What a Week Off !!!

Photo's from the Gathering Place Studio of Trey Cornette and a selection of his beads.

It was a glorious trip. See those pictures!!! Those are Trey Cornette’s beads and a picture of him making a bead. Trey taught a bucket full of hot shop techniques I’d never seen used for bead making. They made perfect sense. He was generous with his information and resources. What a Lampworker and technician.

I came back from Naperville The Gathering Place Studio (http://thegatheringplacestudio.com/) supercharged, picked up a different set of tools, and headed out for Brighton Beads here in Michigan. Nancy Graber (BB’s owner) has talents and connections with her own set of top notch instructors. The studio space is a little cramped but it’s only because it’s jam packed from ceiling to floor with tools.

I’ve owned a hydraulic press since they came out but never had the proper instruction as to its capabilities. Jiro Masuda (http://jirojmasuda.com/) is a tool junkie’s wet dream of an instructor. That’s probably a crude way to put it but JJ knows tools and does “Art”, with a capital A. Lucky for me he also likes teaching and is a friend of Nancy’s.

Don’t you love it when the stars align in your artistic house of learning?

I learned crease folds, T-folds, pleat folds, fold this way and that way. Forcing metal into sublime submission is more than just a hoot – it’s darn near orgasmic. Following all that folding and hammering came the pressing and annealing. Talk about metal torture. I felt like a Soprano with a snitch. “For getta ‘bout it!”

The pictures posted above are from Jiro Masuda’s class. The first one is of JJ (Jiro) demonstrating for us and the other is some of the forms I made in the class. I also included the pair of copper earrings out of the some of the forms.

I just need to meld some lampworking with some hydraulic work and see what I can create.