More Metal and New Designs

 Heading into my second year with the Port Townsend gallery and nearly a year with the second venue in Uptown.  It's been a good year but I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon.  

I made some new pieces out of bronze for the gallery and tried some new foldform designs for copper.

These two cuffs are bronze.  Harder to work with, not as flexible as copper, takes longer to heat up for the folding process, but it has a lovely warm look in the end.  A subtle gold comes through on the lines when sanded.

These two necklaces are new designs in foldform copper.  The top image has some interesting pieces of brown turquoise and tumbled citrine added.  

I'm also using a new technique for the finish.  Instead of going with whatever scale comes through after all the heating and cooling, I'm now cleaning the metal with the homemade pickle solution of vinegar and salt, giving me a clean and mostly consistent color.  I can then either heat patina or use Liver of Sulfur for the final finish. 

I reopened my Etsy shop in March of this year hoping to add more revenue for this side gig.  It hasn't generated the income I was looking for however.  Apparently the pandemic exploded the cottage industry and now the market is saturated, online anyway.  Galleries and gift shops aren't thriving again yet either, but the economy fluctuates constantly anyway.  I'm sure we'll see a return to art buying.

Meanwhile I shall shuffle along in my little studio creating, because that's what I enjoy doing.