The Art Escape Plan: January 2015

Sunday, January 25, 2015

back to back awesomeness

So Liz and I have had a whirlwind of a break. It was not really a break and at some point we are going to have to take a real vacation. We are taking suggestions. We went home for a bit (Richmond VA) to visit ye old stomping ground which was a great time. We caught up with a few friends and had a few awesome meals. We traveled back to Boone and were in town for about three days. We packed up all of our stuff and zoomed off to Marline True's wedding/New Years bash. It was epic. One of the best weddings I have been to. This was who I was making the silver serving shovel for in a previous post. Then we high tailed it back to Boone, packed up all of our tools and zoomed back to Columbia for the Smitten Forum residency.

We had a blast.

It was a action packed adventure with a lot of wonderful metals people. We had the privilege of breaking in the new metals studio at Pocosin Arts. Special thanks to Sarah Brown and Marissa Saneholtz for inviting us.

I made seven pieces!! Just goes to show what you can do when you don't have cell phone reception or a distracting job. After Smitten we drove back to Boone and had a mini metals nerd out party with Keri Kwik, Ben Dory, Adam Whitney, Ian Henderson and Daniel Beck. Then we all went to the ECU Symposium. Whew!

School is in full swing. We are in our third week. This semester I am teaching four classes. Enameling, Metals 1, Crafting in Virtual Space and Advanced Metals. Whew! For this post I will just post images from Smitten and then when I filter through them I will post images from the ECU symposium.

"The Smitten Forum is an opportunity for makers from the metalsmithing and jewelry field to come together in a creative environment away from the normal routine and obligations of everyday life."

"The first forum was held at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, in January of 2014. Invitees ranged from emerging to well-established makers, as well as educators and professional jewelers. A variety of techniques and materials were represented, including traditional silversmithing, felt, enameling, computer aided design, wood, found object assemblage, tin construction, welding, casting, and many more. Attendees used the week to focus on their work as well as welcome insight from others in a social studio setting."

This round we all worked at Pocosin Arts center in Columbia NC. Pocosin is in a great little town about forty minutes from Nags Head. Shockingly none of us traveled to the beach.

This round: