Well have finally got some new watches made for the Center.
The dichroic pieces came out really good and the right size.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
New Tools
Well Lorraine and I finally checked out the small kitchen store that opened about a year ago. Better late than never I guess. Found several interesting things I can use in my glass.
First the brown sugar saver. It is one of those clay things you soak and then put in your brown sugar to keep it soft. If they were deeper I would be casting in them but they are not so thought I would make some glass clay and use these as a stamp. They might make nice pendants?,magnets? or maybe buttons? Time will tell.
The other item is just to neat for all kinds of different reasons. They will be great helping me get powder and frit into tight areas.
But mostly they brought a smile for all the times you tried to learn baking with your Mom. I took the picture so you can read the sizes.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Finally Some Movement Towards Ships
Over the holidays we received a shipment of some glass crystal roundels and nuggets, I kept looking at them trying to decide what to do. A little bit of funk and retro seems to work. Also something bigger than I would usually make but apparently big works and sells.
So here is a shot of the mixture. The blue and copper are metallic and some of the others are aurora borealis coated. Some will make watches and some sets with necklace,bracelet and earrings.
Then I tried a couple of necklaces with the blue. First one done with small blue in between nuggets. The necklace will be finished with a combination small crystal beads blue,copper and amber with a lobster clasp.
Then I looked at it and decided to try copper crystal beads in between, with the same multi crystals to finish off the necklace.
I think I like the copper between better and will do the reverse with the copper nuggets.
Now I have to get back to cleaning the office.
Technorati Tags: Jewelry,necklace,crystal bead necklace,handcrafted jewelry,glass jewelry,crystal beads
Friday, January 7, 2011
Monday, December 13, 2010
Women in Business Luncheon
This past week a Women in Business luncheon was held at the Center for Craft and Design. I did produce some trays,plates and bowls for the function and Gallery Shop.Seemed to be a success wasn’t many left at the end of the week.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Hot Out of The Kiln
It’s been awhile but life got in the way and I didn’t have time to play.
I decided to cast jewelry for next season so here are the first experiments, not cleaned up or fire polished yet but they look good if I do say so myself.
Notice there are 2 belt buckles that came out particularly nice. I’ll take some individual photos later.
Also out of that firing several pieces of Our Town and Company Houses and the head of the pit.
Here is a picture of a typical Company House
Here’s a picture of the pit head from many years ago. The rail line carried men to and from the Deeps and hauled the coal out. Some of our mines were 7 miles out under the Atlantic Ocean.
In my grandparents time and before they used horses under ground.
Both men and horses didn’t manage to grow tall and strong. The men usually went under as boys and worked until they retired. While searching for these pictures I was once again reminded of the tough life a miner’s life was and how true the song “Owe my Soul to the Company Store” was.
This piece comes from the Miner’s Museum in Glace Bay, NS
“In March of 1925, Cape Breton coal miners were receiving $3.65 in daily wages and had been working part-time for more than three years. They burned company coal to heat company houses illuminated by company electricity. Their families drank company water, were indebted to the company store and were financially destitute. Local clergy spoke of children clothed in flour sacks and dying of starvation from the infamous “four cent meal”….
In the early days of 1925, “The Company”added insult to injury by eliminating credit for miners at the company store and further reducing days of work at the collieries…
The next two months were filled with grief and hardship; Besco cut off the sale of coal to miners houses and mounted a vigorous public relations campaign to blame the miners for their own predicament. The UMWA lobbied for intervention from the Liberal Provincial and Federal governments to no avail; this prompted the union’s most difficult decision to date. On June 3, 1925, the UMWA withdrew the last maintenance men from Besco’s power plant at Waterford Lake. (Doing this would have resulted in the mines filling with water) In retaliation, the company cut off electricity and water to the Town of New Waterford, which included the hospital filled with extremely sick children…
On June 11, 1925, drunken company police charged down Plummer Avenue on horseback, beating all who stood in their path. They rode through the schoolyards, knocking down innocent children while joking that the miners were at home hiding under their beds. It was the last straw…
Riots resulted with one miner William Davis being shot and killed
The miners’ reaction was swift and decisive. They swarmed the power plant, overpowered the company police and marched them off to the town jail. For several nights afterward, the coal towns were under a state of siege by the miners. They raided the company stores to feed their starving families and then burned the stores to the ground to eliminate the last symbol of corporate greed and servitude in the Cape Breton coalfields. The company stores never re-opened after the coal wars of 1925.
The history of mine workers is filled with memories of class struggle and of brotherhood. It is summed up in the words of former District 26 President Stephen J. Drake – “There is no finer person on this planet than the working man who carries his lunch can deep into the bowels of the earth. Far beneath the ocean he works the black seam an endless ribbon of steel his only link to fresh air and blue skies. The steel rails symbolize a miners’ life, half buried underground, half reaching toward his final reward…”
Long story maybe for a blog but sometimes needs to be said again.
Other Our Town pieces
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