'volunteer' work because they have contributed so much to my life. As someone with the privilege of doing work that I love - I think of most things that I do as just part of my life. Enriching parts of my life! I have learned more about running a successful arts business through volunteering than in any other way. It has helped me make connections that have been stronger and more important than any other networking I do.

But as I get older I notice another effect, which is personal growth. While working with arts organisations can be a lot of fun - there are also challenges - often personal ones, but also engaging people in the process - and more and more I am noticing that when these challenges come up people tend to just walk away. But I truly believe that working through these issues compassionately and considerately will bring the most amazing rewards. Perhaps also the most subtle rewards - but also the most important. I am very inspired by this quote from M. Scott Peck (Author of the Road Less Travelled) :

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

I believe that we grow as persons equally from conflicts and friendships - and how we deal with people that we don't agree with and don't necessarily have much in common with is the real test of our mettle. In an increasingly virtual world where hardly any communication has to happen face to face we are less and less able to really listen and respond. I believe that if we allow this internal isolation, avoiding conflict or barrelling over other's concerns, we lose a little of our humanity.

Though people crave community we are increasingly loosing the skills that are necessary to build it. In fact I think that this is why democracy is beginning to fail us - we don't participate! Community only happens with everyone's active engagement.

So join up! Pitch in! You won't regret it!

I am currently serving as Communications officer for the Metal Arts Guild of Canada.

Dance Flurry

2011-02-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

I have always done well at Dance festivals. Other artists are often surprised when I tell them this. But really it makes a lot of sense. Dancers in general are well educated, but people who do cultural dance are educated specifically about the importance of cultural heritage. These kind of people are far more likely to appreciate my work than your average shopper! Also as dancers they love to dress in unusual hand-made clothes, and wear unusual hand-made jewellery!

I often meet dancers I know from other shows, like NEFFA or the Catskills Irish Arts Week. I even saw someone from Augusta Irish week in West Virginia - which goes to show how far a truly dedicated dancer will go!

One of the things I love about the kind of odd quirky shows that I do is that I have such a good time. Back in the day (many years ago now) when I used to do craft shows I used to hate them. Long hours and too many people that I had nothing in common with! Who cared only about what was in fashion, and whether or not the brooch they bought from me would match their shoes!At dance festivals I have interesting conversations with people who also care about folklore and myth and who understand the importance of stories!

The Dance Flurry was I think the biggest and most eclectic dance festival I had ever been to. One of the things I love about serious dance festivals is that there is never any recorded music, or silly costumes. All of the dancing is done to live music - there were literally hundreds of really fine musicians at the Flurry - playing all kinds of instruments and types of music ranging from Balkan and Klezmer to blues and even disco! These are not show dances for tourists - but a vibrant part of a living culture.

The festival not only has dance - but also performance music, sing and storytelling - all with deeply cultural themes. I found out about this festival through my good friend, storyteller Bairbre McCarthy. Bairbre very kindly included me in her "Irish stories and Song" performance - and I enjoyed the nice mix of songs stories and tunes. It reminded me that I need to spend more time on song. My life has been so busy lately that singing is falling by the wayside... I will have to do something to change that

Creativity and Organization

2011-02-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

As my work load and business grow it is increasingly challenging to fit myself into my smallish space. Don't get me wrong - I am not complaining! I love my studio - and feel that the challenges of staying organised in a smaller space are good for me - and what the Universe wants me to do is get more methodical!

My usual pattern has been to immerse myself in a project and not pay attention to anything else until it is over, but with the diversification of my business I have daily tasks to do that range over the three main branches (making art, teaching and supply business) so having this much chaos around is counter productive.

I don't believe that our temperaments or work habits are 'hard-wired' (in fact I have come to hate that phrase!) and I am now expressing my existential freedom by going from being a 'messy' person to being a 'tidy' one.

One of the biggest challenges is having so many little tiny things! My strategy is to find a place for all of them: a labeled place where they belong. Tiding has become a part of my day. I am not overly meticulous - I just do as much as is needed to keep my tasks moving forward.

It's not just the physical space that I need to organise - but my mental space also. I used to be able to keep all of my business records in my head (and a simple excel spreadsheet) - but now I have a complicated accounting program that neatly separates my income and revenue streams. This helps my guage where to spend more effort and where to spend less.

At the beginning of this year I went through a strategic planning process with myself! I separated all my channels and wrote down long term goals and short term goals as well as daily, weekly and monthly tasks

that will help me acheive them.

The daily tasks take usually about 2-3 hours at the beginning of the day - and then I am free to pursue whichever long term goal I choose: so there is some structure and some freedom. Balance.

This process has also relieved a great deal of my daily stress. At first I didn't believe that I was experiencing stress! After all - I love what I do! But stress was indeed there, and it was coming from having so many decisions to make every day about what was important to do next.

I now have a clear vision on paper, which I can consult at any time to refresh my mind. This helps me move forward calmly with a stronger sense of where I am going. And THAT increases my creativity a hundredfold!

WisCon

2011-02-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

It's always hard to blog about WisCon when it is still fresh in my mind. That's because there is sooo much going on in my head, that it's hard to sort it all out. On a superficial level - I did well for sales in the art show - I was delighted that (as usual) I was exposed to a discerning and respectful audience. Delighted also to be able to sell my "Offering Bowl" piece first crack out of the box. ;-)

The bowl was my first ever attempt at smithing. It took me over 4 classes to sink it (that's about 15 hours) using a hammer and a stump with a slight depression in it. And a lot of noise! My teacher told me that an experienced smith could do it in three hours - so it has been my goal to go back to the class, and just work on sinking and nothing else until I can achieve this feat!

Time constraints as I set up my new on-line enamel supply business have not allowed that to happen. But making this sale - and the encouragement that it represents have given me renewed commitment to the process.

This year I was on FOUR panels. I am not sure how this happened. Actually originally I was scheduled for three panels - but NONE of them was the panel I wanted to be on - the one I had suggested. I was under the impression that I had recommended myself as moderator for this panel, but apparently I hadn't even indicated that I wanted to be on the panel. Fortunately when I contacted programming - they were good enough to include me.

This was the "Story in the Object and the Object in the Story" panel and it was really interesting. Sarah G. Micklem did great job of moderating, and brought an interesting perspective to the table by telling us how she had first written a story about an object used for divination - and then actually made one and used it! We explored the relationship between story and object further with Kat Beyer's planned series of books (in progress) about exorcisms - the first one dealing with bells, the second one with books and the third with candles. Shira Lipkin talked about collaborations with other artists and writers, and I talked about my first foray into illustrative work (sort of) with the Armless Maiden Panels. This topic is very near and dear to my heart as the story in the object has always been the most important part of my work. The one problem with this panel was that it was scheduled during art show set-up, so Jane Washburn couldn't make it - and the rest of us were pretty rushed.

I will now confess that I missed the "Apes Who Pray" panel, as I managed to lock my keys in my car just at the time it was on, and I can only believe that this was the work of providence - since it was a panel for atheists, and I am firmly agnostic ;-)

The next morning I was on a panel called "Where is the Goddess Today" and I was surprised and delighted that one presenter introduced Jane Eyre as goddess in fiction figure - making connections between the nature imagery that surrounded this hero journey. Alex Bledsoe talked about the difficulties of creating a goddess figure without just making her a woman with super-powers, and I showed various slides and talked about the changes in the imagery of the goddess over the millennia.

The "Death is Weirder than you Think" panel discussed different approaches to death in different cultures, Erin bringing the perspective of a nurse working in a burn victims unit as well as her experience as a writer. For me it was a great opportunity to show some of the great pieces from the "Grave Goods" exhibition showing different artist's conceptions of death throught the objects that they created.

There was also the artist's dinner, and a few tete-a-tete lunches with friends I have made at WisCon's in the past.

All in all a fantastic time!

Production Work

2011-02-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Some days there's just production work to be done.

As a working craftsperson - not every day is spend designing and making barnd new things! The times when I have that luxury are actually few and far between. Most days at my enamelling bench I am trying to produce enough stock to sell at a show, and produce it in such a manner that I can charge as little as possible for it. That's hard with enamel, as it is by it's very nature a slow and meticulous process.

But there are small production runs that I do; rarely more than 10 pieces at a time - and that takes a week!

I started doing production runs of my champleve years ago - it just made sense. All of the pieces have five separate stages that they need to go through - and it would be silly not to do them together - exspecailly the etching. It is hardly worth setting up an etch vat unless I am going to do more than one piece!

It also makes sense to get into a groove of doing a certain job: polishing for example. I usually save up at least two batches (20 pieces or more) before I do a polishing. After the first couple of pieces I am getting the feel, and all the other pieces flow much easier. And faster!

With the painted pieces I prepare up to 20 pieces with the black undercoat (2 firings on each side of the shape) but then I only paint as many pieces as I can finish in a day: three with grisaille and five or six of the greek series.

I don't mind doing the production work. Many people think of it as boring - but for me there is as much satisfaction in producing the simple pieces as the complex ones. I get in my Zen mode and just let the work carry me along!

Crows

2011-01-15T05:44:00.001-08:00

When I was a child I was not happy to have Crowe as my surname. It gave the other kids fodder for teasing. "Go fly south, crow-bird" they'd holler. It didn't matter how often I explained that crows didn't fly south. The information that they were one of the most intelligent birds did not help either. But like most children I survived the childhood trauma and grew into loving my association with crows

Being naturally curious I continued to investigate crows and my association with them. I learned that they are from the corvid genus which includes ravens magpies and jays. I learned that the etymology of my name was not related to crows. It is an anglicization of Mac Conchradha which has as its root 'con' meaning 'hound' and chrada meaning thorn bush or hawthorn.

But I also discovered the place of the crow in folklore and began a journey into myth and fairy tale that inspires me to this day.

In Celtic culture the crow/raven is often referred to as the 'oldest' of the animals, which is folklore code for participation in some way in the creation myth. Unfortunately in Celtic culture the Pagan origin myth has been lost but in other cultures the crow often fills this role.

In Haida culture, for example, the raven finds humans in a clamshell. Raven can be a magician, a transformer, a potent creative force, sexual deviant or ravenous debaucher but always a cultural hero. While frequently described as a "trickster", Haidas also believe Raven or Yelth or Hoya to be a complex reflection of one's own self

In many cultures the crow was originally white and turns to black becasue of some mischeif that he got into. There is a tantalising hint that this might have been the case in some lost celtic story in the name Branwen (which means "white crow")

Greeks believed that Apollo turned the raven black when the bird informed him of the unfaithfulness of his lover, Coronis.

The most recent scientific investigation of crows who not only that they are the most intellegent of birds - but also more intellegent than many other mammals. Have a look at this:

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Nature_of_Things/1242300217/ID=1385855962

I am now pretty happy with my association with crows - and look to them often for inspiration. For more info on crow mythology - check out this link: http://www.deardeath.com/raven.htm

I also highly recommend the book "The Folklore of Birds" by A. E. Armstrong

But this is my favorite crow story - collected by Sean O Sullivan (retold by me)

OLD MAY NIGHT

Once upon a time there was a very cold night and the old crow of Achill was looking for somewhere warm to spend it, He eventually found a baby eagle alone in its nest just as it was beginning to get dark. So he killed the baby and threw it out of the nest and hunkered down, hoping that the mother would not notice the change and would keep him warm all night. Things fell out as he had hoped. By the time the mother eagle came back it was too dark to see and she kept the old crow warm all night. However, as day began to dawn he was worried about what she would do when she discovered his ruse. Kill him as likely as not! So he tried to think of a way around it. She had been hopping up and down all night lamenting the cold. "I don't remember a colder night than this" she said
"There was a colder night though" said the old crow "Old May night, many years ago was colder than this."
"How would you know - and you just out of the egg last week?" she asked.
"Well if you don't believe me - go and ask the Blackbird at the forge - she'll tell you"
So the mother eagle flew over to the Blackbird at the forge.
"Do you remember a colder night than this?" she asked
"Well" said the Blackbird" I have been standing on this iron bar since I came out of the egg, and every day I wipe my beak on it once. Yesterday the bar broke off. That's how long I've been standing here and I don't remember a colder night than this - but you should go and ask the bull in the field. He's older than me and he might know."
So the eagle flew over to the bull in the field.
"Do you remember a colder night than this?" she asked?
"Well" said the Bull in the field "I have been standing in this field since the day I was born and every year I drop my horns. I have been building a wall around the field with my horns - that's how long I've been standing here, and I don't remember a colder night than this. You should go and talk to the blind salmon of Assaroe - because he's the oldest animal I know."
So the eagle flew over to Assaroe and found the blind salmon
"Do you remember a colder night than this?" she asked?
"Who told you there was a colder night than this"
asked the salmon.
"Why - it was my baby eagle in the nest."
"That was never your child" said the blind salmon "that was the old crow of Achill. There WAS a colder night than this. I remember it well- it was old May night many years ago.
It was so cold that the stream froze and caught me in a leap so that I was frozen tight half in and half out of the river. And the old crow of Achill came along and pecked my eyes out. That's why I'm blind."

The Year in Review

2011-01-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

Well here we are in 2011. Already a whole decade of the new century has passed. It's going so fast that I can barely keep up. When I look back at 2010, I can hardly believe how much was accomplished!

This year I bought my own silversmithing hammer and began experimenting with 3 dimensional shapes. I cut my hair short for the first time in my life and took to wearing hats. In my volunteer capacity as Communications officer at the Metal Arts Guild I went through my first ever Strategic Planning process, and went from curmudgeonly skeptic to enthusiastic participant. I took some free business workshops from Enterprise Toronto and began developing a marketing strategy (not something I ever envisioned doing!!) I began taking advantage of living around the corner from the Art Gallery of Ontario and visited more. Often weekly, often with friends. I began applying myself more seriously to yoga practice and re-discovered the need for meditation. Sang Beatles songs with my improvisational choir. Grew my new enamel supply business. Taught at my first Elder Hostel. Had my sketches published in a book (and had an awesome book launch party!)

This is the year that I really settled in to living in Toronto. After 10 years of having a life that was almost totally 'on the road', it was a much easier transition than I imagined, in fact it happened almost without my noticing it. lI ove my studio in Mirvish Village. I love this city. It's big enough that small quirky endeavours like mine can flourish and find convivial friends. I still feel a bit like a kid in a candy store. I can walk a couple of blocks to a great jazz club, and leaf through NOW Magazine's event listings and make my plans. The best part is that none of it has to cost much. PWYC theatre matinees, live music and community events are constants. And just getting together with a growing number of interesting and erudite friends!

I barely miss life on the road. The Internet (especially Facebook!) has made it easier to stay in touch with my friends from far away - and I still do a bit of travelling that allows me to stay in touch with them - and to make the new connections that keep me from feeling that I am stagnating ;-)

My life is very full and I am very grateful for it! My hope for 2011 is to start a new decade of adventure where fulfilling and challenging work is balanced with time for friends and family. Where all the blessings I receive are balanced by giving back.

Namaste

Workspace

2010-08-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Work space is very personal to individual artists. I have always gone for a simple and functional space - not really caring what it looks like, since when I am in there I am mostly absorbed in the one square foot in front of my eyes!

I have been enamelling for 25 years - but this studio that I now have in Mirvish Village in Toronto is the first one ever above ground! I have usually been in basements in the past and I just LOVE having a window ... even though it looks out on a brick wall ;-) It still lets in lots of natural light and dosen't distract me with too beautiful a view!

About 10 years ago I started having continuous pain in my shoulder from staying in the same position too long so I became very aware of ergonomics, and how important it is to stretch and take breaks. I eventually got rid of the chronic pain with physiotherapy, but if I don't keep up my exercises and take frequent stretch breaks, it starts coming back ... to warn me ...

I set up my main work table so that it has a rest for my elbow. I also constructed a couple of 'towers' on which to rest my work so that I don't need to lean over and can keep my back straight. I often sit cross legged on my chair to help keep my back upright. I also have a board that allows me to have the tower actually hanging over the edge of the worktable which I can then rest my wrist on. Everything is movable so that I can change my position. All of this has been very important to me since I often work for 10-12 hours at a stretch. People are always amused by the direction "breathe" on my tallest tower. It is actually a reminder to do breathing exercises while I am sitting there for long periods. (Always multi-tasking!). You may also notice the speakers: they are usually hooked up to my computer listening to audio books often fairy tales, or mythic classics like Gilgamesh, Beowulf or the Odyssey for inspiration.

I am not a naturally tidy person - so I discovered that I needed smaller work spaces to force me into tidiness. If I have large tables - they just get filled up with junk... Now that I have a shipping table I have to be really careful to keep it free of clutter. However, with determiniation I believe that you can do anything that you need to! So I am slowly becoming a tidier person - it's a little scary really ... ;-)

Book Review: From Mountains of Ice by Lorina Stephens

2010-06-18T04:57:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of reading Lorina Stephens' book "Mountains of Ice". Everything about the book was approached with more imagination than your run of the mill fantasy. From the setting, in a recognizably Italianate world to the theme, which was political the book broke new ground.

The setting was not entirely 'historical' but only evoked a sort of renaissance mood. Many things about this created world were also unique. The foundational religion was based on ancestor worship and took the concrete form of a class of "bone speakers" who had the gift of being able to speak to their ancestors through their bones, and "truth speakers" who only spoke the truth. This 'magical' component balanced the very real political situation of a corrupt system, twisted by an insecure and destructive leader. Lorina has clearly done anthropological research to flesh out these cultural elements.

She also brought a contemporary edge to the novel by playing with the negative and positive attitudes to tattooing - now so much a part of modern society.

All of this proved an admirable backdrop for the complex plot that did not neglect individual character development as it progressed with the political theme.

I always hate it when book reviews outline the plot, as I feel that half the pleasure of reading comes from being surprised as that unfolds! But I hope what I have written will tempt you to pick it up and discover this intricate and lovely world for yourself.

Practice: Bowls

2010-05-08T17:54:00.001-07:00

Well. As I mentioned in my last post, I was committed to making a bowl a week. Well it's been a week and I've made four bowls ;-) Hammering is really addictive! It's so amazing to feel the bowl taking shape under your hand. I am excited this week because I have also designed some feet for the bowls that I will etch and enamel in champleve technique
.

Silversmithing: Hammered Metal

2010-05-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

It's not everyone who has a conversation with a friend including the sentence: "I found one. I dragged it to the park and hid it in the bushes. You can come and see if it's what you want. but you should probably come at night". Sounds like the beginning of a thriller - and in a way it is. It's pretty exciting to me anyway ...

My friend was talking about a tree stump. I had finally acquired a silversmithing hammer, but I had nothing to hit! I needed the stump as a solid base for hammering - sort of a wooden anvil.

I have set myself the task of making a bowl a week so that I get familiar with the hammer. This first one was small - just a three inch circle of copper, turning into a little bowl about 2 1./2" across.

It took about an hour and three annealings to get the shape. Metal hardens as you work it - so you have to anneal it (heat it up and quench it) to make it go soft again. For those of you who are interested in such things - when you hammer it you disrupt the even placement of molecules, which is what makes the metal get hard. When you heat it (to about 1500 for copper) the molecules are regulated again. If you keep baging it after it is too hard, it will break.

The next part was 'planishing' which harderns the bowl into its final shape and adds shine. Traditionally you use a stake and the flat side of the hammer - both are highly polished - and the metal between where the two strike becomes shiny and hard. You also create a pattern of hammer marks that is beautifully reflective with the light sparkling off the many planed surface. I was challenged here, becasue I didn't have a stake! (silversmithing tools are quite expensive - one small bowl stake being about $100) So I got creative, and used the hammer itself as a stake by putting it in my vice.

I then polished the flat side of an old ball pien hammer that I had and used it for planishing

The results were lesss than perfect - but I was impatient to finish my first bowl! The planishing stake is in my budget for next month...

For me as an enamelist who has worked almost entirely two dimmensionally for years, it's very exciting to feel shapes forming under my hand. I hope that this will lead to a whole new world of design for me.

Dream

2010-03-29T21:47:00.001-07:00

I wanted to use this blog to document some of the processes that I deal with in enamelling. I have often set up the camera to take shots of the pieces as they go along. The purpose of this is to let people in to some of the mysteries of making. It is never easy to communicate a complicated process like enamelling, but I hope I can elucidate it a little.

To many people processes are very mysterious. This is to some extent a function of the industrial age, where making suddenly was taken out of the home and away from the public crossroad (where blacksmiths used to wield their magic) and closed it behind factory doors. In the past people would have been exposed on a daily basis to the making of even everyday things. But everything is different now.

Process is something that we artists have a mixed relationship with - especially artists like myself who work with a material that is demanding.

I had an interesting experience recently designing a special order that I thought I would share with you.

Champleve as a technique has many limitations. I have to be careful how deep I etch, what I use to counter-enamel, what colours I put next to each other, how thick the lines are, how the lines curve etc. But I have been using this technique for many years, and have achieved a certain comfort level with it. So when a customer asked me to design a piece based on a dream she had had, I dropped right into my usual design mode.

There were three basic elements to the dream - which were in themselves fairly abstract, and the client wanted to keep it simple. There had been a deep red bowl against a dark blue ground with e green cross emerging from the bowl. Simple - right? But after working and reworking these elements I was still unsatisfied.

I just couldn't seem to give the shapes life. I thought long and hard about how I might be able to use shading to create more of a sense of the bowl, and then all of a sudden the penny dropped. With all the limitations that champleve has - it does NOT have to be flat! Why don't I make an actual bowl? So I did a bit of a mock up with some copper scrap I had: this is two separate pieces.

I had been fooled into thinking that champleve needed to be flat simply because I hadn't needed it to be anything else until now. Finally the piece started to feel like it had some power. It had been over a year since I took my silversmithing class - but I thought I could manage what I wanted with the simple tools I had in the studio. At first I thought of riveting the pieces together, but later the KISS principle seemed a better plan (KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid) so I decided just to hang both pieces from the same holes

You can see that the hammering process caused the sides to pull in at the centre, so I deliberately made it larger than I needed so that I could trim the edges straight.

I waited until after etching to cut around the cross

I spent a fair amount of time experimenting with colour. Red is a very difficult colour to control (apparently this is true in glass blowing as well). There are also certain tension problems I had to deal with - but layering the red over a dark brown seemed to produce the results I was looking for, both technically and aesthetically.

I was particularly stumped by the green, as all the shades I created seemed to make the piece seem garish. I talked to the client again, and she described the green she had in mind as the greenish grey of weathered wood - and suddenly everything fell into place.

The finished piece is only about 1 1/4" square. I am now thinking of designing a line of pieces with a bowl in the back, possibly based on runes. It's has opened up a whole new range of ideas; that's the exciting thing about process!

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King Otter

2009-09-11T09:27:00.001-07:00

Since my work is inspired by folklore and myth - a piece always starts with a story.

In Irish folklore the otter is often characterized as a friendly and helpful creature, and is given the name 'water dog'. In the Irish story The Voyage of Maelduin, otters bring the sailors salmon to eat, collecting firewood and cooking them as well. The Voyage of Brendan tells of how an otter similarly assisted a hermit. St. Cuthbert is the patron saint of otters, and after standing waist-deep in the North Sea during his nightly prayer vigils, two otters would come and warm his feet with their breath and dry them with their fur.

But there are also traditions of the "King Otter" (a fairy or Sidhe otter), who is dangerous, and will devour any animal or beast that comes in its way. This otter is sometimes described as white with black rimmed ears and a black cross on his back, and sometimes as pure black with a spot of white on his belly.

In Scottish tradition, common otters are similarly benevolent, but there are also tales of 'Otter Kings'. When captured, these beasts would grant any wish in exchange for their freedom. Their skins were thought to provide protection against drowning and to render a warrior invincible. But Otter Kings were hard to kill, their only vulnerable point being a small spot below their chin.

In Norse mythology, the god Loki killed the dwarf Otr while the latter was in the form of an otter. The dwarves were furious, and demanded compensation from the gods who gave them the otter skin filled with gold.

In ancient Persia the otter (again known as the 'water dog'), was esteemed above all other animals, and a severe penalty was imposed on anyone who killed one.

When I am developing a grisaille, the first thing I do is make a stencil of the basic outline of the animal, and sift a very thin coat of opalescent white fines (32o mesh) very lightly on to the background colour. I then draw through it with a toothpick (sgraffito) to create basic shading. This serves two purposes: it minimizes the tendency of the paint to craze (develop fine cracks), and it gives me an outline to work with

After firing you can see how faint this outline is

Then I go ahead an use a painting white to give more detail - keeping in mind that this coat will go quite grey by the time firings are finished. This is a semi transparent white.

Unfortuntely as I chronicle this process I sometimes forget to photograph certain stages. I forgot to take a picture after firing this coat - and then I forgot to take a picture of the second painted coat - but this is what it looked like when it was fired. You can see that I added some detail (especially noticeable on the upper lip) and the two layers are already considerably softened.

A third painted coat further develops both highlights and shadows. One has to think backwards from sketching - working towards the highlights, and leaving areas untouched that you wish to recede into the background.

The next firing further softens the lines

I always do the final coat in a slightly more opaque white that gives more defined highlights

which is softened by firing. A friend described him as a 'wise but slightly curmudgeonly fish eater" - which I thought was a very apt description! And very appropriate, considering the legends about him!

The Gypsy Settles Down

2009-08-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

I thought it was about time to post again!

I have been on the road for most of the summer - so it has been difficult. Between that and setting up my new enamel supply business - every day has been full to the brim - bu there's been no time to post bout it!

I didn't do nearly as many shows as in the past. The shows are just not working anymore - and it's not the economy - it's the Internet. It used to be that the economic engine of a show was the urgency to buy. Websites have made that urgency obsolete, and follow up sales via the website don't always happen.

It has saddened me not to be able to do as much travelling as in the past. I love being on the road. Meeting new people, having adventures, seeing new places. The idyllic years were the ones when I could be on the road for weeks at a time. Going to festivals on the week-ends, and spending the time in between visiting museums and galleries in the big cities like Philly and Washington, or staying at a beautiful state park, pondering all of my experiences, and taking time to process them. These were very creative times for me.

But like all small businesses - when economic climate changes - I have to change with it (no-one there to give ME a bailout package ;-)

So I am teaching more (which I also love, but in a different way) and that led to the idea of starting an on-line enamel supply business. It means I am spending a little more time doing administrative work than I would like ... but I am still managing to pursue new projects - and am particularly interested in developing my grisaille technique. Here are my latest pieces - which I plan to have bezeled and turned into earrings. They're 1 3/4" long

These are not all the stages - just some. I get so involved I forget to take all the pictures. There are 6 firings of white altogether, and four firings to build up the base coats.

Cloisonne enamel Fish: Procrastination and the Creative Process

2009-04-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I have distracted myself with grisaille enamel painting and SEO and this blog and starting a new business and production work and everything else I can think of - even housecleaning - but the reality is that one of these days I have to sit down and realise those cloisonne panels of the Armless Maiden story that I came up with OVER A YEAR AGO! That is how well I can procrastinate.

Though I have to say that in this case, it's not procrastination of the lazy kind, but of the fear kind. Cloisonne is not a technique that I have a lot of experience with - and you may remember that I did a series of cloisonne designs based on images from nature in order to practice. Well - that was so long ago I have practically forgotten all that I learned. Or maybe I have just been internalising and processing all of that experience...

Anyway I picked up this fish project - which I left unfinished three years ago - and decided that I could complete it now. That wasn't a fear thing - that was a making a living thing. Sometimes it makes me sad and sometimes it makes me angry - but the reality is that I can only spend a certain amount of time on things that are going to be hard to sell. When I started this piece - it was even before the Armless Maiden panels were a thought in the back of my mind. I just wanted to explore cloisonne. But I stopped in the middle of this piece - because it was clear from the labour involved that it would be in the $300-$400 range - and that is higher than I can usually afford to sell ...

I have mixed feelings about having to think about money while I make my art - sometimes it prevents me from doing my best work - and sometimes it forces me to be creative in ways that I wouldn't expect.

I like to think that when someone buys something from me - it's not so much an exchange of money for merchandise - but an expression of the fact that they support my endeavours as an artist - they give me the money to support me while I work - and I give them a gift ...

Anyway - thanks to all of those who have supported me over the years - as I am going to spend some time making a probably totally unsaleable series of cloisonne panels based on a folklore tale! And I am going to do it NOW.

Viking Horse, champleve enamel

2009-04-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

When I first started enamelling - I thought I would never want to do any technique except champleve. This viking horse (just finished this morning!) is typical of the designs I have developed for it. I had a special relationship with this technique - as I found out that it was an invention of the Iron Age Celts, who had captured my heart in historical studies. It was later that enamelling in and of itself really got under my skin.

In the beginning I taught myself how to enamel, and champleve was quite enough to have on my plate! There was a fairly steep learning curve just to get the metalworking (etching) techniques under control. The real understanding of enamel and how it can function to bring depth and light to a piece as well as colour didn't come til later.

I have never lost my love for champleve - and am back at it, as I see my show season looming ahead! Wiscon is just a month away!

The Codex Manesse: from Medieval Illumination to grisaille enamel

2009-04-13T07:10:00.000-07:00

My latest experiment in grisaille has involved translating some illuminated manuscript illustrations into the painted enamel technique. I love the stylised form and composition of these old illuminations. The Codex Manesse is one of the most beautifully illustrated - go and have a look at all the full colour renderings. You will notice that the poets all look remarkably alike! This is not becasue they are all related ;-) The Codex is a compilation of biographies of famous German romantic poets of the period, and the illustrations are idealised portraits of the poets engaged in 'poetic' activities, probably never meant to be actual likenesses.

This one is based on the biography of Der Kanzler (folio 423v) who was apparently a german poet of the mid 13th c of fairly low social status who versified on knightly and moral topics.

This one is based on Herr Konrad von Altstetten (folio 249v) who stood in the service of the Abbot of Gallen, who was himself on of the 'knightly' abbots.

St Sebastian: Further Adventures in Grisaille Enamel

2009-04-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

Here are the next steps in my adventures in grisaille enamel.

The last few weeks have been crazy busy as I try to put together an on-line enamel supply store. I have taken workshops in E-Commerc e and had meetings with accountants - which is not something that usually happens in my world ;-)

The only thing that keeps me sane through it all is doing some work in the studio.

detail

detail

St Sebastian fell afoul of the emperor Diocletian by converting so many prominent people to Christianity. Diocletian decreed that he be killed with arrows, but when his body was retrieved, he was found to be still alive. He went on to perform several miracles (including giving sight to the blind) before he was again killed by Diocletian and his body thrown into a privy. However, he appeared to his follwers in a vision, telling them where his body could be found for proper burial.

This piece was inspired by a medieval stained glass window design.

St Patrick's Day Stories: The Keeper of the Crock of Gold

2009-03-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

I was all set to write a very disgruntled St Patrick's Day post about the evils of green beer and issues of cultural appropriation as applied to Irish culture , but I was completely sidetracked by an e-mail from my friend Bairbre McCarthy this morning.

Bairbre is an amazing storyteller that I met at Catskills Irish Arts Week a number of years ago. It's almost impossible during that week to sit down and get to know someone, as you are generally running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to fit in everything that needs to be done , not including sleeping! However last October our mutual friend Roxanne OConnell invited us both to her "New Media and the Global Diaspora" conference, and we got to know each other better - and found we had all kinds of things in common. She has made her home in Saratoga Springs, NY where she and her husband have a beautiful old farmhouse and acres of lovely forest.

She has just been informed that The Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) is bringing her book, "The Keeper of the Crock of Gold," as a gift to the White House today for St. Patrick's day.

http://www.mercierpress.ie/

How cool is that!

So it is a Happy St Patrick's Day after all!

St Joan: a foray into pre-Raphaelite styles in grisaille enamel

2009-03-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

As I explore the possibilities of grisaille enamel - I thought I would investigate the possibilities of pre-Raphaelite style. I found this image of a Dante Rossetti painting in a book about the Saints.

I've been away from blogging for a couple of weeks as I try to get my head around opening my on-line enamel supply business. Been taking E-commerce workshops and talking to IT specialists - which you wouldn't think would be very conducive to creativity - but in fact, once I get into the studio I find myself pretty energized. Here's the latest project:

It's amazing how pervasive this image of the warrior woman is. It has always been particularly inspiring to me, much more so than 'mother and child'.

I am SO enjoying painting. It's very satisfying. I can also complete a grisaille in a day, while champleve takes me six days before I see the results. I have some more cloisonne projects ready to go, so I will be posting them soon.

Brenna MacCrimmon and Friends

2009-02-21T07:55:00.001-08:00

I thought it was high time that I posted about music again - and since I had a great musical experience on Thursday night, I thought I would share it with you.

I have been friends with October Browne for some time, but since I have moved to Toronto,and she lives just around the corner I can drop in on her any time - and often do! I took this pic when October was playing at Gate 403 down on Roncesvalles where they have a Saturday folk club from 5-8pm. We often meet there and share a song or two.

October is a dedicated full time musician, and has just gotten back from a tour with Teresa Doyle. We have been trying to find time for a visit as we rush about trying to get all of our projects finished. So, I got an e-mail on Wednesday that she was playing with Brenna MacCrimmon ( below) at the Tranzac (Toronto Australia New Zealand Club and home to many of Toronto's folk/traditional events)

When I looked up the event - I saw that other musical friends would be there Ben Grossman, Anne Lederman ... so I decided that I deserved a treat. It started late (10pm) but that was OK because my Metal Arts Guild meeting went til 9:30 ...

I am SO glad I went! Not only did I get a chance to see my friends - I had a truly amazing night of music. Anne, Brenna and October started the night of with a lively set ranging from Moon Dog's compositions to Scottish Waulking songs in Gaelic. They are all amazing musicians - but I particularly enjoyed Brenna's singing, as it had been a long time since I'd heard it!

The second set was almost all Turkish music (Brenna has just put out a new CD of all Turkish songs) and was really fantastic. The ensemble, which consisted of Ben on Hurdy-gurdy, Rick Hyslop on fiddle and Bret Higgins on stand up base backing Brenna's vocals was just great. I am no expert in Turkish music - but there was a large Turkish contingent in the audience, and I don't think I enjoyed it any less than they did. It is very evocative and moving music - and Brenna's vocal stylings just took me right to another world - I loved it!

Music that is based in some cultural tradition is always more moving for me than pop music. It has some powerful connection to what is essential in us. Some of the pieces that were performed were written recently - but they still had that archetypal feel. You just know, without having to understand the language, that they were about the things traditional music is always about: love, loss, longing...

Mythological Spirit animals: Grisaille (painted) enamel

2009-02-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the other grisaille spirit animals I am working on with painted enamel.

I took these images from photographs. As I try to explore this new technique I want to try a lot of different approaches. But, being who I am, I wanted it to be related to mythology in some way. In Celtic lore - the otherwolrdly animal was always a white animal - and their were certain animals more likely than others to have supernatural associations.
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Selkie: The seal was associated with stories of mermaids, or half seal women - who became beautiful women when they shed their seal skin.

Spirit fox

Blodeuwedd was a woman from Welsh mythology (the Mabinogion) who was made out of flowers by Gwydion for Llew Llaw Gyffes (since he had been cursed by his mother never to have a wife of this world). Alas, she proved unfaithful - and was turned into an owl as punishment, doomed to wander only at night. Read the full story here

Spirit Deer: about the process of grisaille enamel painting

2009-02-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

I am continuing to try to develop my skills in grisaille enamel painting. I have taken some shots of the process of developing the piece, so you can get some idea of how it's done. The design is the next in my series of spirit or ghost animals. All white animals in Celtic mythology were otherworldly animals. Most commonly the white deer was associated with Ossian's mother.
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/deer.html

I used a photo of an albino deer as my starting point.
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This was the first firing

Second coat painted

Second coat fired

Third coat painted

Third coat fired

Fourth coat painted

Fourth coat fired

Is Google Making us Stupid?

2009-01-24T11:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
(Thanks to my friend Naka Ishi for posting this on her Facebook page)

Growing up in a world where Marshall McLuhan was a hero - I have always been interested in the effect of the computer on the way I think.

My discomfort led me, about a year ago, to severely limit my internet use. For me it wasn't a lack of concentration - but just a feeling of overload - like there were too many windows open in my brain.

Now, I don't have WiFi in my home or studio - 4 days a week I use the express computer at the library on my way to work - it cuts off after 15 minutes, so I have to get everything done in that time. It helps me focus! Two days a week I go to an internet cafe for an hour or two so I can write blogs, update my social networks, keep in touch with friends and generally take care of business.

It has been better! I feel more free to be myself. I feel like my brain is my own again.

And I think that's a good thing!

Addicted to Grisaille: Spirit Horse

2009-01-23T17:36:00.001-08:00

This one was more challenging as I was working from a photo of a dark coloured horse and had to imagine more ;-) I wanted to challenge myself beyond the simple copying of a painting (as if that was simple ;-) The piece I chronicled in my last post was based on an actual grisaille - so it was easier to see where the layers went, but is was still fairly challenging.

First coat painted

First coat fired

As you can see there is quite a bit of difference between how the piece looks when it's painted, and how it looks after firing. I am sure more expereince will help me to get better at predicting this.

I forgot to take a photo of the second coat painted - as I was too involved in getting it done!

This is the second coat fired

Third coat painted

Third coat fired

I might do a fourth coat - I haven't quite decided yet. It's harder to imagine where the highlights should go ...

As usual - I am working on two projects at a time, so that when I am waiting for one to dry or cool I can be working on the other.

The other is a portrait of my neice - and it is proving much more challenging. The greyscale photo that I am working from has so many subtle shades that I think I will need more than three or four coats ... more later!

Talent vs Skill: The story of my journey with grisaille enamels

2009-01-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

It was three years ago I saw my first Grisaille enamel up close and personal at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati. It literally took my breath away. My heart started beating faster. I knew I had to try and do this - but I had a problem. I couldn't draw.

This was the kind of piece I was up against!

I know you will think that I am lying. Since I am a full time artist - you will think "She can draw!" but actually my designs have been very stylized, and I use a lot of templates and guides to make them turn out right. I can 'sort of' draw - or I could years ago - but I was terribly out of practice.

At first I it felt like I would never be able to do it. But, as I often tell my students, being an artist is having the courage to fail. I have a lot of stubbornness in me - and a lot of patience. I find that these two qualities are more than all the talent in the world!

This was my first attempt:

About a year later I had progressed to this

Last night I did this:

Here is the process I went through
First layer of white painted (two coats of Imperial blue on front and back)

First layer of white fired

Second layer of white painted

Second layer of white fired

Third layer of white painted

Third layer of white fired

Fourth layer of white painted

Fourth layer of white fired

The breakthrough came while I was working on the classical series. At first I was using a very opaque white that only needed one coat to cover the dark underlayer. But the white I was using was some that I had had around the studio for years. I was running out, and the company that I had gotten it from was out of business - so I asked another supplier what they had to offer. I got some white paint - but it wasn't nearly as opaque - and I had to do two or three layers before getting the same effect as the original product. At first I was annoyed - more layers and more firing meant that the piece would be more expensive - but suddenly the penny dropped. I had looked out some grisaille enamel pictures on the Internet, one of which was this lovely little piece from the Louvre.

This was my first attempt - so I can see flaws (I don't have the detail that was achieved in this piece - but after all it was made by a third generation grisaille enamelist from one of the greatest enamel houses in Europe!) - but I was pretty excited. I could see that I had had a breakthrough on the technique - and that now it was just a question of practice, practice, practice!

I have been wanting to do a post on practice - so here it is! Practice in every sense of the word. Art is my practice - and I have to practice all the time! People know that you have to practice in order to be a good musician - but they think that if you can't pick up a pencil and draw something beautiful right away you 'can't draw'.

No matter how bad you are - if you pick up a pencil and draw every day, at the end of a month you will be better! Of course - this will not make you great - but it will make you competent. I think for me it is a compulsion to make the idea that I have in my head into something concrete that drives me.

I still have a way to go to reach my own personal goals - but I am well on the road now - and can see the end in sight!

Paris: the first days

2008-12-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

I arrived on a Thursday around noon-ish - not too jet-lagged as I had slept through most of the flight - and made my way to the Paris Metro "Simplon"

It looks so space age doesn't it? It is also truly amazing - I literally never had to wait more than a minute for a train, at any time of the day or night (except the one time there was too many people to get on!) and SO much more elegant than the TTC!

Anyway, there David was, waiting to take me to his flat in Montmartre. My friend Maria arrived about 1/2 hour later. Maria was my roommate in University back in (dare I say it?) 1976 and we have only seen each other twice since. That evening David took us wandering to Sacré-Cœur

From the steps we had a magnificent view of the Paris skyline in the evening (which unfortunately didn't turn out as a picture - you can see it in the day here) It was a great way to settle in and orient ourselves! We also wandered around David's neighbourhood and bought treats - something the French take very seriously: cheese!

In the morning we headed downtown to have coffee in the St-Germain-des-Prés area - where Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to hang out. It was very bohemian in their day - in our day it is very pricey and we squeezed into a tiny table at the Deux Magots elbow to elbow with other tourists to consume a small cup of coffee that cost the equivalent of almost $10 and discuss existentialism - it was worth it!

We then headed off to the Musee de Moyen-Age, where there was a special exhibition of Celtic and Viking jewellery

They also house the famous "Lady and the Unicorn" Tapestries. It was a small museum, and a great way to spend the afternoon.

We then wandered about a bit more in the St-Germain-des-Prés area - which has some nice little boutiques. It was there I spotted the shoes! - and determined that I would come back later in the week and indulge myself!

When we got back to the apartment, Hamilton had made a beautiful meal for us, and we went out later to have an after diner port. Actually the waiter was horrified at us having our port after dinner, insisting that it was an aperitif - but in Oporto, where it's made, and which is quite near where Maria lives in Spain, it is definitely an after dinner drink! The French are such snobs!

Anyway - we collapsed after a day well spent - and headed off in the morning (Friday) for Les Halles and the Marais - starting at the church of St Eustache.

This sculpture was in the coutyard.

We then headed over to the Pompidou Centre, and went to the top to see the spectacular view of Paris

You can just see Sacré-Cœur in the back

I was also on a mission. One of the Enamel Forum list members had told me there was some enamels in a church "near the Pompidou Centre" So we had determined that we would check them all out. The major one, St Merri, was closed, but we hunted up two others with no luck (one of which turned out to be a cloister that had been turned into an art gallery - so we weren't sorry!)
We then headed off into the Marais - where we saw some spectacular architecture - like this

The streets were all incredibly narrow - but every once in a while they would give way to a huge open courtyard, that just left you gazing around in wonder

Then we hit the Place des Vosges

The square is surrounded by the covered walkways you see behind me where there are some VERY exclusive art galleries and you can pay EVEN more for you coffee than we did at the Deux-Magot! We didn't bother with coffee - but we did go into a few of the galleries, and just off the Place itslef, we stumbled on this great Music Shop that Maria had mentioned having visited on a previous visit.

We then headed back through the Marais to the Musee Carnevalet where we were happy to be indoors for a while! It was great - it covers the history of Paris from it's earliest time. Amazingly they let you take picture as long as you don't use a flash I tried to find something to interest each of the artists in my collective An Droichead And I did!

Stained glass for Brigitte, stone carving for Laura, Ironmongery for Darrell and a whole Art Nouveau jewelery shop for Brenda!

Before I left for Paris my brother and his wife had suggested a restaurant on Isle St Louis called the Sergent-Recruteur - so we had arranged to take David and Hamilton there in the evening. We had some time to kill - so we went over to the Isle and poked around. This is where the Celtic tribe the Parisii(who gave Paris it's name) lived in the Iron Age. We then went to a late mass in the eglise, and headed over to Sergent-Recruteur for an amazing meal

This is Hamilton (David's Partner) Maria, me and David at dinner. You can see who is the most serious minded!

I am going to leave it there for now - I think I have given you enough to be jealous about ;-)
I'll finish the trip in another blog later this week

Paris

2008-12-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my last day in Paris.

I am having a truly amazing time.

I met up with my University roomate, whom I have only seen twice since we both graduated in 1979 and it was just as if we had seen each other yesterday.

I have been to the Beaubourg, Le Marais and the Place de Voges. I have eaten in a fancy restaurant, tramped around the Louvre and eaten crepes sale (fromage et jambon) on several street corners. I bought shoes! Today I visted the tomb of Abelard and Heloise at the Cemetary Pere Lachaise. I have been to a french jazz club to see a chanteuse and if all goes well I will be singing myself tonight at an Irish music session in the Marais.

I won't be able to digest it all until I get home and have some time - and I will post more then

I will also post more pictures but meanwhile here is me and my wonderful friend who made it all possible by deciding to spend a year in Paris and then inviting me to visit him.

Vive La France!

Cassandra, Dionysus and Helen: Classical Greek Imagery from Red-Figure and Black-figure Pottery

2008-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

I had so much fun making the "Eos kidnaps Tithonus" panel I decided I had better make a series of brooches. The red-figure and black figure imagery has always fascinated me -and I enjoy researching the stories. It has always surprised me that the Celts did not to this kaind of narative imagery.

Here is Cassandra in her various stages. This brooch is 2" wide. At this stage, I had already fired the piece four times (two coats of black on the front, and two coats on the back)

This is the first stencil with a sifted layer of opalescent white fines (fines are the smallest grains of enamel that are usually used for painting.)

Then I scratched through the sifted layer with a toothpick to create the details.

This is what it looked like after firing. It gives me an outline to guide my painting, and minimizing the problems of firing paint over regular enamel by giving me a base of fired fines.

By 'paint' I don't mean regular paint - but enamel paint: enamel that is ground up very fine and suspended in an oil medium (also known as china paint)

Then I painted the clothing and sifted a layer of mixed red/purple fines over it while it was still wet, dried it and again scratched through the layer for detail. I then painted the white skin, dried it and scratched the details also.

There is always some cracking when you fire fines over regularly fired enamel, due to different coefficients of expansion. Here there was only one crack in the white, and fortunately it was in a place that it was going to be hidden anyway. However I will have to learn to live with cracks, and hope that they always appear in artistic places!

I painted her hair in, and did another fire

I

And the ANOTHER fire after I decided (with a little help from my friends) to add the letters of her name. Click here to read her story

Here she is done as black-figure, and as a necklace

I didn't think the black figure worked so well with this design, as the black on black hair and robes are a little hard to discern.

Helen, on the other hand, worked out better (Sorry I don't have a pic of her red-figure alter-ego - it got a little over-fired ;-) See her story here

Dionysus turned out pretty good both ways ;-) You can read about him here

More to come!

Eos Kidnaps Tithonus: Adventures in Classical Greek black-figure and red-figure designs (Painted Enamels)

2008-11-06T03:53:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different!
I have always been enamoured of Classical Greek pottery. I like the stylisation better than the classical realism - to me it is much more evocative. I wanted to play with the process a little before branching out on my own (which is invariably my practice) so I have a few designs to start with. The first is Eos 'Kidnaps Tithonis'.

The original was in red-figure ware, but I decided to try it as if it was black-figure ware first
I started with three coats of the colour on each side. The circle has a 4" circumference. I know it's not really red, but a colour called Chamois.

Then I used a stencil (which I made myself out of 100% rag vellum) and a very thin coating of Opalescent white fines (the finest grains of enamel usually used for painting) This served two purposes - it gave me a ground on which my paint would be less likely to crackle (this usually happens when you fire a fine grind enamel over a regular grind one)

Then I scratched through the sifted enamel (sgrafitto) to add details

I forgot to take a picture of the opalescent fines after firing - but here you can see it in the areas I haven't painted yet.

Then I painted the skin a light cream colour. Both the black and the cream are finely ground enamel suspended in an oil medium.

Because of the opalescent undercoat - the firing looks almost exactly the same before and after firing.(except the first looks matte and the second shiny!)

I added the border and details in a final layer, which I again scratched to add details

Final Fire

Then I did it as red-figure ware - using the same stencil

Opalescent fines fired.

This time I painted it all in one go - but after I had painted the clothing and wings I dusted it (while wet) with a fine layer of transparent red fines. Then I went on and did the cream coloured skin and the border (which I sgrafittoed)

One firing for the paint worked well, and my transparent fines added a nice mottled texture to the robes.

Music: The Irish in Canada

2008-10-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

I am definitely overdue for a musical post.

This week-end my friend Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin (left) is giving a paper at the C eltic Studies Conferenc e at the University of Toronto (Saturday Nov 1) on the Irish in Canada.

Gearóid is orginally from Clare - but now is the Smurfit Stone Endowed Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is one of the new breed of ethnomusicologists who are also excellent musicians. I first heard him play with Patrick Ourceau at the Milwaukee Irish Fest way back in 1997 (or 8?) and was just delighted when he later came by my booth and purchase a wolf necklace for his wife. A week later he was in my stomping grounds of Goderich at the Celtic College and we have been good friends ever since - meeting up at many different venues, including the New Orleans Heritage Fesitval (on Halloween of 1999) and the ubiquitous Catskills Irish Arts Week.

For the last year he has been on sabatical teaching in Montreal, and has been blown away by the Irish heritage in Canada. On Monday he will be participating in aIrish Studies Symposium in Ottawa. It was inspired by a joint project between the Canadian and the Irish Archives called (rather cheesily I thought) the Maple Leaf and the Shamrock. I will be at both events with bells on! (Gearóid is also the author of A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music, and a world champion concertina player.)

Unfortunately I will miss the music session after the Toronto conference, as I will be going on to the Hallowe'en Masque closing party for "Grave Goods" at the Woodstock Museum ... but I will be there for the Ottawa session - which should be truly excellent!

At least it's keeping my mind off my trip to Paris (planned for Nov. 26!!!)

Cloisonne Practice Project #4: Frog

2008-10-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

I have to confess that by the time I got to the frog I was getting pretty lazy with taking pictures - as you will see there are many stages left out in this series of process shots. It was still good practice in cloisonne for me, though what I have in mind for the future is quite different.

I already had two layers wet-packed before I even started taking pictures of this little guy. I also decided to make him entirely in lead free enamels (I usually use leaded Soyer enamels from France) because of the orange - which is a shade I don't have in the leaded colours. Unfortunately I had less choices in the greens and blues - so he came out a little lacklustre ...

3rd coat fired past sugar to orange-peel

Fourth coat wet packed

Fifth coat wet-packed

Fifth coat fired

Sixth coat fired

Seventh coat wet-packed

Eighth coat wet-packed

Final fire (there were 15 firings in all, including the counter-enamel, the flux and the initial fire of the wires)

Cloisonne Practice Project #3: Blue-eye

2008-10-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the third installment in my cloisonne practice project series. Though I couldn't reproduce the particular blue of the blue-eye flower in the photo (I have a more limited palette than Mother Nature!) I was still very happy with the way this one turned out.

I sat down last week and took two days to cut out all five of the shapes, counter-enamel and flux them, bend the wires and fire them into place for all five pieces. After that it took me about a day to do the layers and firings on each one.

Cloisonne wires sunk very sligtly in a coat of clear flux (the back is already enamelled

First coat wet-packed

First coat sugar fired

Second coat wet-packed

Second coat sugar fired

Third coat sugar fired (I forgot to take the wet-pack photo)

Fourth coat wet-packed (forgot to take the picture of the fouth coat sugar fired)

Fifth coat wet-packed

Fifth coat sugar fired

6th coat wet-packed

6th coat sugar fired

After sanding

Final fire

Cloisonne Practice Project #2: Lillies

2008-10-25T06:21:00.001-07:00

I was happier with the way this second cloisonne practice project turned out - but it was partially because of the design. I liked the graceful shape of the lilies, and their variety while the butterfly was too symmetrical; too much like a specimen.

Wires slightly sunk into a coat of clear flux (piece is already enamelled on the back)

First coat wet-packed

First coat sugar fired

Second coat wet-packed

Second coatsugar fired

Third coat wet-packed

Third coat sugar fired

Fourth coat wet-packed

Fourth coat sugar fired

Fifth coat wet packed

Fifth coat sugar fired

Sixth coat wet packed

The piece was sugar fired, sanded and then final fired.

Cloisonne Practice Project #1 Butterfly

2008-10-21T15:34:00.001-07:00

Well, the summer is over and I am SO looking forward to spending time in the studio, processing all my amazing experiences of the summer! I am particularly excited about getting started on my Armless Maiden panels. As an exercise to prepare myself, I decided to make a series of small pieces, that will probably end up being necklaces or brooches, just to get myself in practice. Cloisonne is not a technique that I am particularly familiar with, so I decided to take some images from nature, and see how closely I could re-produce them. It has been a really interesting experience! I am a strong believer in sometimes concentrating entirely on technique - and that's what I have done with these pieces. There are 5 pieces in the series. I will post the process pictures of them all - below is the first one - a butterfly, including the photo I was working from.

The wires, sunk only slightly into a layer of clear flux (the piece is already enamelled on the back)

First coat of colour (the colours, which are ground up glass) are laid in wet with a tiny spoon or a brush)

First coat fired - the goal is what is called a 'sugar fire' which means that the enamel grains are barely fused.

Second coat of enamel

Second coat sugar fired

re-fired to get a smoother surface for adding foils

Cutting the foils (which are very thin fine silver) was really time consuming. The foil is sandwiched between two pieces of paper for easier working - but when I cut the small strips, the metal torqued, and each piece has to be separately flattened before it could be added to the piece - this took over an hour! (3rd coat)

Fourth coat

Fourth coat sugar fired

Fifth coat

Fifth coat sugar fired

Sixth coat

Sixth coat sugar fired

Seventh coat (sorry - I forgot to take the picture of this firing!)

The whole surface was then sanded, and then this final coat added

Final firing.

"Grave Goods" an Art Exhibition focusing on Funerary Items

2008-10-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

For several years now I have been part of a loose association of artists who call ourselves An Droichead (Irish for the Bridge). We chose this name because we wanted to mitigate some of the tendencies of contemporary art to alienated people – we wanted to act as a bridge. We also noticed that artists mostly work in isolation – and that getting together just to ‘play’ was productive for all of us. As I say – we are a pretty loose organisation, and while I nominally hold the position of President and Dictator for Life – it is a purely honorary title and we actually work very much by consensus or the seat of our pants – which ever comes first ;-)

Entitled "Grave Goods", the latest endeavour was spear-headed by Darrell Markewitz (our blacksmith), who has developed a relationship with the Woodstock Museum, here in Ontario. This is the third exhibition he has curated there, and the second one with An Droichead.

You can take a virtual tour of the exhibition here – the theme has provoked some very interesting pieces!

Here's my two pieces in their case (photo by Laura Travis, used with permission)

As I look back I feel that we have really accomplished quite a lot. We have organised several exhibitions – but we have also spent a few weeks just doing ‘art stuff’ together: teaching each other aspects of our work, going to museums together, advising festivals and other artists and generally provoking mayhem. You can see our history of events here.

I just got back from a conference in Rhode Island called “New Media and the Global Diaspora” organised by my good friend Roxanne O’Connell. I met Roxanne at the Catskills Irish Arts week. She handles the CD sales for all the teacher/performers while I sell my own work after a long day of teaching enamelling and we have had neighbouring booths for several years now. Each evening after the concert we are left alone taking down our booths and have taken to singing together – having many similar musical interests – not the least of which are French songs. Roxanne, though she married into an Irish family is of French Canadian stock – so we have christened ourselves “Les Vendeuse” (the shop girls)

But I digress! Roxanne teaches in the Visual Communications Department at Roger Williams University in Bristol RI and came up with this great conference idea last year – which brings together practitioners and academics in the field of cultural studies for a very fruitful discourse. The papers were fascinating – including several disciplines such as visual art, film, music, storytelling and poetry and several cultures such as Irish, Hawaiian, Palestinian, Thai, East Indian and Chinese – and the discussion between lively and stimulating. This year I gave a paper on the artistic process, which you can read here if you are interested.

Now that my summer adventures are over, I can settle in to a more staid winter in my studio where I can process all my wonderful experiences into something tangible. The first project on my plate is developing the Armless Maiden panels. Since I have planned to use the cloisonne technique, and it is fairly new to me, I will be making a series of small cloisonne brooches for practice. Wish me luck!

WisCon

2008-09-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

I wanted to talk about how important discovering WisCon has been to me. For those of you who don't know, WisCon is a Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention that happens in Madison Wisconsin every May. But I found that I couldn't talk about it without going on a journey (isn't that often the way?) It has been a twisted journey - and it is fitting that it all started back in 2004 at the first Mythic Journey's Conference in Atlanta.

In some ways I am reluctant to talk about my experiences at Mythic Journeys - because I know that for most attendees it was an unalloyed weekend of bliss - the programming was spectacular and the array of guests breathtaking - but in fact my experience was mixed.

I was excited about going - I had been a mythic artist for 25 years, working almost entirely in solitude - and at last I was going to get a chance, not only to get some recognition for the work I had been doing, but also to meet other mythic artists and share experiences and inspiration.

I am sorry to say that the first thing I noticed was a sort of flavour of elitism – of an ‘inner ring’ that I and the other artists were most definitely on the outside of. It wasn’t a deliberate exclusion – just a sort of self-absorption that was not sensitive to or inclusive of the many newcomers. My interest in mythic arts was not superficial or passing: I felt that I had something to contribute – but that I was not allowed in.

Sadly - because of the way the "Mythic Marketplace" was set up (and don't even get me started on the demeaning associations of the word 'marketplace') I couldn't participate in any of the great events that happened without leaving my booth unattended (which I occasionally did anyway) The schedule was so heavy with programming that attendees rarely had a chance to spend time in the 'marketplace' so mostly I and the other handful of artists only had each other for company. We enjoyed each other’s company - but were a bit irate that we were lumped in with importers, (especially as we had been promised that we wouldn’t) but mostly that we were not in any way considered participants in the conference. We were considered 'vendors' rather than mythmakers in our own right.

Happily I made many amazing connections. It was there that I first encountered fellow Canadian Charles DeLint, was introduced to the amazing Endicott Studio in the persons of Terri Windling and Midori Snyder, had great conversations with Jessica Wick (left - photo by Eric used with permission) of Goblin Fruit, and made lasting friends with fellow artist Chandra Cerchione-Peltier - among others.

Also - I found out about WisCon.

Well, no-one actually mentioned it, but I had been so delighted with the people I met that I asked myself - "Where else do these people go?" And when I googled them all - WisCon was a common denominator.

I had somewhat lost touch with my feminism over the years. Because I lived in an artists’ world - and most of my friends were artists, with the usual accompanying open-mindedness - I thought that most of the battles had been fought and won.

I had stopped reading Fantasy and Science Fiction when I began my own mythic studies - because I wanted to go to the source and develop my own vision rather than seeing the myths through someone else’s creative lens.

So I felt like a bit of an impostor. I wasn’t a feminist and I didn’t read Fantasy or Science Fiction…

But I’m so glad I went. I found out that in fact I was a feminist (always had been) and that whether I had read their books or not I really had quite a lot in common with the writers, artists and thinkers that I found there - who were not all women.

I wasn’t in a ‘marketplace’ I was in an “Art Show”. Someone was in charge of this area – someone totally practical who not only made all of my sales for me, (including collecting and remitting state tax so that I didn’t have to go through the hassle of getting a temporary license) but made this a simple a trouble free transaction. For this service I was charged the ridiculously low price of 4% of sales (no, that it not a typo that’s four percent, not forty!) I was at complete liberty to visit the and participate in the panel discussions
One of Devony's fabulous hats Photo by Eric used with permission

And what panel discussions there were! They were a smorgasbord of luscious topics that made my mouth water and had me agonising over whichto choose.

There was an academic track with interesting topics like “An Introduction to Fantastic South Asian Literature”, “Fantasy Fiction: Great Goddesses, Whole Women”, “The Political Potential of Feminist Science Fiction”

But even the regular panels were set up to stimulate real thought. Who could resist topics like these: “Feminist Fairy Tales”, “The Changing Language of Communication”, “Never the Hero: Girls in Genre Literature”, “Raising Kids as if Not All of them Will Be Heterosexual”, “Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition”.

I couldn’t help noticing that none of the panel discussions were about art. I and Devony Smith (left - photo by Lisa Stock used with permission), another artist asked Miss Jane Washburn (Artist and Art Show Coordinator extraordinaire!) about that and she explained that all we had to do was suggest it, and if there was enough interest it would be quite likely to be accepted. So we did and it was! I was a participant from the moment I arrived. I realised later that this was because of the feminist nature of the undertaking: with a non-hierarchical, grassroots, inclusive and a sensitive, listening approach to the organisation of the event.

Response to my work was positive and supportive – response to my ideas was respectful and spontaneous. New and interesting ideas and people were all around me. I was in heaven!

Being now the venerable veteran of no less than three WisCons I am constantly surprised by the response I get from others when I tell them I am going to a Feminist Science Fiction convention. Women are sardonic and ask if everyone is wearing Spock ears. Men scoff or just look frightened. I was seeing first hand that the battles had not been fought and won – they had been fought and lost.
Artist Connie Toebe, filmmaker Lisa Stock and myself - photo from Lisa Stock - used with permission)
I no longer feel like an impostor there – indeed no-one can feel that way in such an accepting and thoughtful community. I still don’t read much Fantasy or Science fiction – but I have lots in common with those who do since I am engaged in the same work – I just turn my research into works of visual art instead of into works of fiction…

In fact it is one of the few places I feel really at home.

Special thanks to Eric and Nigel for kind permission to use their photos.

Summer

2008-08-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

I love my summers - I like to travel, and I like doing the circuit of shows - some of which are new, where I meet new and interesting contacts - and some of which are old and venerable where I re-connect with old friends.

On the musical front - the summers are the best. As a singer of very traditional tastes I am pretty much on my own in Toronto –singing away alone in my room! But in the summer I get to go to Catskills Irish Arts Week - and hang out with lots of other aficionados. Many of the singers are not people you would ever have heard of – they just have a deep love for traditional songs and singers. Others are brilliant and well known performers. The song sessions were exceptionally good this year - hosted with care and aplomb by Robbie O'Connell (left) who has an en-erring sense of the heart needed for traditional singing. Too often these sessions settle into a circle - where the call goes relentlessly from one singer to the person sitting next to them without any sense of spontaneity. What is needed is lots of people with large repertoires - so that one song can remind another singer of a good follow-up and the flow can become magical. This is a rare gathering indeed! This year we had the great Con Fada O Drisceoil humorous songwriter extraordinaire (author of such classics as "The Spoons Murders") who definitely added to the ‘craic’ – an untranslatable Irish word that implies laughter, tears, magic and conviviality all rolled into one.

But there is more than song sessions to the Catskills! There is a small art faculty – but the largest proportion of teachers deal with the great instrumental traditions of Ireland: fiddle, pipes, concertina, flute, guitar, bodhran. There are 600 students and over 50 faculty so the music sessions everywhere are mighty! East Durham, NY

Rosin White, Tim Dennehy, myself, Kathy Ludlow, Shannon Heaton, Daithi Sproule, Matt Heaton
Photo by Linda Mason Hood, used with permission.

– the hamlet where this madness takes place is very small – but host to 7 organised sessions, and countless more spontaneous ones every evening. I teach enamelling during the day and then head over to the field to man my booth for the evening concert where the teachers can show off their expertise to their adoring students. Roxanne O’Connell mans the booth that sells the teachers CD’s and she and I work out harmony parts for each others favourite songs as we set up and take down. Then we head off to the song or other sessions that often go on all night. Check out Tim Raab's Photo essay with sound clips if you want to get a good flavour of the week. Just click on the pictures along the bottom and listen to the sound clips that go along with them.

Old Songs is another favorite show.

Photo by Bill Spence click picture to see more

The artistic director Andie Spence always finds new and unusual voices to showcase. I have been doing the show for almost 20 yeas - and my customers have become my good friends. Sometimes it’s just the personal connections I make with people when I am at my booth. It has always been my goal to imbue my pieces with meaning – but each time someone comes along and makes an emotional connection with some idea or feeling that I have been trying to embody in a piece of enamelling, it moves me. It’s why I love doing shows – to have that real and personal connection.

I am on my way next week to Goderich, ON – home of the Celtic College and the Celtic Roots Festival. This week is not so intense for me as Catskills – for one thing I am only teaching half days.

enjoying a 10W-30 in "Ontario's Prettiest Town"
The biggest appeal is the chance to get together again with all my cronies in AnDroichead/The Bridge. We met at Goderich many years ago when the Festival first began and it has been a fruitful, enjoyable and inspiring alliance. Goderich is the only festival that I know that considers the visual artists as important a part of the festival as the music. Rather than opting for the hawkers of mass- produced claddagh rings and celtic crosses, it has fostered a sense of creative community and collaboration that is unprecedented.

So I will leave you there for now – on the itinerary for September is the Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival, and then I will get back to my movies!

Current Projects: The Armless Maiden

2008-08-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

These panels are a huge departure for me - the imagery, the medium and even the design process - which has been a difficult birth. They were fomenting in my mind all last year, after hearing Midori Snyder and Terri Windling's panel discussion on Baba Yaga and the Armless Maiden at WisCon. They finally came out this winter (which was a difficult and emotionally painful one)

I was definitely influenced by a series of abstract panel illustrations of the "Way of the Cross" by Jean Tudor in Vol. 19, No. 4, October 2000 of "Glass On Metal"

So here are my preliminary sketches. There are a couple of projected ones that I don't have a sketch for yet: the final one especially will be a challenge. I plan to do them as 3" x 3" cloisonné panels which will then be mounted somehow. I have not decided what to do with the text (which I have reduced to a bare minimum) I tried several way of incorporating it in the drawing, but was not happy with the results. I am now thinking of incorporating it in the frame - but I might leave it out altogether ...

IN HIS ANGER HE CUTS OFF BOTH HER ARMS:

The enamel panel is just the first two layers - I plan to add about ten more incorporating a leafy texture in shades of green. Enamel is ground up glass that is applied wet with a small spoon, or dry with a sifter depending on the effect that you want to create. I am using both silver and gold wire of differing thickness.

THE DEW HEALS HER WOUNDS AND THE FOREST ANIMALS FEED HER:

This one only has one layer and will be shades of brown/green. This colour is deceiving as it looks dark when fired at low temperatures. Cloisonne layers must always be fired very low until all the layers are built up. This gives you more control over the colour reflections and keeps the enamel from climbing the wires and loosing the shading. In the final high firing this colour will be a light golden amber that will shine through the subsequent layers that I build up (hopefully!)

SHE COMES UPON THE KING'S GARDEN:

THE PRINCE PITIES HER WOUNDS AND LOVES HER BEAUTY. HE MARRIES HER:

In the above panel I plan to use lace to create the background patterns. I can use the lace as a sort of stencil and sift the enamel over it.

Here will be a panel (which I haven't quite got a satisfactory drawing for yet) called 'HE GOES AWAY TO WAR LEAVING HER WITH CHILD'

THEY BIND HER BABY TO HER BACK AND DRIVE HER FROM HER HOME:

AS SHE DIVES INTO THE WATER TO SAVE HER CHILD HER ARMS ARE MAGICALLY REGENERATED

SHE LIVES ALONE IN THE FOREST NURTURING HER CHILD

I wanted this panel to reflect the second panel but to have a glowing heart, so the forest will be dark, but the window of her home will shine brightly

I am still working on the final panel when the prince comes courting again called "THE PRINCE FINDS HER AND LOVES HER NOW AS AN EQUAL"

The Endicott Studio's Journal of Mythic Arts has an insightful article on "The Armless Maiden and the Hero's Journey" by Midori Snider

Terri Windling has also edited a book called "The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors"

Traditional Song

2008-08-21T06:58:00.001-07:00

I have been singing traditional song now for over 30 years and I am always surprised when people say (as they sometimes do) "Are you STILL singing traditional stuff?" as if singing traditional music is something you do when you're a kid - but later you grow up to be a singer songwriter ...

Yes I am STILL singing traditional music. My biggest breakthrough is adding a few songs of a more cheerful nature ;-)

To me the songs are timeless - they address human interaction and conditions that don't change and are not so self indulgent as many (not all!) lyrics in the contemporary singer songwriter genre. I have never felt a burning urge to write songs - and I think that is what you need to have in order to be a good artist - there must be something deep within you that compels you to do it. (photo at left is collector Helen Creighton in 1940)

Instead I am captured by listening to old people sing. I recently visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization to listen to the archives again - mostly from Helen Creighton's collection. This is the second time I have been - and both times it was a pretty intense experience. The staff are marvellously helpful and had stacks of reel-to-reel tapes waiting for me each day I came in. This time I listened to an astonishing 478 songs in one week!

I was terribly disappointed to discover that they no longer allow listeners to make copies of the recordings. This is a new policy - because the last time I was there (6 years ago) they set up the recording equipment for me! Seeing as these singers have been dead for years, and the material is traditional anyway, it seems an unnecessary precaution against "unauthorized use" which is the reason that was cited to me for the current ban. When I asked what "unauthorized use" was - they told me that they were being used in schools! Quelle horreur! Our national heritage being played to innocent students!(photo at right is Angelo Dornan 1942)

So I had to be innovative in getting the melodies down so I could learn these songs at home. I am not blessed with the ability to transcribe music on the spot - and anyway what I really wanted was to be able to hear the phrasing and delivery of these old singers. One - Burton Young - was still singing sweetly at the age of 93. Another, Angelo Dornan, had 125 songs in his repertoire - all of which he remembered after not having sung them for almost 50 years. So when there was a song I particularly liked - I sang along with it and recorded my own voice. My friend, Ottawa fiddler James Stevens joked, "So you are making field recordings of yourself!"

The good news is that I will certainly be able to learn the songs this way - but the bad news is that these great singers are still being held hostage in the vaults of the museum.

I have added a songthat I recorded on my first visit to the archives to my MySpace page (where this blog was first posted)- it is "Banks of the Nile" by Walter Roast - who is the gentleman from whom Helen Creighton first collected "Farewell to Nova Scotia" He was the blacksmith of his village and is a fine singer with many great ballads in his repertoire. (that is him on the left)

… probably an "unauthorized use" … ;-)

"Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour." T. S. Eliot

I love my studio

2008-08-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

This is the first time in my life that I feel like I have a real studio. I have been enamelling for 24 years - but I have always been in a basement or a back porch - usually with no heat in the winter! For someone who lives in such a cold climate this is scary - even when you spend most of your day in front of a 1500 degree kiln ;-)

I moved here in May 2008 after a year and a half in a friend's basement. I was grateful for the space and the privacy, but it had become increasingly difficult to go down into what was becoming more and more (in my mind) like a dungeon...

But I have now officially been a tenant of "Honest Ed" for 4 months. For those of you who have never been to Toronto – the name "Honest Ed" may not be familiar – but to Torontonians his giant bargain store on the corner of Bathurst and Bloor is a landmark. When people come to visit me in Toronto – I always take them there as part of the "alternative Toronto tour". Not only is it just about the cheesiest store in existence (with slogans like "Welcome, don't faint at our low prices, there's no place to lie down") it is huge and filled with bizarre and kitschy wonders like 3D pictures of the Last Supper.

Ed Mirvish opened the store in 1948 – he claims it was the first bargain store in the world. It's hard to describe Honest Eds to someone who's never been there. The store is crammed with everything you can imagine from hardware to housewares to food, clothing and even a pharmacy and immigration services. The walls are packed with pictures of the stars (from Dean Martin and Elvis to Celine Dion) signed with a special note to Ed. Since he closed his famous restaurants he has moved the antiques that used to fill them to his store as well – so occaisionally you run across a giant Buddha or beautifully carved Thai thrones. When he was alive (he just passed away at the age of 93 in 2007) he used to have special promotions on Saturdays where he would sell fresh whole chickens for 25 cents, or watches for 10 cents. Ever Christmas he gave awa hndreds of turkeys.

He was famous for crazy publicity stunts – like hiring people to picket his restaurants protesting the dress code (Ed used to require that men wear a jacket and tie – AND he provided them.)

But the important thing for me about Ed was that he was a man of the community. Though everything he touched seemed to turn to gold – he also gave back to the community.

From his obituary by Richard Ouzounian: "It seemed as though everyone in the city claimed Ed Mirvish as a friend. He was known for his warm smile, his quick wit and his open-hearted generosity to individuals and charitable causes. His smile was a tonic, his laughter a vacation, his handshake a benediction." Read the full obit here

After all this you will be surprised to learn that he saved several old Theatres – not just in Toronto – but also the Old Vic in London, England. Under his management, The Old Vic won more awards for its productions than any other single theatre in Britain. His investment in Toronto theatres changed the shape of Toronto, and made theatre respectable again.

My studio is in "Mirvish Village" an area next to Honest Ed's (the store) above an architect's bookstore and across from a great Cajun food restaurant. The street is lined with bookstores, art galleries, music venues, and is a legacy to Ed's patronage of the arts. This legacy is still in real support, too – since the rental of this prime studio space in downtown Toronto is $252 a month!

I am enjoying having a window that lets in actual sunlight, and working in a vibrant and supportive neihbourhood.

Thanks Ed!

If you'd like to know more about Ed – check out this thoughtful article by Robert Fulford

To see the whole interior click here