My friend Cyndi Lavin is reprinting the interview she did on me earlier this year, this time in her new jewerly and beading blog on B5. I hope you’ll stop by and see new blog, as always, it will be a great source of inspiration.
Jewelry and Beading – Artist Profile
Sterling Carnelian Brangel Set
My friend Cyndi Lavin recently put our ocean necklace up for sale on eBay. The proceeds will go to cancer research and the winner will have a tax deduction for their purchase. This is the ocean necklace from “A Charmed Life” that is currently on display in Belle Armoire magazine.
Please stop by the listing on eBay and place a bid.
Ocean Charm Necklace
Wendy Van Camp wearing the Ocean Charm Necklace
I’m pleased to announce that two of my collaborative charm necklace projects were accepted by Belle Armorie for publication in their September/October 2007 issue. Belle Armorie is a national magazine featuring mixed media art to wear. Both necklaces can be seen in the magazine, along with a brief statement about each one by the coordinator of the project.
The first necklace was coordinated by my friend Cyndi Lavin, who has many published credits to her name and is the writer of the blog Bead Arts. I’ve known Cyndi for many years and was pleased to be asked to join “A Charmed Life” two years ago in order to create a necklace to be sold and the proceeds donated to cancer research. We choose ocean colors as our theme and tied all the different charms together via sterling metal. When I wore this necklace to my husband’s college reunion last year, everywhere I went people stopped me in the street in order to touch the charms on the necklace and ask about the story behind it. The “Ocean Necklace” will be auctioned on eBay sometime in September and I will post an announcement here.
Jewelry Haven Copper Charm Necklace
The second collaborative charm necklace I participated in was coordinated by Lea Avroch, a wonderful lampwork artist that I met via a jewelry making email list called Jewelry Haven. The Haven is home to a few hundred jewelry artists that talk about life, the universe and jewelry. They are a great bunch of ladies and I’m pleased to be a part of the membership. This second necklace is very different from the first. We used copper, sterling and brass to create a handmade chain and the charms are everything from lampwork leaves, to my copper wired leaf forms to interesting metal leaves.re in this blog when it is available.
Sterling Poker Champion Bracelet
Recently, I created a poker champion bracelet that served as a trophy in a local poker tournament. I normally do not create jewelry for men, so this project was quite a challenge to me. I am available to make champion bracelets for other events, please feel free to email me for details.
This bracelet is 8 1/2 inches in length and is made of solid sterling silver. The chain is 8mm wide and is a handwoven “Queen’s Link” chainmaile pattern made entirely from jumprings. The centerpiece was cut from sterling silver sheet, handstamped with the name of the event and the year and then joined to the chain via 16 gauge jumprings. The clasp is a large lobster claw that lends a more masculine appeal to the bracelet. The entire piece was tumble polished to give it a lustrous shine.
Sterling Carnelian Neckpiece
One of the new wire wrap designs that I did for my booth last fall was a neckpiece/collar design that I discovered in Step by Step Wire. I used the tutorial as a starting point and then went on to use my own materials and created a series of necklaces that were unique to me.
The double drilled carnelian stones were the first challenge of this project. The holes were too small for the thicker gauge of wire that I was using for the frame of the neckpiece. Since they are the supports of the collar, the wire absolutely had to go through the stones. I ended up using my dremel with new diamond bits for it and teach myself how to drill stones. After many false starts, I figured out a technique of drilling the stones under water that worked quickly and prevented the stones from cracking. Once the torque was wrapped and the ends hammered, I made a byzantine chain for the necklace and a big loop, hammered clasp to finish it. The necklace is 18″ in length, but can be shortened to choker length. The carnelian stones have agate banding in the large focal beads and are a tomato red hue.
Sterling Aventurine Pi Stone Earrings
This past winter, I’ve been experimenting with new wire wrapping techniques that feature twisting of very fine sterling silver wire around stone beads to create an interesting bezel effect.
These earrings feature a pair of 25mm aventurine pi stones with black onyx accent beads that have been wrapped with fine gauge wire and tiny hill tribe silver beads. The look is classic, yet different enough to turn heads. I will be featuring many more of this style of earrings in my booth this spring along with similar style pendants.
Connie Fox Style Earrings
I took workshop with Connie Fox yesterday and I thought that I’d share a few of the earrings that I made via techniques inspired by her class. This is my second workshop with Connie. It is such a genuine pleasure to learn from a giving and gifted instructor. I’m grateful for the opportunity to study with her.
Education as an artist is something that I didn’t value during the first eight or nine years that I was in business. I felt that being self-taught was more important in order to develop your own unique style. While I still feel that it is important to have your own voice as an artist, I’m starting to realize the value in learning from others. I no longer reinvent the wheel when I attempt new techniques and at a class I’m able to meet with other like minded artists and gain more understanding of the medium.
The earrings on the far left are turquoise and bali spacers. The hammered sterling station is the “eyelet” pattern that I learned in the class. The earrings are hammered french hooks. The earrings at the top have a handmade cone earwires in sterling silver with african turquoise coin shaped beads dangling below. Finally, the all sterling earrings are a combination of the cone shape and coiled swans. Learning how to create a loose enough coil to hammer after coiling was very interesting. I love the little swan hooks too.
Earrings similar to these will be part of the new line of jewelry to be found in my booth this coming spring. I’ll have them in a wide assortment of stone choices. For those of you that request copper earwires, I will try and stock a few of the new earwire shapes in that metal. Please feel free to ask me about them while you visit my booth.
Whew! I think that 2006 had to be my busiest year in business to date. I did far more venues than I’m used to and was happy to see most of my jewelry find new homes with my customers. What I have left I’m going to be photographing and popping up into my esty store which can be found at the link in the topbar of this blog. My art prints are available there as well.
2007 is going to be the year of changes for my jewelery business. I’m going to continue to do many of the new venues that I started this past year and I’ve earmarked one or two new venues to add to my schedule this year that should be plenty of fun. You’ll be able to see where my booth will be in the “event” section of my blog. Just press on the link and all the shows will be listed as they approach on the calendar. Venues for 2007 will start to be listed there as my confirmations come in.
Another change this year is that I’m currently in the process of setting up a new area in my studio to do metalsmithing. While I don’t expect to have anything of a gallery quality to showcase this year, I am hoping to have sterling and stone rings, pendants and earrings to add to my usual wire wrapped work possibly in late spring. I’ve been growing fascinated with hot metal and all the fun things that you can do to it with a torch. I’m not sure where my inner muse will take me, but it is going to be an adventure.
Copper Leaf Charms
Despite being swamped with work due to the time of year, I decided to participate in a group necklace project slated to be sent in to the Belle Amorie contest that has a deadline in Feburary. Our group decided to have an autumn theme to our work, with the ruddy hue of copper being one of the chosen colors. The ladies of the group are all members of “Jewelryhaven” one of the many jewelry themes yahoogroups here on the net.
I was uncertain what to make as my contribution, but I decided to make up some leaf shaped frames in copper and then to embellish them with a thinner gauge of wire and a swirl to give them more substance. Each charm is 1 1/2 inches long and about 1 inch wide. The frame is made of 16g copper wire that has been either coiled or hammered and the interior is wirewrapped 24g copper wire. Everything has been tumbled to work harden the wires and make them nice and shiny.
Copper Swirl Ocean Jasper Earrings
I love to work with copper. There is something that is warm and inviting about the reddish hue and the sheen of this metal. These earrings were commissioned from me by a nice lady at Bates Nut Farm. She had the idea of the swirls, but wanted to have a fringe to it. These earrings are what I came up with.
The swirl is 18 gauge copper wire with 20 gauge hammered fringe. The small beads are ocean jasper stones. I completed the earrings with hammered french earwires also made of copper metal.
