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Page 2, continued...
After our free day, it was time to get to work. We signed up for a 6 day workshop (4 full days and 2 half days) that would "expand our command of metal clay under the guidance of two award winning artists", Gordon K. Uyehara & Louise Duhamel. I have to say, there is always a little bit of trepidation, committing a bunch of money to a class in a foreign land with teachers you don't know in a subject you are very unfamiliar with, but luckily, we couldn't have been in better hands. On the first day, it was such a relief to here all the other students (who actually do know a lot about metal clay), during introductions, rave about what amazing artists these two are & what a pleasure it was to be able to have a chance to learn from them. In truth, mom & I were just kind of happy to get away from the cold when we signed up so it was icing on the cake that we had such impressive teachers to learn from.
Here, Louise (the lady in blue & green sitting) is showing us a demo. In front of her is an armadillo shell, brought in from another classmate, Raymond who lives in Puerto Vallarta & who is also an artist (incredible illustrator) & a collector of unusual items. This shell made for some cool molds. You can just see a peek of Gordon on the left.
Louise is a fulltime flight attendant, who still manages to be ahead in the field of metal clay & creates beautiful & often whimsical pieces. She is a super funny, creative & a thoughtful teacher. She guided us each step of the way & her project, a small silver casa, was quite complicated so guidance was needed. Here is a picture of her house. It has a peephole & opens up (on handmade hinges!) to show an image of a naked woman brushing her hair.
Below is mom's casa - which originally had an image inside, but when we got home she added some jeweled honeycombs on top of the image & some little bee charms & made it into a honey house. It's hard to spot the bees in the photo, but there are 3 of them (1 on the right of the roof, one peeking into the keyhole & one as a charm dangling from the door) ~ it turned out very well!
And below is mine, which I call the "Love Shack". It has little silver hearts on the door with cubic zircons inside the hearts. Working on this teeny-weeny scale was amusing to me, I found myself giggling inside as I went along, thinking 'ah, it's so cute'. I added an image of a little cupid blowing heart bubbles inside & then dunked it in a patina to get all those purple & blue colors.
Introducing Gordon ~ Gordon is from Hawaii & usually only teaches in Hawaii ~ which is already sparking my desire to attend a future class with him. To say the very least, Gordon is extremely gifted, in fact, many people say he is the very best in this field. He is an exact master yet he often eyeballs things & his hands are so supple that it's pure joy just to watch him manipulate the clay (does that sound kinky?).
He decided that it would be fun for us to try a 3-D form. So he "whipped" up this goldfish below. If you only knew how difficult it is to get the CZ eyes to sit like that!
Photo courtesy of Gordon Uyehara
He also made this little sea lion pup that I instantly fell in love with. It was originally going to be a piņata, so if you shake it, it makes noise!
Photo courtesy of Gordon Uyehara
Mom made a pretty fish pendant & I made a whale "desk buddy" as Gordon calls them. Though we had some serious challenges ("fin down!"), they turned out o.k.
Top row (left to right): Raymond, Judy, Chris, Gordon, Mom, Louise, Dotty, Betty, Sam. Bottom row: me, Christine
During our stay, both Christine, another girl in the class & myself had our birthdays on Thursday, January 24th ~ what a coincidence! We had such an incredible day. Sam (on the far right) set up the tables at lunch with streamers, hats & blowouts. Lalo made a beautiful lunch (not unusual though) & brought us up tequila shots. Sam bought a gorgeous cake for us too (I love the question mark candle).
It was like we were at our wedding reception, cutting our cake together - haha.
Raymond, who I mentioned lives in Puerto Vallarta, brought us flowers, which was the sweetest gesture & that night we went for a meal up high on the hill at a place called Barcelona Tapas. It had an amazing view of the bay & ocean below & the boats out in the distance were setting off fireworks!
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