Back to School

I'm really excited to announce that I'm all signed up for a basic metal working class at the local community college! Working with metal will be, I think, very rewarding in a way that sometimes beads-on-wire isn't: a deeper sense of artistry, a more intimate connection with the creative process, dealing with the rawest of materials. It also opens up for the possibility of more men's jewelry, as beaded stuff doesn't seem to be too popular with the menfolk. ;)

I'm so excited, in fact, that I drew some pendant/pin designs so I can get to work on stuff RIGHT AWAY! I'm sharing a sneak preview here. BONUS: some of my real life handwriting.



What say you, men? Would you put this thing around your neck?

(NB: The graph paper I used has quarter-inch squares, to give an idea of size and scale.)







The first idea I had was highly-abstract (though also still totally concrete) representation of pi. Using squares of different dimensions to represent numbers (a 1x1 square = 1, a 2x2 square = 2, etc), I could layer them to make a pendant that looked geometric and abstract on the face of it, but still contained a literal mathematical core. The idea went through a number of iterations:











I would be working with brass, copper, and nickel, hence the color choices in the colored pencils. In addition to doing with e what I just did with pi (see the image before the jump?), I also sketched out some ideas for Fibonacci pendants. My favorite iteration is this one:



Classes start September 15th and run for about a month. By October I plan to have one of these guys at least partially done. Stay tuned!