Deastro – Biophelia

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Hello from yet another gorgeous almost summer-like day in November. First off, this week’s song comes to you from Deastro, one of my absolute favorite musicians of 2009. I was hooked ever since I heard this song. This past Thursday I had the pleasure of seeing him open for Max Tundra (he is a character, well worth seeing live) at a rather small show at DC9. He and his band mate have only been playing together for three weeks in their current setup (which he amusingly would remind us whenever there were technical issues), while he puts together a larger band. Check it out.

As promised, here are some photos of my progress on the commissioned piece I am working on at the moment. Things have been moving a little slower than expected but I am learning a lot in the process. For example, don’t polish up your fine silver with a brass wheel. The brass can transfer to the silver and then completely mess up the enamel when you fire it (gets cloudy and splotchy). I’m glad I learned this after “ruining” two pieces of silver and nearly ruining a third. Oy. I am not as far as I would like to be considering this Tuesday is my last class for the season (I need a kiln and studio of my own already), but I am hopeful that I can finish in time (showing up to class 3.5 hours early should help). This past week I managed to get my main wires on, so at least that part is done. Hopefully everything else will fit into place nicely. Here are some photos of the process so far.

The Flux 2020 firing was finally successful! No cloudiness or splotchiness!

You always have to enamel the back of any piece, otherwise it is more likely to crack.

Bending my wires to mimic the shapes in my design was a finicky process. It was trickier than I had expected and I had to adjust the shapes a wee bit to fit the domed silver disc and make room for thin wires that will be inside the piece on the right.