anodizing book

I just found out from my parents (since a lot of my mail goes there) that I got three of my pieces in the anodizing book Lark Books is going to be publishing. I am told the book will be out this fall.

nothing going on

I've been in Korea 4 weeks now. I still feel like I just got here. All my tools and things are in two drawers. I haven't tried to organize anything yet. I have a kitchen table I can work at which should be ok for carving. I haven't done any work since I got here. It's really easy for me to stop working in a situation like this where I am in a new environment and I have a lot stress and other things on my mind. I have been thinking a little about what I should make, so I think soon I will start working.

I'm in Korea now + a new blog

I arrived in Korea Monday April 19th. I'll be here for a year, teaching English at a high school near Seoul.

My studio is all packed up. I brought some tools so I can do wax carving and wood carving here, but not much else.

I'm going to keep this blog for writing about my creative work and start a new blog about what I am doing in Korea:

http://jonmryan-korea.blogspot.com/

moving to korea

I mentioned at the end of 2009 that I might be moving away to take a new job this year. Finally, after having some long delays I'm going to do it. I'm moving to South Korea to teach English for a year.

I have been planning on doing this since last August, but I procrastinated for a while. Then I was going to apply at a private English language school to try and start working by the end of 2009. In November I found out public schools were hiring for the spring semester and decided to wait and do that instead.

Assuming there aren't any more delays, I will be leaving Sunday, the 18th. I have a lot to do before then.

random things

I have been busy and had a lot of things on my mind lately and haven't really been giving much thought to writing posts about what I am working on.

I got the CMAG Spring 2010 newsletter today. I found out it was my copper vessel that got honorable mention in the members exhibition. They have posted photos of the exhibition on Flickr.

Last Monday I made an announcement about a major change that will be happening soon, but by Tuesday I found out there would be a delay, so I took down that post. So if anyone read that and is wondering what happened, I will still be doing what I said, just a few weeks later.

CMAG Members Exhibition

The CMAG Members Exhibition is up till March 14th at the Lill Street Art Center. I got an email last week about how the show was going. I didn't win one of the three best in show awards, but me and two other people had work chosen for "special merit." I don't know which piece of mine it was.

These are the pieces I am showing:

Vessel #6. 2008.


An untitled brooch from 2007.


Untitled aluminum and ebony brooch. 2010.
I just realized I forgot to finish posting the process photos for this piece. I'll post them later, I'm not in the mood to do that right now.
I had a lot of trouble photographing this piece and was planning to re-shoot it. Now that I look at the photo it doesn't look so bad, but other people who saw the photo first, and then saw the piece said the actual piece looks much better than in the photo. So I don't know what I should do about it cause I'm not sure I can photograph it better.

felt things

Here are photos of the two brooches I entered in 500 Felt Objects. I figured I should put them on my blog cause they aren't likely to make it into the book.

Both of these are made from 1/4" thick industrial felt, anodized aluminum, and sterling.

I dyed the felt on this piece with fast blue anodizing dye. The aluminum is also fast blue. I did another version of this piece with a sort of brown/black piece of felt and orange aluminum, but I didn't like it and took it apart.


I dyed the felt on this piece black using Rit dye. The aluminum flowers are all slightly different shades of fast blue. I scraped the felt with a scribe to make it all fuzzy.


I didn't take many pictures while I was making these pieces because I was finishing them the day before the deadline for the book. One of the things I like about things like entering competitions and books and things is it give me a deadline for pieces I might otherwise drag out.

I really only took photos of the flowers I was carving for the black piece. I like how they turned out and I will probably make more of them for something else in the future.


I carved them primarily with burs, then used rubber wheels to smooth them. Carving the front went pretty quickly. The back side took much longer only because they were so difficult to hold on to. Next time I will have to come up with a better way to hold them than just trying to hold them in my fingers.


After anodizing, still attached to the wires used for anodizing:


Finished:


I like the look of the felt, but I don't really like working with it. It's too soft, and it doesn't have the feeling of durability that metal does. Metal will last a long long time. Materials like felt don't feel that way. Why would I want to spend much time making something that isn't going to last? But I'll probably make some more pieces involving felt and aluminum. I have some ideas, I just need to work out the details.