It has been just insane. I have not had a minute to sit down and post anything. 

Liz and I are very excited to be in Boone.  I has been a busy four weeks. We have already had a visitor/visits (Jen Wells and Amy Tavern).  I am happy to report that four out of five rooms in our house are unpacked and "finished".  My office at school needs some help.  It is kind of a wreck.  I did get the makerbot up and running which is great.  Our personal studio is in full swing but it has been hard to work there.  My main work station crashed so I had to build a new computer.  It has been a long time since I had to build a PC from parts so it was a lot of fun but also frustrating.  The laser cutter is installed and fully vented.  I can cut almost anything now without fear of choking myself.  The cats are settling in. Our neighbor's dog keeps them in check for the most part.  We have also discovered some local BBQ and TACOS!  We have only tried one BBQ place so far but it was great! The tacos at the local Taqueria put all of the tacos in Kingston NY to shame.  It is also about a quarter mile from our studio so most of our diet lately has consisted of tacos. 

Yesterday we took a trip to hike Grandfather mountain which was epic.  We saw the largest amethyst found in the US!  They also had an impressive display of hand carved/painted birds which were kind of amazing.  I am proud of myself.  I actually concurred my fear of heights and crossed the swinging bridge (almost a mile up in the air).  I almost stopped in the middle if it were not for liz pushing me across they would have had to call in the choppers.  Grandfather mountain was so close to Penland we decided to pop in on Amy Tavern and in Penland tradition we took her out for pizza and then had ice cream sandwiches! Soooooooo good.  I am proud to say that my sticker installation in lower metals is still there!  

I am about to start my third week of school.  In metals we started sandcasting in pewter.  The students are really enjoying it.  I also have been working hard to make improvements to the studio.  Bit by bit I am whipping this place into shape. Hopefully soon I will be able to take a break. Maybe around Thanksgiving I can relax a bit.

Brassssssss

  So this has been in the works for some time now.  My favorite pliers needed an upgrade.  I am working on some prototypes.  So far so good. Getting the nut out was a huge pain in the ass.  It is almost like they don't want you taking out their jaw.  It took a pair of vise grips and a hammer to get the nut to even budge. 

  I made a couple different versions.  I am going to test them for a while and then probably sell them through my site.  My biggest fear is that they will bend in the thin spots and then not be parallel anymore.  On the upside, they are brass and you can alter the shape of the jaws to fit your needs.  So if you want to file a V in it you can.  Or if you want to make it half round or an inverted half round, you can.  I made a tube cutting jig, longer noses and tapered noses.  

Let me know what you think.  

Aslo, I am slowly making improvements to the studio.  So much to do before the semester starts.  So far I have painted my office, setup the 3D printer, made a new little library section, made a sand paper caddy and moved around the benches.  Fingers crossed, I can get it all done before the semester begins.  

  

The big Boone adventure!

So we have arrived.  Boone, North Carolina! As I have mentioned before I accepted a tenure track position starting this semester to be the area coordinator for Metalsmithing and Jewelry design at Appalachian State University.  

Over the years Liz and I have been semi vocal about how much we are not fans of New York.  Truthfully, we met some incredible people!  Those people have turned into life long friends.  It was painful leaving.   But, deep down inside we always knew that we would never settle in New York.  I think that this ultimately prevented us from ever being happy.  So many things; the taxes, the cost of living, politics, peoples attitudes (including my own) all of this and some other things I will keep to myself sealed the deal.  When it came down to it, moving closer to home made sense. Closer to our family, cheaper cost of living, slower lifestyle, closer to our property, a front porch to hang out on, CHICKENS! We are stoked. 

So on to Boone.

So far so good.  It is amazing.  For some reason we thought it would be HOT but apparently it never gets above 80 degrees "except during rare heat waves". We are quickly settling in.  We just built out our studio and we are unpacking all of our crap.  As of this post we have been her for a five days.  

We barely fit all of stuff into one twenty foot Uhaul and Liz's tribute.  Taco had to be drugged right before we left town.  He kind of freaked out on the trip and started getting a bloody nose in the carrier.  After getting a shot he pretty much spent most of the trip with his eyes rolled back into his head.

I have had the keys to my office for one day now and I am already re-arranging things.  I am now painting and building shelves.  I had to pick from the state approved colors so I picked  "agreeable gray"  which I think will work.  It is agreeable.

We are renting an amazing house which is walking distance to work (all up hill).  It has a chicken coop, a front porch and a bath tub.  You know the essentials.

More later as things unfold.  Right now I am frantic.  I have two shows a lecture and a semester to get ready for.  There are million things to do.

The new adventure begins now!

Here are some shots of the metals studio and my office. 

final photo

blog tour!

I hardly ever participate in these things but.... I was tagged by a friend Amy Tavern (AKA Ice cream sandwiches)  to do a "blog tour".  These things always seem like a pyramid scheme.  I am supposed to post three blogs on my blog and then they post three on their blog.....well you get the idea.  It also kind of sucks because I do read Amy's blog a bunch and I can't use her.  Her icelandic adventures would make for an amazing blog post.

The hardest part about this is picking three.  Seriously!? THREE!? If you know me I spend a lot of time in front of this dumb thing called a computer clicking away.  I am pretty sure I spend more time on my computer than most programers.  So much to see.  I could list about a million blogs everyone should read.    

First, a blog I visit daily is http://frankieflood.blogspot.com/  When Frankie Flood is not posting epic videos on motorcycle repair or making 3D printed prosthetics for children he runs and teaches classes in the Digital Craft Research Lab at UW Milwaukee.  He is an amazingly busy person it is kind of insane.  I sometimes think he is a robot sent to earth to make the rest of us look bad.  Take a vacation buddy!

Seriously though amazing things are happening.  Very inspiring.  

I also visit http://wonderobject.blogspot.com/ 

Gary Schott makes wonderful kinetic sculptures that are often wearable.  There is an amazing aesthetic that he has cultivated through play.  His posts have been a little thin being that he has just come off of a major kickstarted campaign to build himself a new studio.  When he is not making babies, teaching or building studios he is making beautifully crafted work that begs the wearer and the viewer to interact. 

The third and final blog that we are visiting on the "blog tour" is Harrison Krix's http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/. This blog is full of amazing step by step awesomeness.  I am not a huge fan of cosplay but man seeing this stuff could turn anyone towards the darkside of prop building and attending comic-cons. I would recommend his Daft Punk helmet posts. These days Harrison's blog isn't getting much love being that he has migrated to other social media outlets like facebook.  He does however have an epic fickr photostream

https://www.flickr.com/photos/volpinprops/

I realize now my blogs are super dude-centric.  I really don't know what that is about.  It is just where my brain is today. 

Here are some other things I look at:

Tested.com
http://lemanoosh.com/
http://momofuku.tumblr.com/
http://current-obsession.com/TAKEAWAY
http://www.artjewelryforum.org/ajf-blog
http://www.helencarnac.co.uk/
http://99percentinvisible.tumblr.com/


Ahhhhhh too much interneting

video thursday!

Conversations About Contemporary Jewellery

Conversations About Contemporary Jewellery: Locating Place from Jewellery Conversations on Vimeo.

Conversations About Contemporary Jewellery: Lisa Walker from Jewellery Conversations on Vimeo.

Conversations About Contemporary Jewellery: Karl Fritsch from Jewellery Conversations on Vimeo.

Conversations About Contemporary Jewellery: Warwick Freeman from Jewellery Conversations on Vimeo.

Minoru Hotta

http://www.minoru-hotta.jp/

So many great videos here!