A Week of Excitement

Quite unlike our normal household routine, last week was exciting and eventful. My sister from Maine came to visit along with her son. Thank goodness we had an 8th grader in the house to help me out with some technology issues we were having! Unfortunate timing on our visitor's behalf to be here for a fast and tremendously furious storm that hit on Thursday afternoon leaving us without power for 24 hours during a heat wave.

(photo from abclocal.go.com)

We were lucky and had no damage to our property, but have friends who live down the road from the downed tree shown above. Thankfully, the mom and daughters who were in that car escaped without serious injuries. We only had to contend with sweltering heat in the house, but we made up for that by telling stories by candlelight.
I also spent time getting ready for my Saturday workshop at Wallingford Community Art Center.

This being my first workshop, I did not appreciate how much 'stuff' I would need to bring to ensure that students would be able to leave with finished projects.

The focus of the class was riveting and after doing an initial exercise to get comfortable with installing a rivet, I had the students select materials so they could design and construct their own pieces.

I was envisioning that the class would use the open frames and pieces of metal that I had precut to make pendants similar to some projects that I had previously done like this 'CENTO' pin. But..being creative types with their own vision, different paths were taken which was fun and exciting to watch.

This was one of the necklaces made. I like the combination of different metals and textures. This was linked to a long chain and had a nice, dramatic effect.

This necklace included two discs cut from an old platter that were then riveted to a hand forged copper ring. The sterling 'A' charm was taken from a bracelet that the student had purchased at an auction. Wire wrapped lapis beads connect the pendant to a plated chain.
We worked the full four hours slotted for the workshop. I'm already planning other topics to cover in workshops that I want to schedule for the fall and winter sessions.