Street Side, Beach Side Show and Tell

I finally made a home for some treasures that I found on the street and at the beach. Here are a couple of rings made with steel washers (rusted and worn just so); a delicate white sea glass necklace; a hefty pendant featuring a flat Jasper bead.  I set each element with fine silver bezel wire. 

They're a happy little family.

I love pairing brass and silver; I think it gives some pieces a little more interest and dimension.

Texture! And negative space!

I made the larger washer ring with a brass backing and ring shank that I cut and formed from sheet and wire. For the smaller ring, I used sterling silver all around, except for a sliver of brass filling the slit at one o'clock.

Flea Market Follow Up & Other Shout Outs

I hate to say it, but I need (want) to get a smart phone. If I had one, then you'd be looking at pictures from the Punk Rock Fleamarket instead of just reading text. This is not to say that text is insufficient. I love text. My livelihood depends on it, and I pretty much want to marry it...

Punk Rock Flea Market

It's June but the Seattle sky still weeps. Luckily, the forecast predicts a steamy 75 degrees this coming Saturday. I'll be selling some jewelry and gently worn apparel and shoes at the Punk Rock Flea Market in Belltown! It'll be my first time selling my wares. Wish me luck and come check it out for yourself if you're in Seattle.

For a dollar entry, you'll get to cruise myriad merch from 80+ vendors, listen to some bands, and sip on a mid-day drink (or two or three) from the onsite bar. Entry fees will be donated to the Low Income Housing Institute.

And here are some new sterling silver pieces I'll be selling at the event:

Slight but sweet sterling studs.

Spring Stones

Some new pieces with rhodocrosite, turquoise, yellow serpentine, and aventurine cabochons.

20x200 Art Prints

I'm drooling over the prints at 20x200, a Web site that brings artists' work to the public at affordable prices. Artists get to share their work with a larger audience and art lovers with thin wallets can build an art collection. Commendable and fabulous!

A few pieces I'm contemplating:

Old Typewriter by Todd McLellan. Awe-some.

My Workbench

Ah, the workbench. A maker's church.

Earlier this year my beau Ben built my workbench in our garage. I've been dreaming of a space like this for as long as I can remember and now that it has materialized I want to show it off like a newborn baby.  Ben happens to be a residential contractor, so lucky for me, carving out this space was within my reach.

A curve was cut into the door so I can keep my torch work closer to the vent.

The garage floor is slightly slanted, so Ben built a wood platform to level the ground. For the actual tabletop he resurrected a heavy, solid-wood door that had a previous life in a courthouse. It was covered in black leather and round metal rivets, like something out of an S&M dungeon. He stripped all of that off and anchored it to the wall with a two-by-four, which adds a ton of stability.

A Modern Reliquary

Just sharing a few pieces I made back in the summer of '09. I was a grad student then, pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing. The program required students to take some electives, so I took an intensive intro metalsmithing class. It was a wonderful break from writing and obsessing over what I was going to do with my thesis. The experience even inspired a short story that made it into my MFA thesis, but that's a different post. If I'm lucky enough to get it published someday, I'll be sure to share the news here.

Our final project for the class was to create a modern interpretation of a reliquary, a special container meant to enshrine the bones of saints and the dead. Reliquaries have traditionally been an important object in religion and various cultures over time and are often as remarkable as the stories of the objects they hold.

I adored working on this project. Growing up Catholic, I developed a fascination for pomp and superstition. And being a jewelry maker and writer, I'm very much interested in objects and meanings.

Etched brass and copper.

Beginnings

Hello! Hello! Anybody out there? 

Welcome to my tiny corner of the Web! I'm Angela and Knuckle Kiss is my jewelry maker moniker.

I'll be using this space to share my work, jewelry making processes, news, and other things that inspire me as a maker. It's been about 12 years since my first metalsmithing class, and after a long hiatus, I'm back at the bench and eager to play. 

Here are few pieces I made at the aforementioned metalsmithing class I took many moons ago. These rings are handcut and hollow formed from sterling silver sheet. Tough as tough gets, but feels butter soft on the fingers.

More posts to come, but in the meantime take a look-see at more images of my work on my Flickr page.