Sunday, February 15, 2009

I won!!!!



I am so excited; I won a pair of wonderful earrings from EMILIA SAMUDIO at “We Love Art Fire” http://weloveartfire.ning.com/ on Valentine’s day, thank you so much Emilia, I love you!!!
If you have a studio over on Art Fire, or just love buying handmade... Join We love Art Fire Today for FREE!
http://www.artfire.com/
Emilia makes beautiful things and is also on Bead-Space
http://bead-space.com/Emilia

And here is her website
http://www.emilia.artfire.com/
Emilia you are my shining star!!!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Orange County Classes




I had the pleasure of teaching a couple of classes for the Orange County Guild last weekend. I left on Friday night and was battered by the rain all the way to orange county, almost turned around and then I thought, it will be like this all the way home, might as well keep moving forward.
My beloved Myra Katz put all of it together and in my opinion it was a smashing success.
I have had many beautiful experiences teaching but this one I will remember for many years with a smile on my face. The food was wonderful and plenty and Erika brought me gluten free ginger snaps from Trader Joes. Everything fell beautifully in to place. The room was warm, big, and the tables were great. I had someone come from the LA guild, Thank you Susan, long drives after an all day class and long drives in the morning to get there. I stayed with a charming woman, Alva LaFevre, I know Alva and I have always loved her, but it was such a pleasure to stay with her and get to know her better, many layers, talents, and interesting stories and the fact that I was treated like a queen made it all the more pleasurable. Had to take the crown off when I got home, it doesn’t fly well in my house at all.
Well enough blathering… the class was on how to make the flowers that I do. All went very well and EVERYONE made flowers, and EVERYONE’S flowers came out so well. I was so impressed, everyone had different skill levels and they were all wonderful. The hand outs were fine but I found that they inhibited the majority and I had not edited them enough, too many mistakes. I have a lot of excuses I could give, but they are just that excuses. Jill Kollmann kaliedascoped (new word) the petals and came out with some beautiful canes, YAY!!! Trina Williams made a beautiful flower with all the right colors and a magical appearance. She also suggested using wire coiled for the centers and embroidery or cotton thread and French knots for adding the flowers to clothing and hats, just brilliant!
I cried when I got this email and the picture in it. Here is my first picture from the class and it is from Dotty Mc Millan, you can see her other beautiful pieces at http://alookingglass.homestead.com/Dottykaleidoscopes.html
Dotty is a very talented woman in her own right, she has written several brilliant books, and I was completely flattered by her attendance! Thank you Dotty, for sharing this beautiful piece with me and oh… everyone else.
The next day went very well too, hmmmmmmmm two days in a row; I could become so comfortable with this. We did the shrine class this day and fun was had by all, I truly relished in the things that came out of this class and how the group took it to a whole notha level ;-D. I am really looking forward to seeing those pictures as they come. I think I want to give Sam Katz the award for the day just because she hates hearts (Sam and my husband are lucky enough to be sweetheart babies, Happy Birthday you two) and the shrine had hearts on it and she did not want to get even close to what I did and she did different colors and a different theme, a kind of steam punk rendition with light green, oh man, did I want that shrine. I thought I was being so clever by making the shrine with a heart-y theme for the upcoming holiday. And Becky Brooks did a bang up job too and she doesn’t even like to show her stuff from classes! After all I do talk about going in your own direction with your own add ins in the handout…but someone listening is always good.
“I think that making a shrine to commemorate a moment or period in your life that is monumental in so many ways, or a quality you want to emulate, helps to cement the lessons and also to let go of the energy, positive or negative to move on to the next page in this mystical experience we call life.
These are small testaments to the process I have enjoyed my self.
This one to the left is a personal shrine of mine. I have noticed that I collect things for my shrines now and my mind looks for things and meanings to incorporate in to the shrines. I love the ceremony of them and the ritual involved with the experience of collecting, developing, and manifesting this work.
I am going to share a small part of the ever changing quality and life of this craft that morphs as you go.
Also if you do these for someone as a request or order, do yourself and them a favor of not working or pondering on them with out clear, clean, and loving intent. There is power here and it is a responsibility. If this is the road that is taken, the rewards for all involved will be many.”
And boy were the rewards many. Powerful pieces all of them.

I had so much fun with this weekend. I feel like I shouldn’t tell anyone, that I have to suffer to teach and that there has to be pain to be rewarding. But I had fun and it was joyful and I am so grateful for the experience and the talented people I had the pleasure to share with over that glorious and miraculous two days. Thank you all for gracing me with your wonderful and insightful presence. I will be forever better because of knowing you all.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is a tutorial from me to you!
Happy Valentine's day and thank you for everything my little sweethearts.
Love,
Marie


Hearts of Many Dimensions
Marie Segal©2008

Valentine Sweethearts
Cernit
Opaque White- 029
Neon Pink-213

All of the supplies that you see with a link can be found at my husband's store, Clay Factory, the link will take you to the page the supply is on or you can go to http://www.clayfactory.net/ and go through everything one page at a time.

1. Condition white clay until smooth consistency and roll out the white clay on the thickest setting in the clay machine.
2. Cut out 2- white hearts with the medium cutter in the three piece set.


3. Mix some neon pink clay and glamour white clay together 1 to 1n and roll out the pink clay on the 3rd thickest setting and cut out one small heart, place the cutter on top, in the middle of the white clay heart, do not press down but pull back the cutter quickly and the pink heart should stay on the white heart. This does take some practice but once you get it, it is the best way to get the heart out of the cutter with out making marks on the heart. Do the same thing with the other white heart. Press both pink hearts on to the white hearts with out smashing them.


4. Place finger gently on pink heart and press gently to hold heart in place, take the needle tool and hold perpendicular to the hearts and make marks in the white heart on the outside about 1/8” apart and about 1/16” deep. As you do this, bring point of needle tool towards pink heart keeping it straight up and down vertically to make the mark.
Make marks all the way around the outside of the white heart.

5. With the point of the needle tool make 3 dots between each mark. The one dot will be on the outside of the heart and the 2 dots in a line will be on the inside of the white heart closest to the pink heart all the way around.






6. Condition a small piece of light green clay and roll through the clay machine on the 5th thickest setting. Cut out a 3/16” teardrop and place on the pink heart with the point of the teardrop facing the outside of the heart at the top and pull back the cutter really fast to pull out the green leaf from the cutter. Put one opposite this one on the other side of the pink heart and do this with the other white and pink heart so they are both the same. Gently press the green leaves in to place.

With the knife tool mark the center vein on each leaf or teardrop.









With the point of the 5/16” teardrop, place the point into the center mark and mark both veins on the sides of the center vein at the same time with the point of the teardrop. Make 2 of these marks on each leaf.




7. Condition the lilac clay and roll out on the thickest setting in the clay machine.
Cut out 2 of the 5/16” teardrops and press out of the cutter,(you are doing this to measure the size and keep the clay the same size for both flowers. Roll both of the cut outs in to balls. Then roll each of those balls in to cones about ¾” long. Flatten with your finger. Roll each of these from the thick end of the cone to the thin point of the cone to form a spiral bud.

Place the point of this spiral in between each set of leaves and gently press onto the pink hearts.






8. If you want dangles place the eye hooks into the white hearts between the top lobes of each heart. When they are baked pull them out with chain nose pliers and with just a little bit of Cyanoacrylate glue on to the post of the hook and place back into the hole you made with the hook before baking. Add the fish hook ear wires or don't and glue the posts to the back after baking.



9. Place on to a piece of corrugated cardboard box.
10. Bake these in the oven at the manufacturer’s temperature 265 degrees for 20- 30 minutes.
Take out of the oven and let cool completely, glue earring backs with Cyanoacrylate glue. Let dry completely.