255/365 domino

More production work - domino rings shown with concrete post earrings.

254/365 sterling void

Production work. I'm furiously making stuff for a festival next weekend. Not a new design, but it is a three-fer.

240/365 ebony

sterling silver, ebony, brass, copper, saltwater pearl

The making of this ring was a comedy of errors. I fabricated the bezel first and cut the wood to fit, which was a mistake. The first piece was too small so I made the second piece a little too large and sanded it back which took forever, and the fit is not so great.


Next I inlaid (riveted, really) the wire into the wood, the wood split in one place but I was able to fix it with glue. I sanded it to a nice finish, then proceeded to solder the bezel on wrong - so the ebony piece only fit in upside-down. I suppose I could have made a new bezel, but I chose to finish the backside of the ebony, which had been rough sawn but not planed smooth, so that took forever.


I made a band from two round wires and soldered a strut between them. As I was soldering the band onto the ring, the strut desoldered and the band fell apart. I remade the band and tried again, this time with white out painted on the strut. It also fell apart, and one wire from the band ended up soldered to the back of the ring. So I stretched that wire out some and soldered the other end down, voila.


I applied tung oil finish to the ebony and let it dry about an hour, not really long enough for either the wood glue or the finish to dry, but the ring must be completed in one day, we'll see what happens. After epoxying the wood in I set the pearl on it's post. And you know what? I hate that pearl. Hate. It ruins the design. Bleh. I have to walk away for a while.

featured artist: rachelle stromberg

Rachelle Stromberg of Mike and Mary Jewelry makes gorgeous modern jewels. She often incorporates circles and spheres in her work and many of her pieces feature pearls.

I am in love with Rachelle's Ring a Day Plastidermy Series, they are hysterical and so much fun. I will add more as she makes them, I couldn't wait until the end of the year to share them with everyone.

230/365 together or apart?

Islamic Community Center, copper

Ground Zero, copper and sterling silver

Together?

Apart?

227&228/365 really crappy rings

My DSL was out for the past two days. I tried to post from my cell phone, but it didn't work. These rings are terrible but they're finished. Onto 229!

226/365 not a tarball

This ring began as something quite different. The lovely Kathryn Cole sent me some tarballs that she collected from the Florida coast. One was a perfect crescent shape, and I planned to set it beside the urchin - unfortunately it crumbled as I placed it into the setting. So I cut a piece of wood and added some copper inlay and a tung oil finish.

Not quite the statement piece I had envisioned, but I like it and I imagine that my Ring a Day friends are grateful for the respite from political outrage! The urchin was a gift from the wonderful Laurie Brown.

221/365 shadow

sterling silver

216/365 deepwater horizon

Made from a Google Earth image of the most contiguous portion of the BP oil spill as seen from the air on July 13, 2010. The drill hole represents the location of Deepwater Horizon. Sterling silver.

202/365 gesture

A sort of gesture drawing. It reminds me of Ronald Hayes Pearson - minus the jaw-droppingly beautiful, time-consuming forging and stunningly perfect finish, of course. Sterling silver.

200/365 crack ring

Woot - ring number 200! Another split band design made of sterling, my friend Iris is calling it the Divorce Ring.

196/365 Aden's ring

I'm visiting with friends and made their 8 year old daughter Aden this ring from copper, sterling, and citrine.

195/365 ez form

Yesterday I purchased some rectangular brass tubing from the hardware store. Then I drove across the street for gas and found this note of someone's federal tax info, the back has standard deduction and withholding calculations, it looks like this person made $14, 291.00 after taxes (rounding to whole dollars, of course). I guess we'll never know if they chose to donate $3 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.

194/365 cake or death!

Inspired by comedian Eddie Izzard.
Sterling silver, stainless steel, magnetic figure.

Here's a a six+ minute video of Eddie doing his "Cake or Death" bit, it does contain foul language.

191/365 split saddle

Chunka hunka 16 gauge sterling! I haven't had time to finish this properly, of course it's covered in firescale, the bane of my existence.

186-190/365 dominoes

I really like this design and worked on perfecting it today. I played around with the size and placement of the holes and how they were drilled. The scalloped back is really comfortable. Sterling silver.

The two winners.