Warning- Gross-ass photographic proof of my life in the metal studio

OH GOD IT'S AN EARTHWORM UNDERGOING HORRIFYINGLY BOTCHED COSMETIC SURGERY AHH KILL IT KILL IT DEAD.

Apologies for the radio silence, but I've been working on a big class project that's had me in the studio non-stop without a lot of time for fun side projects. As a result, my fingers are pretty lacerated and burned up on a regular basis- but being me, I'm mostly just morbidly fascinated and not really bothered or inconvenienced by it. I decided to document it a little- feel free to skip along to a less physically gross part of the internet any time now.

I'm used to burns from years of fire performance, but hot metal burns are a new experience. I'm treating the two little ones I've got with plenty of aloe and the usual stuff I rub on my fire burns- I'm interested to see how long they last and if they leave any sort of impression.

My thumb is particularly gross because it's in the direct line of fire from my jewelers saw when I cut jump rings. Also, metal dust has been collecting in my cuts, which then get liver of sulfur in them when I work with patinas. So I get these nice black lines all over the place.

I've always had a weird kind of fascination with my injuries, particularly when I get them from doing something I'm proud of (my black eye from a street show > my scraped knee from a botched head stand). Little injuries are like proof of something I did so hard it hurt- I'm fond of them the way I am of being sore from acrobatics every night. Anyone else ever feel like that?

New rings!

We've got this big assignment in class right now, which means I spend a lot of time getting frustrated and making rings in the studio. Rings are nice, tiny, easy things that let me practice soldering and play with patinas- they are an excellent distraction from trying to fit a godforsaken copper rose in a tiny bottle.

This one was the easiest, and actually is my favorite. Super simple wrap, although shaping it around the mandrel took some time to get perfect and I took some time to sand it smooth.

I like how it constrains my finger- it's like a little sheath.

Simple ring soldered shut, unfortunately too big for my thumb once I hammered it on the mandrel. Good practice though.

Aw, sweet, no? I wanted practice on hammering letters, so I put one of my favorite little stock phrases on it.

"Fuck love. Make art."

Heeee. I showed it to my friend Travis on the bus today, and he turned to me and said "You're very cynical, aren't you Mish?"

And here's the first ring I made out of my "frustration" series. Simple design, tried etching into it with little success (I wrote "serpentine" on it but it was too light for the patina to set in it).

Spirally!

Hee, I like using the macrofocus.

I'm going to keep playing with rings, they're like fun experiments that you can wear (and sell).

Zanni Collar

Threw this together in the metal studio today for my Hallowe'en costume. I'm going as (or at least invoking the spirit of) the Zanni from the Commedia dell'arte tradition. Every year all I really want is an excuse to wear all my metal jangly costume crap on Hallowe'en- last year I was a Sky Pirate, this year, I'll be a Zanni until I get too tired of explaining my costume to people and start telling them I'm an Acrobatical Moon Kitten from the Post-Apocalyptic Cirktacular World of Tomorrow.

Although I did this quick 'n dirty (I only had three hours in the studio today), it was a good chance to try out a technique for threading ribbon through metal to make an easy collar. I've been thinking in terms of output since I was contacted for a big fancy vendor fair I could make good money at, and this is a design I'll be using more.


I also made some fun discoveries about liver of sulfur, namely, using a lot less of it than I have been. I got a fun bit of rainbow tint going on in this when I dipped it lightly in a very diluted patina. I also fucked up and got some irregular spotting from my overly-fast sanding job because I didn't hammer it flat before I went to town with the flex shaft, but for fast and dirty, I like this piece.

Mandatory self-indulgent model shots!






Time to costume up for the Renegade Circus show tonight! I'm kinda curious if anyone else in the circus community will get the commedia dell'arte reference, but I think I've delved just a titch too obscure this time. Ah well. Everyone gets Acrobatical Moon Kittens, though.

Transient Mode- Home

Just a little tag I sawed out the other day. It was meant to be a ring, but I haven't figured out how to keep the metal from warping when I hammer letters into it. Possibly less aggressive hammering is in order.

The text, as any Antioch kid will recognize, is taken from the iconic "TRANSIENT MODE-HOME" inscribed over the student union. I used ferric nitrate to kind of match the color of the student union- now that I think about it, I could probably get the whole piece blue/green and blacken out the letters with liver of sulfur to evoke the original better.

(I think we all remember this).

A fair number of people who went to Antioch keep these words close to them- mostly in tattoo form, which was almost as common as the circle-square-A when I went there. I still want to complete this as a ring, but for this first one I might just make it into a little necklace.

Marquis de Sade collar

One of these days I'll stop using that Marquis de Sade quote as my fall-back inspiration, but for this collar I threw together in class over the past 2 days, I think it's fairly appropriate. One of my classmates made this bad-ASS pierced animal skull choker for our cold joining sample and it made it realize that I all I want in life (or at least in metal shop) is to make huge, constraining, mildly uncomfortable pseudo-BDSM-esque collars.

I had a much easier time with the jump rings and I actually spent most of our class discussion quietly joining them into a chain with pliers- like knitting, but sooo much cooler. I also used a patina for the first time! And it promptly rubbed off all over my neck as soon as I put it on. But it looks hella cool.

I did liver of sulfur on the plates, and ferric nitrate on the jump rings, which was an exciting experiment in making tiny things very hot very quickly

I don't have much artistic thought to attach to this piece- I like collars, I like collars I put on myself, I like making impractical accessories. This was mostly a practice run to get a feel for this shape and size on my neck.

Slightly shaky shot of the back of my neck- the chain holds it on pretty nicely, despite a very simplified clasp. The bright spots up at the top are my nape piercing.

Whee collars! Next step- fixing the patina so it doesn't turn my neck black and blue (not that that's weird, but with acro training I don't need any extra bruising in odd places).

Sun Owl Mask

My cold joining technical sample for class- flanges, rivets, and jump rings integrated into a single piece.

I like the overall finished piece- but the technical aspect of it is pretty fucking awful. I made the painfully uninformed error of making my flanges out of brass and trying to attach them to copper- of course the copper bent as soon as I applied pressure, and I wound up just soldering the failed flanges together. Stupid flanges.

The rivets were equally barely saved by the skin of my fingers. Even with large gauge wire I couldn't get the ends flat and most of them bent on the back. Sawing tiny bits of wire was an exercise in frustration, too. And I learned real quickly that once one attempted rivet breaks off, you're going to have to get hella creative about fixing the piece. The only thing that really worked was the jump rings, and I feel like you have to be pretty inept to fuck up jump rings.

But enough kvetching about the process- I brought it home and took a mini-photo-shoot while thinking about my concept and where I can take this idea.

I'm attracted to the tension between the vulnerability I feel under a mask and its intended role as a protective item.

There's also the aspect of the mask taking on the qualities of the being it represents- this one started to look like an owl about half way through, and I started shaping the nose piece to reflect that.

I threaded some satin ribbon I had through it to juxtapose with the sharp edges (and it is sharp, I'm deriving a lot of joy from filing things to a point right now) to play with that protection/vulnerable angle.

I want to keep deliberately incorporating the means of attachment to the face into the design.

I also want to work with seamlessly integrating pieces into the existing shape of my body.

Creating an emotion to wear clearly and broadcast in metal.

And allowing art to speak through my body.

I'm still feeling out where I want to take some of these ideas, but I have a much better idea of what my medium is capable after doing this.

Sun Eye

My second technical sample for class- soldering a ring to a sheet of metal. You can just see the ring under the larger sawn-off bit of pipe I soldered around it.

The soldering is pretty shitacular (and oh god, when I tried to sand off the excess I nearly dislodged the thin gauge ring so I barely cleaned up the pipe part because I sure as hell didn't want to try to solder THAT mess all over again), but I had fun sawing it out and sanding the points real f'n sharp.

I also had a rough time shining it up because it's all weird angles. I want to do patinas soooo badly, I can't freaking wait to start them next week. I'd also like to figure out some way to attach it to my head a bit more permanently. Drilling a hole and using elastic isn't complicated or weird enough for me- any ideas?

I've had eye and face accouterments rolling around in my art-brain since I started metal working- the impracticality and costuming-like aspects appeals to me along with the artistic implications of disguise, hiding, ect. I started work on a mask today that'll incorporate all my cold joining technical assignments with flanges that attach the eyes to a nose piece, rivets creating movable accents on the top and sides, and jump rings dangling tears from the bottom. Here's hoping I don't nearly kill myself on the drill doing it.

Massively Impractical Ring of Fire!

I made a highly impractical ring today! If you look closely, you can see my incredibly inexpert silver soldering, but it hasn't fallen apart yet, so I consider that a bonus. I've been playing around with this idea of putting two wings on either side of a ring, but when I finished sawing it looked more like a plume of flame, so I'm running with that idea instead.

The circular part was a class assignment to solder a ring, which took fer-frickin-ever for my first try manipulating large gauge copper wire. Filing it flat took ages, and now I have fresh knowledge of the healing powers of silver solder.

I am terrifically excited for when we start patinas- doing everything in light salmon colored copper is getting old fast. I liked this ring better when it was all dusty and fire rough, pre-shining and cleaning up.

(OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I LOVE METALSMITHING SO FUCKING MUCH AND IT'S ONLY GETTING BETTER AHHHH)

I Started Metalsmithing Today but I Did Not Have My Camera so Here is a Picture of My Pants

See title, pretty much. My first day of metalsmithing was today and I soldered a tiny, abstract sculpture and it was the most exciting experience of my life re: metalwork. Oh jesus god I am so full of ideas regarding metal art right now.

The metal studio is kind of hilarious in how things just disappear into air in front of your eyes. I was sawing some 18 gauge copper plate today and my saw blade completely vanished mid-stroke. It didn't break- it was just there one second, and the next it wasn't. A bit of silver solder also made a break for freedom when I nipped it off a bit too wantonly at the soldering station. I am going to be very poor in bits and pieces of solder and saw blades at this rate.

Since it's getting unpleasantly cold in Olympia now, I finally went out and replaced my art pants (the ones with more holes than fabric) with some that wouldn't leave me with selective frostbite. They were very boring until they were attacked by an OCTOPUS in my screenprinting studio.

(They also suffered a bleach attack to make the octopus stand out a bit more, but it hasn't set all the way yet and isn't that noticeable).

I'm getting increasingly artistically blocked with screenprinting lately. I feel like I've exhausted and/or gotten bored with my little collection of stock vintage images and ephemera, but my digital design skills are craptastic (it's kinda fucking embarrassing to be 21 and an artist and barely know my way around Photoshop and Gimp for digital art purposes). And my traditional drawing style really doesn't translate well to screenprinting- it's too messy and while I'm learning to think in layers, I'm really not all the way there yet. Screenprinting is all about clean lines and graphically interesting composition, and I'm all...yeah.

But holy shit metalworking. I am still with the glee.