October 28th Meeting

Our next meeting is the 28th of October, from 1:00 to 5:00 at the All Saint's Episcopal Church in Stoneham.

This meeting will be a discussion and hand's on with Sterling Silver Clay.  So, bring your sterling clay along (if you'd like to work in it) and we'll go over our successes, failures, firing schedules and how to make your own sterling clay.  

September Meeting

The next meeting will be held on Sunday, September 23rd.  It'll be held outside if the weather cooperates, so wear weather appropriate clothing.  If it's raining, it will be held in the large hall at the church and will be putting down tarps.  If you have an extra waterproof tarp - we may need it, so please bring it along!

This meeting will be on lapidary work.  If you have any stones you'd like to see cut or polished, be sure to bring them along.  

We will also be discussing our retreat to be held on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire the weekend of October 5/6/7.  

All About Base Metal Clays

The next meeting of the guild will be April 22nd from 1:00 - 5:00. This meeting will be a general discussion on the base metal clays, all brands and varieties. Please bring in anything you've made, successes and failures. We'll share our working and firing methods for these clays.

Photographing Your Jewelry

At our last meeting, photographing jewelry was the topic.  This year, the 2012 PMC Conference will include a virtual exhibition slideshow featuring the work of members of local chapters of the PMC Guild.  So this meeting was held with that purpose in mind.  Lori Magno spoke about lighting, set-up and offered her photography services to our group for those wanting to get their work into this slideshow.  Here are some of the photos from the meeting.  This first photo showed Lori's camera and various items she uses in setting up her photo shoot.  Yes, you are seeing sunlight as that's always the best lighting to shoot with (if available).

Someone also brought in their pvc piping setup they use as a form to drape fabric over the sides acting as a lightbox.

Even an old milk jug can act as your lightbox.  Just cut off the bottom, place your work underneath and shoot from the hole in the jug.  

And for those who couldn't make this last meeting, we have a couple photographs of our new location.  The space is full of light, the location is not too far from the highway, and there's even plant life!

Our next meeting will be held this Sunday, March 25th.  Monte Nikkel will be demonstrating the Viking Knit.

Clay Turntable

I saw this on link on Facebook this morning and thought it was pretty clever.  Wanaree Tanner did a small tutorial on how she makes one of her favorite tools, the turntable.  

Click here to view her tutorial.

Looking Ahead

Here's a synopsis of what's coming for the guild.  First of all, we have a new meeting place.  We'll be meeting at the All Saint's Episcopal Church, 79 Central Street in Stoneham, MA.  Apparently the group that prays together (to make it to these meetings), stays together holds true as our guild is growing, growing, growing!  Our next meeting will be held on February 26 from 1-5.  Most of our meetings continue to be held on the 4th Sunday of the month with a few exceptions.  Here's what we have to look forward to:


February - Photographing jewelry demo & PMC conference picture-taking by Lori Magno.  (will she address how to keep those cat hairs out of the picture?)
March - Viking knit by Monte Nikkel (Monte manages to keep our bustling group mesmerized).
April - Base metal clay, members who work in base metals will bring in the pieces.  Working and firing the different brands of metal clay will be discussed and demo'd.  Can you hear the excitement?
May/June - combined meeting (1st Sunday in June) - Box making demo by Mikki Verani (I'm dreaming of a beautiful box filled with m&m's)
July - Field trip to Gemstar Gems in Enfield, NH.  Ladies - start your engines.
August - Colors on Metal Clay - initial demo by Mikki Verani, with all members discussing their methods of color metal clay.  Hopefully, not at once.  I can hear Cheech and Chong now . . . class . . . class . . . CLASS!
September - Kumihimo by Monte Nikkel (back by popular demand!)
October - Sterling silver clay (ok - we have officially now got it all going on)
Nov/December combined meeting - play with clay (this is where we get to hover over our neighbor's closely held secrets).  


None of these topics are set in stone.  If you have something you're just dying to learn or teach the group - we're listening.  There's also talk of getting a "name" metal clay artist in for classes - so stay tuned.

January 22nd Meeting

Our next meeting will be January 22, 2012 from 1:00 - 5:00.  This meeting will be our organizational meeting for the coming year.  What do you want to see presented at the meetings for the year, what could you present to show us all?  Think about it, and come with your ideas for making 2012 even better than 2011.

 

At the last meeting it was also discussed that we could present personal challenges for the year.  What is it that you want to accomplish over the course of 2012....learn to blog, learn a specific technique, get into a few galleries, write an article?  All present at the meeting thought this was a wonderful idea, so along with organizing the meeting schedule and demos for the coming year, we are going to ask that you think of something you'd like to accomplish and we'll all work on a game plan and possible mentoring.