\n\t $\"View$ <\/a>\n\t

View from my window<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I’ve just moved to a house in the woods, and I finally have a yard, windows, natural light, and a view, after nearly 30 years in what was supposed to be a 5-year interim house that was so dark inside, you had to turn on a light to read, even on the brightest afternoon of the year.<\/p>\n

So I have set up three bird feeders with different foods, including a nectar station for hummingbirds. There is one tiny female ruby-throated hummingbird who not only feeds at the station– she chases all the other birds away from all three feeders! I just watched her chase off my first cardinal, and a couple days ago, I almost<\/em> got to watch a goldfinch, until she attacked it.<\/p>\n

So I just moved the nectar feeder about 10′ farther from the other feeders (it took her maybe 5 minutes to find it)<\/p>\n

I’m tempted to draw a life-lesson from this. In the immortal words of Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”<\/p>\n

I’m thinking of the all-too-frequent dismissiveness and disdain shown by metalsmiths for beaders or metal clay artists, fabricators for casters, art jewelers for traditional benchmen, and so on. We all want to chase each other away from the feeder (marketplace), but in fact, not only is there enough room for everybody, the more of these different disciplines you can bring together, the more unique your work will be, right?<\/p>\n

OK, I really just wanted an excuse to tell somebody about this feisty little bully of a hummingbird.<\/p>\n

But I’ll take the notion a step further and mention that I spent a week and over $1000 taking a fusing workshop with Marne Ryan at the Revere Academy a few years ago, and learned to make really beautiful textures by fusing layers of sterling. It takes constant practice to stay good at it– it is pretty challenging to do.<\/p>\n

Or, you can roll out a sheet of silver clay, cut up some sheet-type (I much prefer the PMC stuff over the Art Clay, though in the other clays I think it’s pretty much Coke\/Pepsi) and layer it in a few moments with a little water, and achieve kind of of the same look.<\/p>\n

The other problem with the fusing was, Marne is so good at it, and uses it so effectively, that no matter how hard I tried, whatever I made pretty much looked like a Marne Ryan rip-off. Only not as good, mostly. So I’ve pretty much let it go. Except in metal clay.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"A$ <\/a>\n\t
A few examples<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
So, the ways of working are all good– it’s all in how it’s done. (How like life.) I’m saying, mix it up, there’s room for everybody.<\/p>\n
Even that beautiful little jewel of a hummingbird doesn’t have the right to chase off all the chickadees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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