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A Finnish within the Benelux Network

7/28/2014

From the European network I regularly get the question if I can and want to train new colleagues. Or one signs up for any of the supplement programs. So I already have welcomed some metal clay colleagues outside the Benelux. For example:

Meropi Toumba * Cyprus * New Mokume-Gane
Lynne Glazzard * Engeland * New Mokume-Gane
Susan Diana Wilson * Germany * New Mokume-Gane
Kirstin Paal * Germany * New Mokume-Gane
Roswitha Schwarz * Germany * New Mokume-Gane
Karen Hørmann * Denemarken * New Mokume-Gane
Flemming Gjel Sørensen * Denemarken * New Mokume-Gane
Gabriëla Tâche * Zwitserland * New Mokume-Gane
Anna Thaller * Oostenrijk * New Mokume-Gane
Dorothée Hatzky * Tobago W.I. * New Mokume-Gane

And today, Kaisa Dabek closed this line, completing her last training day, so that she receives the Level
1 Certificate one of these days. Kaisa is a Finnish lady who is staying in the Netherlands for a year, together with her husband. In Finland she attended several workshops Art Clay Silver under the inspiring guidance of Meira Rauta. And we can conclude that Kaisa is captivated by the metal clay virus. Reason for her to look for a Dutch instructor,to follow her instructor training. For this, she chose "Nevada's Dream", a recommendation from Meira and Astari Swatantri, these last mentioned as a Finnish distributor for Art Clay Silver.

During her training Kaisa clearly showed to have learned some excellent basic skills from her colleagues in Finland. Because of this and her enthusiastic passionate commitment she completes the training successfully and submits thereby six stunning pieces of jewelry.

Kaisa, this way I wish you much success in the metal clay world. I enjoyed your presence and feel honored to
have been able to assist you. We keep in touch after our holidays and we are planning a number of dates to work on our entry for the Art Clay Silver Accessories Contest together, okay?

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A Special Order

7/27/2014

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"Parental Love"

In addition to providing workshops and teaching an Art Clay Silver (supplement)training, I also design commissioned. The last is less frequent. Particular to the commissioned work is that there is something required from me. This is certainly different, after all, in a workshop or training, I want something from my students. During the elaboration of an order, the student upwards into me.

So I recently received an order from the oldest brother of my husband Michael - my brother in law Janneman.

He asked me to work on a pendant design and deliver two copies. One for his sweet daughter Tamara Naïche
and the other for her mother, Dia Wolfs. And he clearly thought about design.

I get a few months to complete both pendants and deliver them with a matching necklace. And I may say that the end result has become great. Insanely beautiful, like Janneman calls it. The whole process is again a layout taught me about metal clay, I had to use all my technical thinking and working skills to give these designs properly stature.

The ladies wear them now. Attached pictures show what Janneman intented to depict to his precious daughter and her mother. The poem that he wrote for them belongs to the pendants and explains how he came to this design.

Dear Janneman, Dia and Tamara, I felt it an honor to perform this task.
I look back on a lovingly project and wish that you may wear them many years. Love ya all!

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Girls Day with Metalclay

7/26/2014

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Renske and I have another clay date and today our fellow instructor Atekeh Raisi joins the party. After
a period of balmy summer days refreshing rain will be expected. An ideal day to work with metal clay.

We get together at the studio of Renske and the three of us make it a usual fun and educational day. Atekeh
comes from Delft and has her own studio over there. She works mostly on commission and creates beautifully finished jewelry.

With coffee and tea she took us a divine chocolate mousse cake. Despite our intentions, to be a little nicer to
our bodies and not to bombarding them with such calorie bombs, the cake is almost completely eaten. Conclusion: Too Tasty !!!

Renske is working on her design for the Pearl Contest. Atekeh is in repair mode and restores some work in commission. I myself try a design for the upcoming Art Clay Silver Accessories Contest 2015.

At noon we have lunch together. Renske has created wonderfully nutritious salads and sushi. Blissful!

You already read it was a great day. In unique and loving company of each other, were doing new ideas. We are going to meet more often like this.

Ladies, thanks for the great day !

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Supplement Kumihimo

7/6/2014

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Design: Dani Bus

A new supplement training for Studio "Nevada's Dream", the teaching of braids with fine silver wire, kumihimo. I’ve already taught workshops with this, but the instructor supplement has ever been actual in my 6 year career as a teacher.

Today we're going to braid. My dear colleagues Edith van Leeuwen of "ArtiChic" from Hillegom and Dani Bus of "Dani's ABC" from Nieuwegein have registered with the intention to obtain a certificate.

It's lovely sunny weather that makes the whole cozy already. In addition, the cheerful character of the two ladies and already the day looks top!

We start braiding with colored wool. So we can practice to avoid errors braiding the bracelet. After all, for this silver is too expensive. The technique does require attention, an incorrect act noticed too late, is hard to recover.

They both place a silver clayo rnament to the bracelet.
After drying and finishing, the piece of jewelry is fired. To finally get the bracelet nicely polished, a tumbler appears the outcome. It hardens the silver wire, which by heating has become soft and flexible.

In between we make time for lunch, and we enjoy delicious sandwiches and fresh orange juice.

At 16.30 we finish and the ladies go back home.
Edith and Dani, both thanks for the great day, soon we arrange a new metalclay date!

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Masterclasses Anna Mazoń

7/2/2014

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Again 5 days Renske and I traveled to our neighboringcountry named Belgium. From June 28 to July 2, 2014, we followed the masterclasses of Anna Mazoń. The organization was once again in the hands of our hostess Inge Verbruggen.

Anna is from Krakow - Poland and owner of "Drakonaria".
She is very talented in the field of metal clay.
A masterclass taught by her, is an opportunity that I do not want to miss.

We have both registeredfor three classes:
-      Twig Rings
-      Forest Stories
-      Herbarium Pendant

It can be called almost standard by now, that I may ride towards Temse with Renske. We leave around 8:00 am from De Bilt. The route is more crowded than usual, but we have enough slack, so we arrive in time.

These days we spend the nights in the Bed & Breakfast “De Brug” in Temse.
We sleep in a tidy room called "Prins Philippe". The daily breakfast is included, we do lunch during the masterclasses and we use diner together with Inge and Anna. For this opportunity, again Michael cooked us a large pan nasi. Along with fried onions, gado gado, emping and emping blado we can eat for at least two days, hahaha. Furthermore, we have avocado’s, mango’s and cashew nuts, delicious ingredients with which a tasty salad can be made. Inge has brought fêta cheese from Egypt, a delightful addition. Then one of these days Inge makes a spaghetti meal and for the remaining one more day we decide to eat outside. Finally, Baileys and Mozart, the contribution for fun! We will get through these days !!!

At arrival in Belgium, we decide to check in at the B&B until after the first workshop, that seems early enough. Attendees for this two-day masterclass “Forest Stories” are Edith van Leeuwen, Katty van der Elst, Claudia Smets, Els Mariën, Inge Verbruggen, Renske Dussel and myself. We work these days with Goldie Bronze and learn modeling a three-dimensional tree, which is decorated with cubic zirconia and elements in both bronze and silver clay. The decorations are made entirely by hand and Anna gives us above all sorts of tips and tricks. There’s thus no use of templates. Among others we learn how to model an owl and a squirrel ourselves. Of course we are free to use and apply possible other elements by our own ideas. The result is stunningly beautiful.

The 3rd day we take part in the masterclass “Twig Rings”. Here we learn to form a ring with a very open structure out of a roll of clay. The ring is decorated with cubic zirconia and tiny flowers and leaves. These decorations are made entirely by hand, without the use of templates. Participating in this workshop are Kelly Cogen, Katty van der Elst, Stien Verspecht, An Meel, Alex Vogel, Inge Verbruggen and again Renske and me.

Finally, the last two days we work to a “Herbarium Pendant”. Along with Marianne de Bakker, Kristel Conincx, Inge Verbruggen, Renske and myself, we work with silver clay, learning to make a pendant with small ornaments and a natural stone. Everything is hand sculpted. The stone is soldered to the pendant in a customized and soldered bezel. After the pendant is finished - think of polishing and patina - the natural stone is set. This is my cup of tea! Working with silver always speaks to me more than working with the more common metals. The result is much better and more to my liking than the designs of the first two workshops, even though those designs also are very nice.

It's good having worked again with various kinds of metal clay. It lifts my skills in this area to a higher level and that is good. These last few days we managed to design many beautiful jewelry, sharing new techniques.

Ladies - and of course Alex -, thank you all for the very pleasant days. Anna, you are a very talented metal clay artist, I've learned a lot from you and I hope to meet again very soon. Perhaps until February 2015?! Inge again, you’ve shown being a great host, the organization was top! Renske, as always you’re the last lined up in my acknowledgments. Thanks for the ride, and your flexibility in sharing our room!

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A Finnish within the Benelux Network

A Special Order

Girls Day with Metalclay

Supplement Kumihimo

Masterclasses Anna Mazoń

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