A few years ago, I went with my husband to Albuquerque, New Mexico, while he competed in the Senior Games. We took a side trip to Santa Fe and came upon a shop filled with copper flame painted items, ranging from wall murals & wall clocks to jewelry. For the first time, he said he’d love to try that. So, last year, when I went to my favorite residential jewelry school for another week, he came and took Flame Painting on copper.
Here’s a sampling of what he made.
He loved it, and loved the week-long experience.
The place, William Holland Lapidary School is nestled in the woods in Young Harris, Georgia, about 2.5 or 3 hours from our home.
The ride there in October is spectacular, but lovely all spring and fall. From Sunday dinner through Friday lunchtime, you can stay in a no frills double occupancy room with private bath, get 3 meals a day,(plus homemade cookies on cookie day) and just enjoy learning and creating.
You can stay through Saturday morning, as most Floridians and others from further away do, so they have all day to travel home. I won’t tell you how ridiculously inexpensive it is, but you can look it up at “lapidaryschool.org”.
After last year’s experience and through seeing other artists’ creations, I became interested in learning about Flame Painting on titanium. So this year, my husband and I both took a week-long class, which included embellishing with argentium sterling silver.
Argentium is 94% pure silver, with an additional mineral, which helps retard tarnishing and “behaves” a bit differently than sterling silver (but that’s a whole other story).
I loved experimenting with the colors created by the flame. I especially love the deep blues and purples. Some samples are below.
Note that one of the pendants is reversible, with colored titanium on one side, and textured silver on the other.
These, and others will be debuting at the next show (Weaverville Art Safari). My husband’s titanium and copper flame painting creations will be shown at my open studio in December.
Until next month!
