a summer update

I'm still in the US. I had a couple false starts, thinking I had a job but they ended up not working out. So I am still looking for a job in Korea.

In the meantime I have gotten back in the studio. Mostly I am working on lockpicks. I am also studying Korean quite a bit lately, usually a couple hours a day. And I try to exercise every day, but the past week I have not been doing much.

Despite all my talk about making a vessel for the Cheongju Craft Competition I never did it. I just didn't come up with any design I felt was worth using a $900 piece of silver on (a 12" x 12" 22 ga sheet of sterling from Rio Grande would cost $903.67 today). I don't get nervous about using expensive materials anymore (except for fragile stones), but I just didn't spend enough time working on designs and making prototypes and felt it would be a waste of the material.

2011 Cheongju Craft Competition info

The information for the 2011 Cheongju International Craft Competition is now posted.

Entries from outside Korea are due June 8th. Entries from within Korea are due June 3rd.

I am planning on making a silver vessel. I've got a 12" x 12" sheet of 22 ga. sterling I will use. I just haven't made the design yet. I got it in Oct. 2008, when silver was around $9-10/oz. Silver is now around $30/oz. I'm glad I didn't wait to buy it. When I look at the price of metals (silver $30, gold $1375, pt $1700) I think I couldn't have picked a better time to take a break from making things.

I have 5 months to design and make my piece. That should be plenty of time, but things always seem to take much longer than expected, and since I don't have a design yet, I have less time because of work and no longer have a real studio I am sure things will take even longer than normal.

$675 worth of silver:

Korea/Japan part 1 - Cheongju

The first week I was in Korea I did a home stay with a family of six in Cheongju. I went to the Cheongju International Craft Biennale, which was good, but not as much fun as two years ago because I wasn't getting any award this time. I knew before I went there that my necklace only got Honorable Mention, which is what every piece gets that makes it to the second round of judging but does not win an award.

Cheongju really promotes the Biennale. Coming into the city by bus I saw these flags on all the street lights along the road:


The Biennale was at the same site as two years ago, except this year the Competition was at the same location as the rest of the Biennale.






Since I didn't tell the curator I would be there I didn't get my special ID badge. Because I didn't have the special ID I wasn't supposed to take any photos inside the exhibitions. My host mother and I talked to one of the people there about the badge, but she couldn't get it for me. I think she said it would be ok for me to take a photo of my necklace, but I wasn't sure cause her English wasn't very good. It didn't matter cause I was going to take a pic of my necklace whether they liked it or not, so I just waited till no one was looking to take this pic:


We also went to the Cheongju National Museum and saw a Korean metals exhibition.


While there I got to play with some clay in a hands-on workshop with three of the host family's children. It was the first time I have worked with clay in about 10 years. But since the workshop is for kids, not adults, I was too big to use the kick wheel.

Home stay in Korea

I wrote the previous post and totally forgot I actually did have something to talk about. I am going to Korea during the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale to participate in a home stay Sept 25 - Oct 1. I don't know the details about who I will be staying with yet, I'm supposed to get that information soon. After that I will go stay with my friend who is teaching English in Pyeongtaek, about an hour south of Seoul.

Cheongju Finalist

I just found out my necklace was one of 210 pieces selected as finalists in the Cheongju International Craft Competition. The next step is to send the actual piece to Korea for the next round of judging.

2009 Cheongju International Craft Competition

The entry form for the Cheongju International Craft Competition is online. It may have been up for a while now, but this is the first time I have checked the site in a few months.

There's no entry fee and big prizes, plus they bring you to Korea if you win. And they pay the awards in cash. It's crazy.

Here are links to the competition information, and the main Cheongju Craft Biennale site. Entries are due June 22nd.

Me at Cheongju in 2007:

more cheongju stuff

I was happy to see a photo of my teapot in the article Creative Evolution, Deeply & Slowly by John Perreault in the Feb/March 2008 issue of American Craft. It is a review of the Cheongju International Craft Biennale.

My friend found this picture online of the jurying for the Cheongju International Craft Competition. The pieces in this photo are the grand prize and gold prize winners.

teapot process - finished piece

Here are the photos of the finished piece.





Here I am in Cheongju, S.Korea at the 5th Cheongju International Craft Competition in October, where I won the silver prize in the metals category.

teapot process - part 6

Here I am with my finished teapot. Actually I don't think I was totally finished, I think I was still working on the base.


I had to ship it to Korea the day after I finished. I made a box to ship it in. Each piece was wrapped in cloth before going in its compartment.




That box went inside another box with padding. There was no way that thing was getting damaged during shipping.

teapot process - part 5

Before anything that involved the aluminum parts could be assembled I had to anodize them. This is a photo of my anodizing set up where I anodized the parts.

Once everything was anodized I could start putting it together. I am attaching the silver sleeves to the handle with rivets in this photo. I have the whole piece wrapped in a paper towel and tape so I cannot accidentally scratch the anodized surface.

These are the pieces of silver tubing I used as spacers on the rivets to put a space between the two aluminum parts of the handle and the two aluminum parts of the base.

Here I am putting the handle together.

I am getting ready to rivet. There are 20 rivets, not counting the 2 that will attach it to the body of the teapot.

Again I wrapped the handle in tape to keep from damaging the anodizing. I worked on a couple rivets at a time and kept the rest of the handle covered. It is kind of annoying to have to keep taping it, removing tape, and re-taping it, but I think it is worth it when I consider the possible consequence of not being so careful. I really hate getting a scratch in my anodizing before I am even finished. And if I wanted to re-anodize the handle I would have to remove all the rivets and the sleeves, which would be a lot of work.

In this photo all the rivets are done, and I am sanding them so they are all the same height.

I put a slightly matte finish on the teapot. I don't like high polished silver.

I am almost finished.

The handle isn't actually attached. If you look closely you can still see the two holes for the rivets that will hold the handle on.

The two parts of the base are read to be riveted together.

Taped up to avoid an accident.

All the rivets are in. I am working on the 4 that hold the aluminum to the big silver piece.

teapot process - part 4

This is the lid. I made a handle out of plastiform from Otto Frei to hold the lid while I worked on it. All the tool suppliers sell the stuff under different names. Its a plastic that gets soft when its heated and you can use to to hold parts. I think its great.




The handle.



One end holds the piece from the top, the other end holds the piece from the bottom.



The mostly finished lid.




This bottom piece was very difficult to fit to the curve of the lid.



I hadn't given much thought on what the spout would look like. I made some clay models to try to decide.






There were a few other ideas, but I went with this one.





After deciding on the shape and size of the spout I cut holes in the body of the teapot. I this photo I have only drilled the holes, I filed them all square to make them look nicer.



This is the spout in progress. I made it at Haystack in July 2006 when I was there as Chunghi Choo's assistant. I messed up the first one and had to make a second, which I barely had enough silver for.






I have the two parts taped up so I don't damage the edges of them while I sand the rest of the teapot.




More sanding.

teapot process - part 3

What is happening is this photo is I am using the height gage on the right to hold the opening on the top of the teapot parallel to the table. The height gage on the left is being used to mark where I will attach the handle and spout.




Marking the center.





The handle will attach to this piece. I have super glued it on so I can make sure it's exactly where I want it and mark it.


It's still super glued together.



Here I have it set up to solder.






Soldered.




Here I am making the little aluminum piece that will go on the lid. The pliers are parallel locking pliers. They are great for holding small parts for filing.




This is the mostly finished piece.