Charity Events

Saturday was a busy day. My mannequin, Rene, needed to be dropped off at the Fashion Show/Lunch for St. Madeleine Sophie's Center at the Sheraton Harbor Drive. They had 800 people for lunch and hopefully raised a lot of money for a very worthy cause.
You can see from these photos Rene was in good company.

This beautifully tailored jacket was made from window screen.

Stopped by the SDPCG Clay Day between chauffeuring Rene, and made a few Bottles of Hope. If you refer back to the 10-20-10 post you can read a bit more about how Bottles of Hope came into being. This photo shows some of the creative bottles that were baked and ready to go to Moores Cancer Center.

Gaskin Anomaly Detector

In March, the Balboa Park Online Collaborative launched Balboa Park’s first-ever steampunk design contest. The contest offered steampunk enthusiasts the opportunity to show their creativity by creating a version of the Anomaly Detector used by the characters Pandora and Drake in Giskin Anomaly, Balboa Park’s park-wide cell phone adventure. I didn't win anything, but had fun designing a detector for the contest. To see the winning design, go to http://www.balboapark.org/ and type in Gaskin Anomoly Detector.
In my entry below, there is a sliding door that opens to a secret compartment that holds the actual device.

Here you can see the sliding door where the device fits inside.

Close-up of the hidden detector. It is made of polymer clay, jewelry parts, and computer parts.

Close up of the top of the case composed mostly of computer parts and watch parts.

Bottles of Hope

The Bottles of Hope Program began in 1999 by Diane Gregoire, a polymer clay artist who had survived breast cancer and a member of the Southern Connecticut Polymer Clay Guild. While sitting for hours during treatments, she noticed all the empty medicine bottles being thrown away and the idea was born.
We take these bottles, all from medications that are non-toxic, such as Heparin or sterile water, clean them, remove the tops and labels, and decorate them with imaginative polymer clay designs. Patients receiving these bottles, and the staff that cares for them, are so touched by the thought behind them that they become cherished tokens of the care of strangers. Some bottles have optional notes inside them with wishes for good health, poems, or inspirational messages.
At Sandy Camp this year, our guild made over 80 bottles for patients at Moores Cancer Center here in San Diego. You can see the creativity that went into each one.

Thanks to all the participants.

Recycled Floppy Bracelets

Do you still have some old floppy disks floating around? If you do, you could have some fun making jewelry with the recycled parts. I took apart some floppy disks we finally decided to toss and saved the metal tops and the round disks found in the middle. I wasn't sure how I'd use them, but knew that sometime I would make either jewelry or sculpture with them. Isn't that what a typical pack rat artist would say? Meanwhile I needed to recondition a LOT of old polymer clay for the Lindly Hanani workshop coming to my guild. The recycled scrap clay looked so beautiful, (doesn't it always) that I had to divert from the conditioning task and make a couple bracelets to celebrate Earth Day. Here are the basics.

Taking apart the floppy is easy. The challenge comes when you try to drill holes in each metal disk to attach them together. I would recommend a very small drill bit, 1/16 or finer. You could also put wire through the center hole to the back and string them together that way.

Roll out the clay on the pasta machine at the thickest setting. Cut with a circle cutter about the same size as the disk or a little smaller. You can always flatten it out to fit. Push the clay into the metal disks. Bake. After the disks are cool, remove the clay, and spread some glue on the back side.

Reposition the clay on the metal disk and let dry. Add jump rings to connect the disks together and add a clasp. You can see I used magnets for one, and wire for the other. Have fun!

A Working Studio

I think of my studio as a vegetable garden, when things follow their natural course, they grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water.
                                                                                                                                            Joan Miro

After a year of feeling like a gypsy selling my wares on the Spanish Village patio, I have moved into Studio 34-B with three talented artists: Danielle Deaton, and Sally Bly, water color painters, and Linda Lepeirs, a photographer. I feel like a real artist now. Funny how having an actual studio outside the little table or desk designated as a home work space makes it legitimate. It declaration to the world that an actual "artist" works here; not just a mom squeezing in a creative project, or a teacher making a demonstration piece to show students. I look forward to being in this great community of artists and hope you will visit if you are in the area.

Studio 34-B is in the middle of the lower photo on the left.
Spanish Village is in beautiful Balboa Park. For more information, check out the link on the right.