Envy my anvil!

My grandfather was a blacksmith. I remember seeing him in his workshop, shaping red glowing iron on his anvil. Ding, ding, ding, dingdididing it said, as he hammered away. The “dingdididing” was the “cool off” blow he did on the anvil itself after 3 strokes on the item to be shaped. It had a very peculiar, forceful, yet almost meditative rhythm to it.

15 years ago my grandfather died and my parents couldn’t bear to part with this strong symbol of him, so they stored the anvil in their moist garage where it waited for better times while getting more and more rusty. Then a few months ago I realized, that I could really use and anvil and started searching for one online – until it struck me: Grandfathers anvil! Wonder if it’s still in my parents’ garage? It was. However, obviously iron and moisture aren’t the best of friends, and so it looked like this:

A closer look confirmed the ridiculous weight of it: 103,5 kilos!

I needed the anvil for my work, and so of cause needed a good surface to work on, so I had to start grinding. I’m okay with the rust – it tells a story, is the patina of this old tool, but I needed to create a workable surface. Hence I decided to grind away the rust entirely from the tip of the horn and a corner of the horizontal working area, lightly polish the rest of said working area and leave the rest of the anvil as I found it. It took two hours, a fairly sore back and humming nerve ends in my hands to just achieve that goal. I shudder to think of how much time it would have consumed to clean out the entire anvil!

And then it moved in – 103,5 kilos worth of anvil plus roughly half the weight for the old stub it rests on. It has most of its dents, caused by my Grandfathers blows, still visible and it’s shiny and new in some parts – ready to receive my own blows and dents and so mix his and my passion for shaping metal.

Thank you Grandfather. I will cherish your tool and use it to the best of my abilities!

Chaos before dawn

They say it’s got to be bad before it gets good. I believe that. Currently my studio-shop is in an utter state of chaos and it’s hard to keep faith that it will get well in the end.

However I do have faith and we are nearing said end. Glazed cabinets are almost done, I’m gilding the frames for them, which takes roughly 2 hours per piece and is a pain in the tush. All the glas shelves for the windows will arrive today or tomorrow and then I'll have to tackle my grandfathers anvil, which is extremely rusty-red at the moment. So… we’re getting there and I think apart from a few small things I'll be in place  by the end of this week. But boy there are many details that must fall into place! Don’t do this at home kids – or at least: have a good buffer of time, money and understanding and helpful friends.

Luckily I do and I consider myself blessed for it. By the 18th of June I will have to be done, because then I’m having an opening reception for anyone who wants to join, so the deadline is ticking…

Green is good for your eyes

Or so my mother always used to say, and she's right about many things. In any case: I love green. Most who know me are very aware and so I grabbed the opportunity now that I had to do something about that impossible floor in my new studio.

Had the floor been in a better shape (some of the wooden planks are damaged by moisture and somewhat rotten) I would have sanded it down and laquered it. However, then I'd have to completely exchange some of the boards and that was way too much work (and money). And yes, one might say that a multi-color-splattered wooden floor is very artistic and all, but I needed some calm and control - in order to create my own creative chaos.

Some have asked me why I put so much work and money into this rented room and I have pondered on that for a while and come to realize, that I have been working in  four different workshops and have never had the opportunity to influence my immediate surroundings. I have had to put up with colors, light and working conditions that were less than ideal in order to be able to work and always yearned to create my own haven. By all means: when I work, only the closest 50 cm are important, since I'm usually very concentrated, but I would so love to be able to use my studio (that's what I'm calling it from now on) as an inspirational heaven - a room of ones own as Virginia Wolfe calls it.

And so we're back to the green floor: I've always wanted a green floor and never had the possibility. Now that I'm dealing with a floor that needs to be covered with something I'm jumping at the opportunity and set out to paint it.

But... the color wasn't completely right. This is the first coat, and so the color isn't entirely conclusive, but it was too cold.

So I mixed a bit of yellow into it when applying the second layer and was much more satisfied.

Today I tested if it worked with the fabric I had bought for the seat etc. and it did (phew)

My childhood friend Hege came by today and helped me and my friend Michael building the glazed cabinets (mmmm.... power tools!) Thank you very much both of you! We didn't get that far, but we had fun (and pizza, thanks to my boyfriend, who catered for us).

And here she test-sits the window seat sans padding. It looks exactly like I have been picturing it! Note how she was so courteous as to wearing a green and matching scarf! You are a peach Hege and you can come sit in that window seat any time :-)

A dream come true: my own studio!

For years I have been working in the boiler basement of our building when creating my jewelry. Not ideal, but a lot better than Nothing!

Then the brilliant jeweler Ossip Frolov gave me the opportunity to work for and with him for one month in his lovely shop in central Copenhagen.

What a change! I have enjoyed it a lot and learned more. Now that my internship ends, I don’t feel I can go back to my basement-boiler-workshop. I need to move on! With a new company, homepage and brand identity, I need to move forward, and so I searched for new premises to work and sell my art.

And I found it!

Between the Kings Garden, encircling the castle Rosenburg, and Nyboder – the low and very cute housings build by the king for his seamen in the 1600, you find a very nice and calm area of Copenhagen. Surrounded by the National museum of art and the royal castle Amalienburg, this is a living area for those who like to live in the historical part of the city – in walking distance of the bustling shopping life.

In Sankt Pauls Gade 72 I have obtained a studio within a workshop commune of four other women – a ceramic artist, a sculptor and two other jewelers. It’s an old basement shop and I have two windows, flanking a mailbox. Considering that this is not a shopping street, that mailbox might end up giving my jewelry quite a bit of attention – or so I hope.

I have great plans for this place, which will be a combined studio and shop. However, as the before pictures show, it takes a lot of work! The room was formerly inhibited by a painter who painted large pictures leaning against the walls – and it surely shows!

 

(The lovely lady with the impressive curly hair is Hanne Bertelsen, who is the ceramics artist owning the shop) But I’m not intimidated and with the help of my good friend Michael, I ventured into turning the rainbow-room into a calm, white base for my own colors.

And here we are, halfway through the painting process with the walls more or less white (another coat is definitely coming up!) I’m not meticulous, not aiming for smooth perfect results. Actually I like the coarseness of the surfaces, but I want at least the color to be uniform.

The floors are splattered with colors too, so I need to do something. I’ll probably end up painting them green (yup – still my fav color!)

Lots of work still to be done, but once that is over, I hope for the room to look something like this:

One large table will function as both my working surface and counter. The closed door at the end of the room will be turned into a vitrine with build-in lights and the wall next to the door will hold another set of vitrines. I have inherited an anvil from my grand father who was a black smith and will of cause use it in my studio. Also my friend Rikke lets me borrow a beautiful old mannequin and it will look stunning!

La piece de resistance is one of the windowsills opposite my bench, where I’m planning a cushioned seat for my visitors.

Imagine working and cosily chatting with your customer or friends! This is what I do as I search for vendors to sell me glass shelves, vitrine doors and thick wooden tabletops. It's a thrilling experience and I’ll keep you posted on the development!

My top-professional photo studio

I have been frustrated for long.

I create great jewelry, but the pictures I make of it just doesn't do it justice! My x husband, who is a very gifted amateur photographer used to take the pictures and they were great. Look at this one!

But even though he's the best, I still don't want to beg him to take pictures every other day. So, I needed to come up with a solution that I could handle myself.

I have followed the advice of taking pictures in daylight, but honestly: winter in Denmark is VERY dark, even at noon. The result was dull pictures :-( By accident (while browsing on Flicr) I stumbeled on an instruction in taking great pictures of jewelry and from there how to create the right setup. Next thing I knew, I was buying the following:

1 cardboard-box (foldable)
1 roll of gaffa tape
1 white pillow-case
1 500 W halogen work lamp
1 sheet of white cardboard

Sounds utterly professional, right?

Well, I cut out the sides of the cardboard box, covered them with the white fabric from the pillow case (using the gaffa tape), put in the white cardboard and set up the lamp outside of it. Adding an additional and smaller halogen lamp in front of the open box, I all of a sudden had created an environment with light enough to take a lot better pictures! Here is what it looks like:

And a close-up on the "stage":

So what's the big difference?

Lots of light which creates this dreamy and sumptuous ambience. Take a look at these two before and after pictures and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Before:

After:

Obviously it also helps to try o push your camera to perform its best (still haven't tweaked everything possible with mine I think) but I'm afraid that I'll have to invest in a better camera some day. Thing is, I have a pocket camera. A very decent one from Canon, granted, but still - it just can't handle a few things and it's impossible to entirely circumvent the auto functions. Especially focusing on shiny objects is seemingly tough -fairly annoying when the item to be photographed is shiny jewelry.

But no matter what: I love my new setup and truly believe that my pictures have increased in quality - and hence also convey the quality of the jewelry. Now it's "just" taking all those pictures, cutting them in Photoshop and re-uploading them instead of the old ones. That will take some time. Oh well... :-D