Week One

For those of you that are new to my blog, Jeff and I spend at least one week a year at William Holland Lapidary School in the beautiful mountains of northern Georgia. For the past two years Jeff has taken classes and joined in what he likes to call "Art's and Crafts Camp" for me, it's time to get to some serious learning. 

This year I was wait-listed for the most important class on the schedule, Reticulation, Granulation and Tube Setting. Three processes that I felt I really needed to learn. At the last minute I got a call that I made it in the class!

In reticulation you melt the top surface of the metal creating random effects, which can be brain-numbing to those not used to working "random", it takes some getting used to but the results can be stunning.

The fine silver on the surface waves, buckles and flows in beautiful patterns, then you need to figure out just what to do with it!

In the Granulation portion we made TINY granules...and I mean TINY. My classmate Susan sat next to me and really took off making these things, she really enjoyed this portion of the class and soon had 6 bottles of different size granules for one project.

 

This is a photo of Susan's second day of making granules. All reticulation put aside! 

This year Jeff took off from the "making" portion to have some water fun. Each day he loaded up the van and took off, leaving all of us to toil in the classrooms and each evening he came back with stories of a new adventure. 

 With the help of Chuck, the schools Maintenance Guru, Jeff had a new destination each morning and we had a new trail or park to walk through each evening after dinner. This is just one breathtaking view of Meeks Park in Blairsville.

As the projects moved along we were all more comfortable with the creative direction of our work. As the day went on we found the classroom became quite except for the sound of torches burning, hammers and drills. At the end of each day as our ideas began to gel our designs took exciting shape.

Stay tuned...