I just came back from teaching a wonderful two day class in Glen Rose, Texas. CAST Across Texas gave me this incredible invitation to teach in their annual Artist Retreat. It was a pleasure to meet all of you and you all made me feel very welcome. The class was full of energy and all my students were very talented. I enjoyed teaching and meeting new people all the time, I am not only teaching them but learning a lot from every one of my students. Here are some images of my class and the work my students made during the class.
Most of what I do when I create a new piece is self-taught. I find more enjoyable to explore without any limitations and learning a little by little how to improve what I am doing. I am a very visual person and this helps me a lot when I venture into a new technique. I mostly make jewelry but I do not limit myself to that only. Since I lost my soul brother this past August, he was my inspiration to start painting. He was an amazing artist who lost his passion because of life changes, I still remember how happy he was when he was creating. He was my motivation to not be afraid to explore new things even though I have not taken any watercolors classes or sculpting. He was always very supportive of what I was doing and his support was very important to me. These are some of my new projects:
Painting these pieces has been a great therapy and I enjoyed a lot when I painted them.
My new adventure is this new paper clay piece. This is the biggest piece I have sculpted since I started playing with paperclay and it was great to make it.
I have been teaching some of the students at Say Si to create jewelry with Bronzclay (metal clay) for their 5th Annual MUERTITOS FEST this year. This is my third time going to Say Si to teach the students and I am very happy to do it. These kids are so talented and I love how Say Si provides them opportunities to develop social and artistic skills.
Say Si's 5th Annual MUERTITOS FEST will be held on Nov.3-5. This is a wonderful family event that you can not miss ! The festival will include local artists, exhibition of traditional folk art, altars created to honor the deceased, family workshops, food booths, live music and much more.
These three days include: Muertitos Fest Fiesta is on Thursday, Nov. 3rd from 7 to 10 pm (opening night fundraiser, tickets $25 per person) Feast on Mexican delicacies and enjoy live music as you preview the students artisan work and altars. Play Loteria (Mexican Bingo) with local celebrity callers.
Muertitos Fest First Friday on Nov. 4th from 6 to 10 pm (FREE and open to the public) The festivities continue with a Dia de los Muertos First Friday Celebration. Enjoy the exhibits, altars, live music and dance performances, festive food and artisan booths, and a Day of the Dead Procession.
Muertitos Fest Family Day on Saturday, Nov. 5th from 12:00 to 3:00 pm (FREE and open to the public- a special day just for families) Enjoy musical and dance performance by local cultural groups. Get hands-on with various family folk art workshops and shop for treasures from one-of-a-kind artist vendors.
These are some of the pieces my students made for this great event, we still need to finish them and add chains and beads. I am still firing more pieces and I will post them when they are finished.
I was so HAPPY when I got this wonderful book in the mail. Carles Codina has been one of my favorite artists since I started taking metal smithing classes, his books are in my bookshelf and I always go and look back at them all the time. One of my first books I got was The Complete Book of Jewelry Making and I knew Carles Codina is not only an amazing artists but an incredible teacher and book author. Color, Textures & Casting for Jewelers is published by Lark Jewelry & Beading (Sterling publisher) and it is a book that covers wonderful ancient techniques as keum boo, mokume gane and granulation. As Carles Codina says in his book, the truly best way to learn and understand jewelry making is to practice it directly in the workbench. This is why I think this book is going to be a great source to have in any studio because it shows hands-on demonstrations and ways to put all the techniques covered in the book into practice. The book has beautiful pictures which makes it easier to understand every technique covered in it.
Mokume Gane involves creating a block made up of different sheets of metal without using solder. This has been a technique I have always admired and Carles Codina explains and shows every step of the process to create it in this book. The images are very clear and I am sure you will be eager to try it just by looking at the pictures and the wonderful gallery images.
Granulation is a technique that involves joining small granules or balls of silver or gold together or on a precious metal surface. I have seen so many wonderful pieces made with this great ancient technique and the book demonstrates very clearly how to be able to do it.
A big part of the book is dedicated to modeling and casting, which is one of my favorite things to do and learn. I have done lost wax, sand, cuttlebone, water and tufa stone castings but this book covers much more than that.
You will learn about modeling, microcasting, working with waxes, ceramic coatings, bronze casting, mold making, casting in a closed crucible and much more.
This book is a source of great information with incredible images that will make any jeweler eager to get into the studio and start working and practicing. I know this because that is the way I felt when I finished reading the book.
I have been designing some new pieces inspired by the Mayan and Aztec cultures. My country has so much richness in its culture and heritage and I always very proud to create pieces that represent me and who I am.
Here are some of my pieces I made using Bronzclay (metal clay).
My latest piece is named after a wonderful Mayan mask,The Mask of Dead and Rebirth. This is the meaning of this mask that I found in the internet:
This Maya mask shows the different stages of life as part of a never ending cicle of human evolution through life and the afterlife as it was understood by the mayas. The mask has three layered faces, each representing one particular stage of life. The inner face represents the beginning of life at birth. The middle face is the most important one since it represents the adult stage when the person comes into his full potential and most of his life experiences happened. The outer or third face represents the end of earthly life. This sacred time was viewed by the Maya as the end of one cycle and the beginning of another one. Death was followed by lavish preparations for the next life.
In this video you can see how I made this necklace:
