Thursday, September 24, 2009

Barbara Simon workshop




A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of taking a two day workshop in San Francisco with Barbara Simon. She's been working with PMC since the very early days and she makes some amazing things! This is one of the two projects we did (I still need to finish up the other one.) We bent copper wire into a free form shape and draped a textured sheet of of clay over it. I used one of my own textures, a squiggly line that I never get tired of. After that dried, it was removed from the wire form and the back piece was cut out, following the edge of the front. Then the fun began - fitting the two pieces together with a mitered edge. It was a bit tricky at first, but once I really got what we were supposed to be doing I quite enjoyed it, and was able to make a really nice edge on the piece. It's all in her latest book, but if you have a chance to do a workshop with her I recommend it. She was a good teacher and shared lots of information with us. This piece is quite different than what I normally do, but that's what I like best about taking these workshops. I do something I might not otherwise try.

3 comments:

Ruth said...

I love it Sue. That squiggle texture is great. Did you make it? Like a crazy path....

Sue said...

Thanks Ruth! Yes I made the texture, etched of course.

Cassy sims said...

Hi Sue, I love the piece you made at the B.Simon workshop. It's so fluid and looks so alive. Great texture, too. I work in ACS, and am very interested in learning new techniques for hollow forms. Do you know the name of Simon's book that has the instructions for this piece, and for mitering the front and back edges so that they look so much like they're just made from a single piece? Thanks!