fanciful devices: 10/2012

A Stone Is Nobody's

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it.
Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old. The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.

Russell Edson

FAQs

1. Are you a Southeast Asian dancing girl from the 1800s?

No, sorry to disappoint. My avatar and banner images are from an ancient book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cabinets. More on that here.

2. How do you make everything look so old?

First, you need a good oxidizer to brush on every bit of metal you can reach. I'll tell you all about it here.

Then there's this wax. I first mentioned it here. You'll have to scroll down a lot.

3. How can you be so productive?

I'm insanely obsessed and I have no offspring. I do nothing else- I don't have a day job, I don't clean my house or cook, I spend all day in pjs, often completely abandoning personal hygiene... I only interact with other humans when I walk my dog. And I like people! But I prefer dogs.

And I'm sloppy- but I make that sloppiness work for me.

4. Any tips you'd like to share?

No! Except for these 16 posts about techniques and this one about how to find your aesthetic.

5. Would you be offended if I took some inspiration from your designs?

Well, I'd be happier if you outright copied them.

No really, imitation is how we learn. I have enough ideas to go around. And even if I don't- please. No one's going to do this obsessively enough to threaten my business. (Probably.) I learned by copying others and I've seen others copy me as a step toward developing their own voice. So feel free. (I'd love if you tossed me a link in my comments, so I can feel like a proud momma.)

6. What do you look like?

Why, what have you heard? Really? Wow.

10/30/12

10/29/12

In Progress

I thought you might enjoy some photos of the millions of in-progress bits around here. Instead of PerfectPearls here I used some fancy eyeshadow from etsy, layer of resin over that. The resin sorta disappeared the silvery blue- despite my discovery that eyeshadow is much more pigment-rich- so more of that over the rez and a layer of matte spray which I've finally realized is the perfect and only way to un-shine the resin.

Here a little photo halved for maybe earrings, resined, then utee'd. Oy what a mess, you guys don't even know.

Here we see some heavy sanding happening. But I do like this one.

Old book, cut outs, layer of resin, layer of utee. The utee was my attempt to do something faster and thicker than resin without having to build a bezel for each of them. It bubbled and was a huge mess, made the items curl and curve. And then I remembered utee isn't as hardy as resin so I have to make some kind of support anyways. But at least it can just be a backing of some sort.

I'm starting to think just a temporary aluminum foil bezel to pour the resin into might do the trick.

Hey look! With lots of shimmery powders and matte spray. I dunno if I love these but they're certainly... there.

Again with the powders and mattes. Here, a button from my massive stash, which I've managed to cut down to handle-able proportions, and a geode from Uruguay.

Is this too silly? Yeah, but maybe I can still make it good.

Love this one. Still needs some backing. But, but, just so's you know, the right hand twin Jebus was already cut down that much. I mean, that was literally the edge of the image in the book. The cover of that book was this:

'Uh-member? Yay books. Another Uru-haul.

Also this. Though this one was all resin, since it went on a tin lid. Not really, a bottom but that the sides came right off of without having to cut it. But then I matte sprayed it and a chunk of something got trapped there by her nose. There's always chunks of something getting caught in everything! Ugh.

Like here, on the foot one on top there's bubbles. Aw, who cares. I made myself crazy with the heat gun trying to pop the bubbles without the heat creating more bubbles. While meanwhile trying to keep the utee flat on the surface without big warpages of the whole piece. And minimal finger burning.

Look at how perfect this one came out. Except suddenly, what's that black blob by mom's face up top? Always something.

This wood was a gorgeous smooth thing then when I tried to resin it to the corded ring, the resin flowed down (it was curing upside-down) and the dark blotches of resin formed over the wood. Yuck.

Dunno what these will be.

Here's a thing.

See, pre-resin, these were on a cool sort of metallic coppery paper. Now it just looks brown.

Oh and this guy. Look at all the globs of crap all over the top.

Whereas whatever this is that's barely worth having resined is perfect!

'The Third Fable'- It had a bezel but then I decided it sucked and was lopsided, pulled and yanked it off, cut off the extra resin all around then sanded the crap out of it. While still not being 100% sure that I love it all that much. I'm wondering if I should pierce and sand the inner negative space between the ruffles. I dunno. Who knows.

Here's the top of this, full of bubbles and imperfections-->

Whereas the inside is flippin' perfect-->

Whatevs, lets look at some finished stuff, shall we?

I dunno, the big glass cabs make these somewhat heavy, so I used niobium wires with those fat, stabilizing back posts, so they won't swing and the weight is distributed throughout the whole lobe. But now the ear wires sorta stick out funny. And what are those red blotches on his chest? Ugh. Don't even know if I like these. Anywho, they guy's from the alchemy book. Maybe they don't even need the buttons and I just put them on because I'm allergic to simple. Yeah, I think I have to remove those...

These are all about iridescence. Hadn't made utee headpins in a while.

More headpins and dirty whites. Used some mop shanks with the pretty ephemera on top. Been using lots of that stuff lately, haven't I? Well, I have it on hand, so...