Over the Memorial Day weekend, Nancy Megan Corwin returned to San Diego for another workshop. I attended the the first workshop given my Megan which was only 2 days and gave me a great start on my skills. This workshop was FOUR days and I was able to complete the project I had set for myself and then some but I was a very tired puppy Monday night when I got home.
Each of the four days, Megan gave demonstrations in the morning and the afternoon that lasted from 15 minutes to just under an hour and the remaining time during the day was spent working on the technique presented in the demo or on our personal project/goals. For example, we had demo's on tool making which I watched, but because I am in the tools class at Metals Week with Val Link, I only made a brass undercutting tool but I did not grind a tool nor did I hot forge a tool.
Besides me, two other students in this workshop (there was a total of 10) also attended the first workshop with Megan back in December - Michael from Chicago and Elizabeth from Oberlin. There was another student had previously taken a workshop with Valentin Yotkov, my friend Mary and Terri who were beginners and the remaining students were at other skill levels so there was a wide range experience.
In the last workshop Megan had also brought along many pieces she has made or collected. Some of the items she made were completed or there were multiples of them all at various stages of the process so she could show us this progression. This time Megan also had a new piece - a small vessel by David Huang and we all lusted after it - literally and I think I spoke for everyone when I said that if she turned her back too long, it would be gone!
I brought several of my completed pieces so I could get some feedback from Megan on my technique. This was important because just sending pictures to Megan only allows her to see what I have taken a picture of; by looking at the entire piece she could see and point out where areas were good and others still need work. I have to admit that several of the pieces I had not look at since "I finished them" - and as I handed them to Megan I looked and could see areas where I had missed under cutting, and in places the lining was not even. One of the pieces I asked Megan to look at with her critical eye was my Swirl bowl. Yes, there were many little fixes to be done but despite these being pointed out, Megan said it was very good and that she liked it - she liked it so much she wanted it.
Oh - gosh, now what do I do?
Do I give it to her, ask for money - ask what she would like to buy it for; ask for a trade because having one of her pieces would be great but it would certainly be worth waaaaayyy more than my piece. I had to think and ponder, so I let is stew in my brain for another day or two.
As mentioned in a previous post, I have a set of the Nechamkin tools . On Lisa's website, she has a texture wheel that was made with the tools in this basic set. My goal for the workshop was to work on surface textures using these basic tools - not texturing tools made specifically for texturing. I thought I would use Lisa's texture wheel as my inspiration and see what I could do. I spent most of Day 1 making a circular shallow dome, not a hemisphere, on which to do my textures. In the afternoon of the first day, Mary and I took a break and went to the Chocolat shop on the corner. You could stand there and try each and every flavor they had, all 16-20 of them. I settled on combo of the dark chocolate and pistachio - it was wonderful and some of the best I have ever had. YUMMY.
After 4:00 pm, 8 of us took a side field trip to the Taboo Studio where I saw some amazing work; spoke to one of the owners; and she gave us post cards from prior shows. After visiting the gallery we went out to dinner and I did not get home until 10-ish and my husband wanted to hear all about the day and I was in bed and snoring an hour later.
Here is a picture of my sampler at the end of the day and you can view all my pictures under Metals - Classes -2010
Each of the four days, Megan gave demonstrations in the morning and the afternoon that lasted from 15 minutes to just under an hour and the remaining time during the day was spent working on the technique presented in the demo or on our personal project/goals. For example, we had demo's on tool making which I watched, but because I am in the tools class at Metals Week with Val Link, I only made a brass undercutting tool but I did not grind a tool nor did I hot forge a tool.
Besides me, two other students in this workshop (there was a total of 10) also attended the first workshop with Megan back in December - Michael from Chicago and Elizabeth from Oberlin. There was another student had previously taken a workshop with Valentin Yotkov, my friend Mary and Terri who were beginners and the remaining students were at other skill levels so there was a wide range experience.
In the last workshop Megan had also brought along many pieces she has made or collected. Some of the items she made were completed or there were multiples of them all at various stages of the process so she could show us this progression. This time Megan also had a new piece - a small vessel by David Huang and we all lusted after it - literally and I think I spoke for everyone when I said that if she turned her back too long, it would be gone!
I brought several of my completed pieces so I could get some feedback from Megan on my technique. This was important because just sending pictures to Megan only allows her to see what I have taken a picture of; by looking at the entire piece she could see and point out where areas were good and others still need work. I have to admit that several of the pieces I had not look at since "I finished them" - and as I handed them to Megan I looked and could see areas where I had missed under cutting, and in places the lining was not even. One of the pieces I asked Megan to look at with her critical eye was my Swirl bowl. Yes, there were many little fixes to be done but despite these being pointed out, Megan said it was very good and that she liked it - she liked it so much she wanted it.
Oh - gosh, now what do I do?
Do I give it to her, ask for money - ask what she would like to buy it for; ask for a trade because having one of her pieces would be great but it would certainly be worth waaaaayyy more than my piece. I had to think and ponder, so I let is stew in my brain for another day or two.
As mentioned in a previous post, I have a set of the Nechamkin tools . On Lisa's website, she has a texture wheel that was made with the tools in this basic set. My goal for the workshop was to work on surface textures using these basic tools - not texturing tools made specifically for texturing. I thought I would use Lisa's texture wheel as my inspiration and see what I could do. I spent most of Day 1 making a circular shallow dome, not a hemisphere, on which to do my textures. In the afternoon of the first day, Mary and I took a break and went to the Chocolat shop on the corner. You could stand there and try each and every flavor they had, all 16-20 of them. I settled on combo of the dark chocolate and pistachio - it was wonderful and some of the best I have ever had. YUMMY.
After 4:00 pm, 8 of us took a side field trip to the Taboo Studio where I saw some amazing work; spoke to one of the owners; and she gave us post cards from prior shows. After visiting the gallery we went out to dinner and I did not get home until 10-ish and my husband wanted to hear all about the day and I was in bed and snoring an hour later.
Here is a picture of my sampler at the end of the day and you can view all my pictures under Metals - Classes -2010
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