rag and stone

I have been mentioning lately my lack of TIME. This is my classroom.....I drive to Kalispell 4 days a week, I am in 4 classes. There's so much to learn about metal, it's one of those materials with unending possibilities, It is such a deep water to tread.....the trick is to stay afloat! I am surrounded here by challenge and more challenge. All the courses I am enrolled in this semester are upper-level, and are VERY technical-based. I take Repair in the morning, where I rip apart perfectly good rings, set them afire, and then fix them back to pre-fire status. I am in Casting class in the afternoon, along with a rendering/jewelry design course (lots of drawing). And then, there's stone-setting....evenings every other day. Ugh.

I am not complaining. These courses are soooo valuable, so interesting, and are going to make me a better metalsmith. I mean, a perfect polish really has to be perfect, not KINDA-perfect.... and soldering is a skill you get better at only with practice. And actually, considering the courses, all the challenge involved is actually INVIGORATING. It's really a great feeling to come home from 8 hours of jewelry school, and still WANT to sit at my desk and do fun stuff, with stones I love, with metal.

I have putzed around the art department since I was in High School, I was the girl who ate lunch in the art room instead of the cafeteria. And I have putzed around Academia, all over the place, for long enough to probably have earned a doctorate... (makes me kinda sick thinking about impending doom student loan repayment......ick.) I once wanted to be a teacher, and then found I had very little patience for it, for the structure and politics involved.... I wanted to be a million things, and was in five million directions....I spent a lot of money in college learning how to BE ME. Art was always my "thing" but I never believed in the passion behind WHY it was my thing.....I didn't know where to put all those creative juices. And I eventually became very bitter in Academia. I bopped in and out of school because I think I never knew why I was there.....

What I am finding a renewed respect for in school is this.......College is really a great place to feed your creative fire, not necessarily build it into a huge bonfire.......It is a place where you can take what you learn, filter out the stuff you don't like, and keep near and dear to your heart what you DO love. There are a lot of students, all with different flair, different design aesthetic, different motive (that one is my favorite, it's one of my great pleasures to attend community college to find community) I love all the little old ladies who "just want a new hobby", the single moms who are desperately looking for a career in a fulfilling path, the young freshman who are "taking this for my art requirement", and the know-it-all twentysomethings (I fall under that category I think, only hopefully a little more humble and appreciative *wink*)

I love this program, it is all technical-based, all skill-set and practice....LOTS of practice. Even the things that I don't think I would use, or the processes I would skip, it is really the EXPOSURE that is the best part. EXPOSURE to different ideas, materials, and people.

ready to solder.......some more

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staring at a bench pin for most of the day......not the worst thing in the world.....

My view from 9:30 to 5:00..........

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A little messy desk shot for you.....

So Until next time.....hopefully my brain doesn't explode.....and even if it did, there would be a whole lot of useful bits and blown pieces someone should collect and take notes from.