In the Etsy Shoppe

I am so sorry that I haven't posted in a while.  I have been super busy.  First, there was the Buyers Market.  It was so great to meet so many of you retailers and make new friends and contacts along the way.  Then, it was Passover, and I was so busy cleaning and then cooking.  The sedars were great!  Now I am finally settling down and getting down to business, filling orders, and preparing for my next big wholesale show this August in New York City.
I will be part of New Yorks Newest, which is the new vendor part of the New York Gift Show.  My booth will be at Pier 94, not the Javis Center.  But if you are a Retailer looking for new talent it is the place to be.  I plan on bringing a lot of secular jewelry to the show.  I am working on some great one of a kind pieces.
Meanwhile, my Etsy shop is full of the Bronze Mezuzahs casts from my silver originals
and much more affordable! Check them out, they make great housewarming and wedding gifts.

fast fire bronze-success

I have struggled with bronze and copper clays in the past.  My mezuzot never could withstand the firing process with out falling apart or changing shape.  When fast fire bronze came out I checked out the blogs of my fellow metal clay artists and was encourage by the success they had.  Last night I made a test piece, a very narrow and tall 3 sided box (like a mezuzah).  The result is perfect and the form did not contort.  Although the clay feels and acts very differently then silver clay, I do think it is worth my time to pursue.  I'm very excited and motivated to create mezuzot in this medium....stay tuned to see what I come up with.

done with bronze clay

Well,  I've attempted bronze clay yet again and yet again my pieces did not stay together.  I spent a lot of time constructing the mezuzzah but the slabs do not stay together when they are fired.  I think that the size and shape of the mezuzah makes it a poor choice for bronze clay and the way it behaves when fired in the carbon. 

The tiny tower, which is supported by 4 walls instead of 3 actually held up fine, but I am not really interested in making towers out of bronze so I am yet again going to abandon the whole bronze clay thing. I did hear that Hadar Jacobson has a copper clay available which can be fired without the carbon pot, which may be a better solution for my pieces.  Still I am waiting to hear more, because so far I've only seen smaller accent pieces made out of this material, not larger pieces like I want to make.

bronze clay....yet again

I am making another attempt at bronze clay this weekend. This time I made simpler structures and concentrated on keeping the connections clean and secure. They are in the kiln now. I will post the results tomorrow...keep your fingers crossed, this could work.

another attempt

I worked all day today trying to make a mezzuzah out of bronze clay. I have come up with this, which, in it's present state looks pretty good, but I have to say I am not confident. It's not that the bronze clay is difficult (OK it is, the shrinking and the cracks), but I think that the face that a mezzuzah is long and narrow to fit a scroll, makes it difficult to build in this medium.

I will let it dry and fire it tomorrow. I show you what happens, but even with the advice from many books and Kate McKinnon, I just don't know. I do love the bronze, the color and the weight. But I also wish I could make a couple of mezzuzot in silver, which I know works well. It's just that without knowing for sure I can sell them, I can't justify spending all that money. Do you know anyone who will buy a mezzuzah from an unknown artist for $200?

Bronze clay experiment

I love working with Silver PMC , but it's very expensive,so I decided to try my hand at the new bronze clay. I read a lot of articles and blogs about working with the clay so I could prepare myself for it's unique properties.

The clay is very messy and sticky in it's raw state, but the information I got from the Cooltools website was helpful. If you keep your hands and work area well lubricated with oil or balm (I used claymate) the clay does not stick badly to your hands. I also kneaded the clay as suggested. The first reel challenge with bronze clay is that it shrinks as it dries and then it cracks. I want to try to make my "house" mezuzzahs out of the clay. They are built with slabs. I have made them very successfully in silver PMC, but because they take so much material that are costly.I found that in bronze it is very hard to built these shapes.

First of all, it is much harder to attach slabs together with bronze clay. You have to make a lot of slip, and even then you have to reinforce the slabs with the snake of fresh clay. Also there is a lot of trouble when firing the piece in the kiln. The "house" I made bowed and slumped after firing.

I am not real happy with the results. My kiln is a mess, the piece slumped and cracked, and the clay was a bit messy to work with. I think I would rather invest more in silver clay right now. I think that the bronze clay can be interesting and looks great in small pieces and paired with silver components. But, I don't think the bronze clay will work for my purposes.