what I've been doing part II

Things have been busy. I'm still behind with my RAW rings and clearly I have given up on my original intent to feature rings by other artists each and every day (I'm sorry).

I thought I'd share some of the other projects I've been working on. I recently finished teaching two eight week photography courses at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art to adolescents from Girls Inc, we focused on portraiture and the girls will have an exhibition of their work at the museum in September.

The girls also did some fun things with stop motion.

Last I month volunteered to teach a couple of juggling workshops to kids at a local community center. I made the balls very cheaply this way and gave a set to each child who successfully learned to juggle three balls within the hour. All but 5 kids out of 30 or so were able to do it, and the youngest to learn is eight. So much for what many think about children's attention spans, most adults I know won't stick with it that long.

I made a video on how to juggle three and four balls for some of my friends, it's also on YouTube (and displays correctly) here:

In June I finally finished the mosaic tile project created with the students in the courtyard of Treadwell Middle school.

I have been making liqueurs - pictured are blackberry, ginger, apricot, and orange pecan. I also made some great chocolate rum, peach, and plum but my favorite turned out to be Jalpeno/espresso tequila sweetened with agave. Really. Yum.


I have also been learning to cut finished stones from crystals and hunks of rock, below are clay canyon variscite, aquamarine, pink tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, carnelian, yellow apatite, and pink quartz.


They used to look something like this:

and I cut them on this:

And I put together a 20 page book of some of my Ring a Day pieces using Snapfish, a number of us who participated in that project are creating books and trading with each other.



Back in June I made this entry for Wendy Rosen's video contest to support handmade in the National Parks. I may have been the only entrant and I'm not sure if a winner has been announced. It's 5.5 minutes long. (Bad audio - turn it up!)

(Now don't forget to lower the volume or you might end up blasted out of your chair.)

Lastly, the press release for my upcoming ring exhibition at the National Ornamental Metal Museum came out today! The show will be open from September 1 - December 1. YAY!