The Last of the Bungalows: A Labor of Love

Another kind of “Tiny House”…

smallhousepress

1994 Bungalow teaching project, currently residing at the National Museum of Toys & Miniatures in Kansas City

Our obsession with Charles & Henry Greene, and the Arts and Crafts Bungalow style, reached its finale in late 1994 when we started the Craftsman Bungalow teaching project. By then we’d been making miniature houses for twenty years, and teaching week-long techniques workshops for around fifteen of those. Most years we taught 3-4 times at various locations around the country, including our favorite, Castine, ME, home of the IGMA Guild School, and the amicable locals who liked to call us The Little People (we arrived with the lilacs–between the mud season, and the blackfly season). The School required we dream up a new class every couple of years, which was good, on the one hand, because it insured that both we and our repeat students would keep returning. On the other, it was a challenge to design something…

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RECOVERING LUDDITE

For a Luddite, I’ve been doing an awful lot of computerized messing around: editing photos on this blog, linking blog posts to my Off The Grid Designs Facebook Page, re-reading books on blogs, blogging, creating crazy graphs on Excel about how we artists *really* spend our days… I should be making stuff. Instead, I’m probably annoying everyone. But that madness will stop very soon. For now, I beg you, just go along with all my experiments.

You can find these lovelies here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/233881448/riveted-copper-flower-earrings-for-her?ref=shop_home_active_1

I have been promising a little mini tutorial about some of the techniques used in these earrings, and I will oblige as soon as I unpack just one more box…

HAMMER TIME…

What metalsmith can’t use a new few tools? These might be my most frequently used tools – grungy, beat up hammers from estate sales, basements and alleys/dumpsters around Denver. My absolute favorite has got to be the one that was originally offered at the exorbitant price of $3 and then marked down to a more reasonable $2.00.

Copper Beetle Key Fob

Beetle Key Fob

Patty made this when she visited us in January. The beetle design was carved from a block of soft carving material, similar to an eraser. CopprClay (by Metal Adventures) was rolled out onto the design, then dried, refined, fired and riveted to hand-dyed veg-tanned cowhide.

My Heart Is In The Mountains

Jewelry designs mostly start in my journal or sketchbook. Lately I always carry both. The journal is filled with random rants, telephone numbers, grocery lists and Personal Stuff That Would Bore Anyone To Death. I tried to keep everything in one book, but I always felt guilty about scribbling names, book titles or other minutiae in the sketchbook with its *good* paper, and didn’t want to waste plain paper with serious sketching. I still have not solved this dilemma.

This sketch of mountains, hills, trees, rivers and grasses became a small design which I carved out of eraser material using linoleum carving blades. BronzClay (by Metal Adventures) was rolled out in a thin layer. The design was trimmed, dried, refined (sanded) and then fired at high temperatures in a specially designed kiln.

The oval medallion was riveted to a leather bracelet. I used teeny-tiny brass rivets that you might find in your local model railroading shop.

FACEBOOK IS NOT A WASTE OF TIME!

Rendered Useless by Fanciness

Not a day goes by that I don’t discover some gem of wisdom in the daily string of Facebook posts. This quote was definitely worthy of wearing on one’s wrist, so I immediately made it into a leather cuff bracelet.