Thank You for your support over the past year! Please stop by my Jewelry Open House and let me express my gratitude!
Thursday, November 17, 2022
5–7PM
There will be drawings for those who attended classes over the last year, and a special drawing for those in attendance who introduce a NEWBIE to the Garage. So bring a friend! Watch a texture plate demonstration and a NEW TOOL TOUR— I’ve added a Pepe Rolling Mill and also a band bender.
REFRESHMENTS will be served. Let there be TWINKLE LIGHTS!
Fall is around the corner, and I couldn’t be more ready! Uh…I could be more ready, but I couldn’t want it to come more. It’s been a busy 2022 and I’d like to get to the next chapter, or maybe start a whole new book! Can I get an “AMEN!”?
I’m going to be doing just a few classes this fall. One is a simple and practical chain that has 3 lengths that can work together or individually. I made it years ago as camp-casual travel jewelry: always ready for anything, and always ready to add a dose of color.
This one is distinctly woodsy. Imagine chanterelle mushrooms, bark, and pale green walnut hulls.
Bracelet, anklet, and a necklace. OR, a 5-wrap bracelet, OR a double-strand necklace, OR a belly chain, with extra to dangle (Kamarband).
Next is a pressed puff ring. I have been saving impressionables, like baby fern leaves, tiny Locust twigs, and wildflower buds and blooms. After pressing the dried bits into soft, or softened metal, you will form a hefty-looking ring with the help of some good math, and just the right sledge hammer. (I don’t want to give away all my secrets!)
The rings shown have been impressed with texture plates. The charm at the beginning of this article was impressed with a fine dried Locust branch. Either makes wonderful fun!
And finally, 6 lucky ducks will make some incredibly unique and exotic charms from an ancient Korean technique called Keum-boo. The sterling silver is heated to an exact temperature, determined by the blue color of the control steel on the heating surface. Then 14K gold is burnished to the surface, permanently bonding on a molecular level. The gold can be polished and worked after this process. We will be impressing textures, or stamping into the surface.
Hope to see you this fall!
Keum Boo is the permanent application of 14K gold to another metal. I have designed a class that elevates the beauty of distressed sterling, contrasting the gleam of gold. There will be opportunities to add dimension, and texture to your charm series. Look for Copper Keum-Boo coming soon.
The Salvation Army’s Toy Town brings the miracle of Christmas home to families in Sioux Falls.
Be a Personalizing elf! It’s time to don your inner-elf, and step up and smell the paint pens. Give back with your God given gift of Personalizing!! 🎄Sign up below 🎅
This year there’s a new location and we have our own room! See you there!
Toy Town 800 N. Cliff Avenue Personalizing & Toy Distribution
There are day and evening hours!Monday, December 20, Tuesday, December 21, and Wednesday, December 22,
For a class taught at the beautiful Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum, I created an inexpensive pochade box for artists new to plein air painting. Those students received the conversion kit to transform a Hobby Lobby paint set into this wonderfully small and handy paint-anywhere-anytime pochade box.
Download the free PDF with complete instructions, and supply list. Enjoy!
I hope it encourages you to paint when you least expect!
I will be trying out some hand painted botanical T-shirts at the June 26 FAM (Falls Art Market— 4th Saturday of the month all summer).
I have 6 designs: this one is Curly Fern & Bleeding Heart, and there is also Daisy & Dandelion, Eucalyptus & Boxwood, Larkspur & Grapevine, Roses & Buds, and Tulip & Violets.
Don’t miss the Falls Art Market season opener after the farmers market May 22! (My T-shirts will be at the June 26 FAM.)
Kristi and Janet hedged out everyone else in being the first Community Ed students of the first Post-pandemic class in JOE’S Garage 2021 Season!
Spin It! is the Spinner Ring de Jour in the longest running class of JOE’S Garage. We have made spinner rings in several styles and in various metals, in small groups and for larger parties.
There are few shortcuts to beautiful handmade jewelry. The design process is painstakingly meticulous. Planning, measuring, creating test pieces, and mock-ups before ultimately holding the final piece in your hand. I love this, and I fight this. I believe in the process, but I want to skip to the good stuff!
As a graphic artist, I created these half-sketched design blanks and templates to facilitate and jump start my own design process. I wanted to make them available to other jewelry artists, too. Use these true-to-size templates to quickly sketch your ideas, and have organic design shapes that don’t look machine made.
These templates are just one of lots of great perks my Patreon Benefactors receive. Please consider becoming a sponsor! Click on the Patreon link to read about all the levels and what benefits come with each one. Thanks for checking it out!
Sketch on them, use them as sawing patterns, or sheet stock mock-ups.
Jump right into designing the fun part! From basic to nearly fully developed—begin sketching on a template blank from a point of precision.
I’m on day 144 of my Duolingo French training. That’s what I did during Covid. That, and I learned to cook. Anyway, I learned basic things like: dry your meat before you brown it, and never over cook it. The cheery owl in the track suit expands my mind, and Dinnerly expands my waist. C’est la vie, or C’est ma vie.
Spring is around the corner, and I have set a table for one…and deux. All of my classes are naturally spaced at extreme ends of my 8 foot work table for small groups of like-tribe—as we refer to those we maintain hugging status with. A few more than 2 may also work. Serendipitously, we often wear protective eyewear, masks, and gloves anyway, so it’s all good!
Bienvenue! Welcome to the Garage. On the menu this season is Soldering with a side of Dandelion Seed charms, a refreshing New Leaf Enameling exploration, and the House Specialty: SPINNER RINGS. All through Sioux Falls Community Ed.
Silversmithing classes for the more serious, the connoisseur, are available á la carte, by the hour, and in a veritable feast of courses to accommodate your tastes and schedule. Sorry, take-out, and delivery are not available, though you can stop by for a taste anytime! Please call ahead!
Meditative Mantra Mandala—that sums up the goal, vehicle, and choreography of this focus on Jesus’ Temptation from Matthew 4. A lovely group of ZOOM attendees followed a path to complete a painted dish towel that will hang as a memory of that event. My hope is that focused meditation, aided by simple repetitive brush strokes, will forge our prayers in other parts of our brain (and heart) through the motions, and our other sensory experiences. Beyond reading and hearing, by seeing the symbols formed by the painted strokes, praying while smelling the acrylic medium, searching for understanding and enlightenment while being aware of others completing these same steps, I have faith a deeper connection is made. I am moved by each artist’s devotion. It was challenging, and scary, to present a class with such an important message.
