273/365 gate operator

I found this while walking the dogs in a nearby bougie neighborhood, GTO stands for "Gates That Open". I'm tempted to try and find the house gate that it belongs to.

272/365 paint

There are some renovations happening at my place, this is the inside of a wall.

271/365 leaf redux

A Flickr friend made the comment that I should add papier mache to yesterday's ring, so I did.

270/365 leaf

We have been having temps in the 90s all month and today was the first day that it cooled down and felt like autumn, my favorite season. The shadows are getting longer.

copper

269/365 birdhouse

wooden birdhouse, acrylic paint, vinyl letters, copper

268/365 grouted

I still have mosaic on the brain and wanted to make a grouted ring with copper and red lace agate. I used a new interior grout product and it's really sticky and gross, looks like toothpaste. I might try again with sanded grout.

Fun! After seeing my mess of a ring, Rachelle Stromberg made her ring tonight with sterling silver, onyx, and real toothpaste:

toothpaste ring by Rachelle

267/365 potato

266/365 more stepping stones

Today I made another stepping stone (see the rings?), and grouted the one I made yesterday. I have learned a lot about the mosaic process making these.

Shown with yesterday's "ring", together they make one large paver.

265/365 stepping stone

Still experimenting with mosaic for my artist residency, see the rings?

Grouted. White/offwhite tile + white grout = bad.

264/365 peace

Happy International Day of Peace! Evelyn Markasky suggested that we make rings in honor of the day, this one is sawn from copper sheet.

Maria Apostolou made this lovely silver olive branch ring set with peridot. Maria shared some info from Wikipedia, "In Greek mythology, Zeus was to bestow the newly created city of Athens to the god who provided the most useful gift to humanity. Poseidon cast down a bolt which brought forth from the ground a spring. Athena created the olive tree, and subsequently won. Olive wreaths were worn by brides and awarded to olympic victors. The symbolism of the olive branch was carried on to Ancient Rome, where a defeated army would carry olive branches as a gesture of peace."

And Evelyn's ring, she wrote, "...here is my peace ring, copper stamped with peace in several different languages: la paix, iri'ni, pingan, pokoj, wolakota, shalom, pax, sith, peace, taika. It was very meditative and satisfying doing the stamping. Then I enameled a domed copper disk with several layers of enamel to represent the world and then added a peace symbol with black enamel. Happy Peace Day!"


Lesley Tinnaro says of her Peace Pinwheel, "My kids came home today with 'Peace Pinwheels'. It's a project that their art teacher undertakes ever year on this day. The kids (all 500 or so) make pinwheels with peace signs on them and plant them around the school to help blow the winds of peace around the world."

Kest Schwartzman's ring is entitled A Tooth for a Tooth. Kest wrote, "Maybe today's ring is about peace. Maybe it's not. I don't know. I kept thinking about a Utah Phillips recording of how he became a pacifist- how he kept getting into fights until his mentor type fellow pulled him aside, and told him he was bad at fighting, and he needed to stop, and that the only way to stop was to treat it like an addiction- that he couldn't just stop getting into brawls, he had to outright become a pacifist and never do anything- no matter how small or justifiable- never do anything violent again."


And finally Natalia Gomensoro's street art ring, I love it!

263/365 telephone pole

Another shadow ring, I think these are more successful when the band is hidden by the shadow like the others. I'm very drawn to this telephone pole form and have plans to incorporate it into other pieces.

sterling silver

262/365 fire hydrant

Another shadow ring, the first time I've made the object in 3d.

sterling silver

261/365

This was the best I could muster after a very long day at a craft fair. Blogger compressed my already compressed video and you can't see my skin blowing around very well. Tomorrow's another ring.

260/365 tornado

aluminum

It has been a whirlwind around here with home construction projects and a big show coming up while I simultaneously prepare for an artist residency. The house is a wreck.

259/365 tile mosaic

the courtyard

I have an artist residency at an elementary school coming up, the project will be outdoor tile mosaic. I've never tiled a wall or done mosaic outside, so it's a bit of a learning curve for me. Sadly the principal of the school passed away over the summer, there is a small courtyard garden where we will be installing tile and the space will be dedicated to her.

There will be a small mosaic on the wall at the front door of the school as well. All this will be completed in three weeks, and the art teacher wants to enter the finished installation in the Memphis Beautiful contest - so, no pressure!

Diamond RAD, 259/365, stained glass, concrete paver.

I'm working on tiling pavers with stained glass. I'm using the indirect method: laying out the tiles first and then sticking a piece of contact paper to the top to transfer onto the paver after I trowel the grout on. That worked well for some poured cement pavers I made last week. I'll use the indirect method with the kids as well, although most likely they will glue the tiles face down onto a piece of paper, which I will use to transfer the tile to the wall.

the courtyard

The front door, a mosaic will be installed on the terra cotta colored cement to the right of the door. For both spaces we will probably work on cement backer board and later screw it to the wall.

the neighborhood needs art!

258/365 prometheus II

Another Prometheus ring, sterling silver and Arkansas river stone. I need to work out the kinks in this setting, but I like it.