Monday 21 May 2018

Not Bad For a Monday

After 2 days of rain and fog, today, holiday Monday, is beautiful!

We were asked to produce a piece to be used as a prize and the buyer selected the stone but gave us total control of the setting so here's what we came up with.


It's Mexican Crazy Lace with a nice live edge in two spots and set with 100% hand made copper findings. In fact, Vickie just taught me how to make the pieces on the side, called balled head pins and those are two I made this morning.
Why yes, I AM proud of myself!
We finished it off with a really nice red leather cord that I just got in stock and it picks up the red in the stone perfectly!
Our objective at The Artist's Mark is to create interesting pieces that bear the mark of the artist(s) and that are also beautiful and we have many more like this in our shop. So come on by and check us out!
Cheers.

Friday 18 May 2018

Closed today

Due to a family commitment, the store will be closed today, Friday but will be open the usual hours tomorrow and Sunday. On Monday, we will be open from 9 am.
Hope to see you soon!

Sunday 13 May 2018

The Art of Balance

What do you do when you are working with a stone that is "lopsided"- weighed more to one side? We did some tests and if we simply hung it (I wanted to tab set it on a copper back), it would hang on a slant.
So here's where it pays to be married to someone who is not only an artist, but a mathematician!
Vickie came up with this:


NO, this is not aboriginal art, but rather a backer plate design to balance the off- balance stone. Did I mention that Vickie is an abstract artist?
Here's the stone sitting on the copper backer plate:


I came up with the idea of creating a copper "tube" at the neck to hold the cord and now we simply had to distress the copper a bit and fold the tabs and the tube to produce the finished piece.


As you can see, it hangs absolutely vertically and this is how it looks from the back.


We added a beautiful, premium Greek leather cord (that picks up the stone's colour perfectly) and hand made copper clasps and after we distress the back copper a little more, it will be for sale in the shop for $85 Canadian.
I love solving these types of problems- especially when you have someone around to "do the math"!
The stone is set nice and solid and the colours and striking patterns are even more vivid in person.
It is interesting to note that this Mexican Crazy Lace just seems to go perfectly with copper and it was most likely collected near a copper deposit. In fact, it has a tiny area of oxidized native copper in it that creates a tiny bright green highlight.
Hope to see you soon!

P.S. I will be doing a blog post next week on our recent day trips to give you an idea of what you can do and see if you come to the Digby area so check back later!

Friday 11 May 2018

First Pieces Using The New Machine

So I have been playing around with the new Hi-Tech slant lap, woorking on some straight faced specimens but finally decided to bite  the bullet and do a couple of cabs. I figures I might as well jump right into the deep end and use a couple of beautiful pieces of Mexican Crazy Lace and here's the result:


When I got it polished, I noticed that there is a little native copper in it.
There are a few scratches, due to the fact that the 180 grit wheel was a little rough because of being new but all in all I'm pretty pleased- especially by how well the shaping worked. This material also looks really nice back lit

So I'm going to have to set it in a way that light can shine through.
My second tumbler load will be finished tomorrow and there is some really nice stuff in there as well so I'll try to post a few pics.
Also, Vickie and I have been doing some day trips so next week I am going to do a post to show some of the things families can do when they visit the area.
Hope  to see you soon!
Cheers.

Tuesday 1 May 2018

Closed Thursday

Just a note that the shop and rock lab will be closed Thursday May 3rd but will reopen on the Friday. As well, we will be open regular hours through the week and on weekends from now until the end of the fall.