Welcome to the rebellious blog of an obsessively overly perfectionistic artist, who is compelled to create and occasionally write about the proccess.
Do artists really have to be crazy to create? Perhaps not, but the water is warm, so dive in and find out!
"Be
a good craftsman; it won't stop you being a genius." - Auguste Renoir
7/01/2009
Goodbye, Mollie
6/17/2009
Recent Live Interview on The Jewelry Connection
6/12/2009
Call for Eastern Repousse Images
6/06/2009
Getting to Work
5/30/2009
Live Interview @ 3:00 EST, Sunday, May 31
4/29/2009
Russian Filigree Powdered Solder
The Great American Pastime
3/22/2009
Necessity Is the Mother...
3/10/2009
Environmental Oddities
3/04/2009
A Radically Different Take on Creativity
3/03/2009
New Work
3/02/2009
Eating Your Veggies: Not As Good For You?
2/22/2009
Review of my new book, All Chained Up
2/14/2009
The Creativity of Living Under a Rock
2/11/2009
Gift Certificates Available!
I've created many a piece while watching my favorite Britcoms from the 70's and 80's. Although I'm not one to watch the same movies or TV shows over and over (I only own 4 or 5 movies), I've watched all the episodes I can find of Are You Being Served more times than I can count. There's nothing like laughing your backside off while coping with a challenging soldering moment. If only I could achieve patinas on silver the colors of Mollie Sugden's hair.
Now my son watches Britcoms with me. In fact, he's officially made them family time so that he can pause the DVR 20 times per episode and explain the jokes to his clueless parents. (Aren't all parents clueless when you're 9 years old?) After nearly a year of this ritual, he's finally stopped asking why the audience laughs so hard when Sugden's infamous character, Mrs. Slocumb refers to her cat as "my pussy".
Molly Sugden, you will be missed, and "I am unanimous in that!" I'm sorry the end was tough, but you were brilliant from the beginning.
5:36 PM
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Please check out the recordings of the recent live interview in which I talk about the inspirational as well as technical aspects of my work on The Jewelry Connection with Mona Hair and Gail Devoid.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
9:38 PM
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My latest DVD, Metal Tehcniques of Bronze Age Masters: Eastern Repousse will be released this fall, and I'm looking for images of Eastern repousse work to include in the gallery section.
If you have taken one of my repousse classes or do this specific style of repousse, you are encouraged to submit images. The artwork can be all Eastern repousse or combined with other techniques and in any non ferrous metal (silver, gold, copper, argentium, brass, mokume gane, bi-metal, etc.)
Artwork will be selected on the basis of technique, artistry, uniqueness, and the quality of the photographic image of the work. Please adhere to the image requirements and photography hints below.
There is no entry fee. Artists, whose work(s) are accepted, will be given full credit with their images and will be given one free copy of the DVD when it becomes available.
Deadline to submit images: August 10, 2009
Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2009
Email images to victoria@victorialansford.com with no more than 2 images in each email.
Please include "artwork #1" (or #2 or #3) in the subject line of the email.
Include your name as you would like it listed, the title of the piece, the materials used, and the height, width, and depth of the piece in inches, and the photographer (if not the artist) with each artwork sent
Limit 3 repousse works of art for a total of 6 images: (1 full image of each artwork + 1 optional detail image of each artwork) Artwork that is part of a set, such as a necklace and earrings, or necklace and bracelet, may be photographed together and counted as one work of art.
Image requirements: digital images at least 8" x 10" at 300dpi in .jpg or .tff format
Please do not crop the images too closely. All images will be fitted into the appropriate resolution for television and may require more background than you would ordinarily leave for print or web use.
Work should be shot on a smooth, solid, contrasting background. Black or other dark foam core is encouraged. (Medium gray gets really boring on a big screen.) Artwork photographed on professional models will be considered, but please include a detail shot as well.
If you are photographing your own work, hints and tips may be found at
http://www.victorialansford.com/photographingmetal.html
For information on this specific repousse technique, please visit
http://www.victorialansford.com/repousse.html
If you have any other questions about submitting images, please email victoria@victorialansford.com.
10:07 AM
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There is the silly myth that still surrounds the concept of the working artist. The muse hits, and suddenly we're supposed to jump into the process of creation in a fury of inspiration and work until exhaustion prevails, passing out in a near Victorian repose as our audience is able to witness a new masterpiece. That's definitely the Hollywood version, and those, who know artists, usually realize that most art isn't created that way. Unfortunately, some peoples' perceptions go to the other extreme, and so they expect artists can turn off and on at a whim whatever it is that gets us working. Alas, that perception is as ridiculous as the first one.
Professional artists can't make a living by making art a la the popular perceptions of Michelangelo and Van Gogh. The truth is they both worked all the time and didn't let little things like interpersonal skills, bathing (Michelangelo), or insanity and the odd ingestion of lead based pigments (Van Gogh) get in the way of cranking out masterworks. However much they accomplished, today's artists don't often have a single rich patron or family to sustain us while we loose ourselves in our work. Of course, if we waited until the muse hit, we'd starve as well. Waiting on such a muse to inspire us off our backsides and to work has all the efficiency of getting from Atlanta to London by walking.
So what's a pro to do? Well, it's important to have tricks up your sleeve. We all need something that moves the fulcrum on the see saw to make it go from down to up. We are a visual lot, so looking at what inspires us is often a good start. I have a couple of books on ethnic jewelry that work like magic when I flip to the Middle Eastern chapters. Most of us have some kind of sound track that also puts us in the mood, as it were. Many of us have a whole arsenal of tricks to get going, so that whether the muse shows up or not, we still have inventory to show and sell.
There's one more challenge for all but the wildly independent (read 20 something males with no spouse, no kids, a small trust fund, and a Buddhist bent for materially minimal living). Most of us aren't islands. We have kids and spouses, pets and houses, gardens in need of weeding, clothes in need of washing, and refrigerators and pantries that are always mysteriously missing that key ingredient that will let one make tonight's dinner.
There is nothing so completely frustrating as making art in the middle of, well, life. It's the pulling of emotional energy away from oneself and outward toward others, energy that must stop going outward, do an about face, and begin recharging one's own batteries in order to gain any kind of flow state. When the pulling doesn't stop, no amount of pictures or sounds can galvanize an artist back to the process of making art. It's like asking a black hole to stop what it's doing and create a little matter.
I used to be perpetually frustrated with friends, who thought if I was home that I must not be working, despite always having had my studio in my home. Things got easier when so many more people began working from home even if they weren't self employed. Still, people used to seeing artists work may erroneously believe that artists just show up in their workspace and switch whatever button to work just like if someone working in an office sits down at the computer with a cup of coffee in the morning and immediately starts working... after checking email... and getting on Facebook.
As important as simply showing up is, gaining momentum is what gets us into a flow state that helps us create. For me, it's essential that I be thinking about what I'm working on before I actually sit down to work on it. I mentally feel my way through what I want to make or make progress on, and the ensuing build up of ideas is the momentum that carries me over to the bench and makes my hands pick up the tools. It's like stretching before running or dancing. Walking in and hitting the ground running, is a great way to get injured. My walking over to the bench and grabbing the torch without getting myself into the right frame of mind is probably a recipe for melting something or worse, potentially setting the house on fire.
This mental shift and momentum is a stealth move. Since it's going on in my own head, no one is aware of it except me, although everyone around can become painfully aware if I am derailed from making that shift and the momentum is lost. In other words, getting interrupted multiple times before I begin can be as frustrating and creatively devastating as getting interrupted after I've started. How well do runners run after the 12th false start? It's all too easy to give up and remember that I need to update my mailing list and catch up on email, and as important as those tasks are, they don't get art made.
Most artists cope with that problem by working away from home. I've always kept my studio here so that I could work through the night while my little one slept. I'm not sure what would happen if I moved work out. I've always been afraid that I'd never get there. Perhaps I should be more afraid that I'd never come home. ;-)
5:57 PM
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Please join me for a live interview at The Jewelry Connection on livevideo.com this Sunday at 3:00pm EST.
I'll be answering questions about my work and what inspires it from host, Mona Hair, co-host, Gail Devoid, and from the listeners as well. The interview will be archived on the site for one week if you miss it and would like to download it.
3:44 PM
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Love doing Russian filigree? Hate filing the solder? I've only been searching since the early 90's for a better way to create the ancient solder recipe, and now at last, I have one. This new solder is the same recipe but already in powdered form and with the flux mixed in. All you have to do is lightly paint the piece with water, then dip the damp brush in the powdered solder to pick up a tiny dab, and gently brush it onto the points to be soldered together. Voila!
It slices, it dices, it julinennes... Ok, while I normally despise sounding like an infomercial or a used car salesman, I'm more than a little excited about this stuff. I'm thrilled to be making it available to others, who pursue the beauty of Russian filigree, but I'm ecstatic about never again having to file the stuff for my own work!!!
Because the solder is of a finer mesh than what anyone (read any sane person) can file, it flows into the joints more effectively, meaning far better results from "the dreaded thumb test" to see if the filler wires were all soldered correctly. I've used it on several pieces that curve dramatically, and not had any of the filler wire joints break, which is amazing. Also, because it is based on the same ancient recipe as I teach how to make in the DVD, it flows like an easy but then behaves like a medium silver solder, making it possible to re-flow but not easily re-flowed by accident.
The solder comes in a small jar with instructions and is .75 troy oz for $29.95. At last the kits with solder and milled frame and filler wire are now available as well. One jar should last for months, possibly years of making Russian filigree pieces.
11:16 AM
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Batter's up. One strike, and then... he hits! He pauses half a second to make sure. It's a grounder. He takes off for first base. As the second baseman misses it and fumbles along with the players from center and right field, the player on third makes it to home, and the player on second makes it to third. The fans are going wild. It's the third game of the season, and there is now a good chance we can win a game for the first time.
It's player #3's first ever hit and first time to make it to first base in a game. He's jumping up and down on the base. The crowd behind home is jumping up and down too. He doesn't hear the first baseman talking to him through the fans' noise or the tight fitting hard helmet that creates feedback in his hearing aids. The assisting coach on first says to the first baseman, "He's not ignoring you. He has hearing loss."
"C-A-N Y-O-O-O-O-U-U-U H-E-E-E-E-A-A-A-R-R M-E-E-E?" the first baseman taunts. Number 3 doesn't hear. He's too euphoric to notice.
"Son, don't you dare speak to him that way!"
"You're not my coach!"
"I'm his step-dad. Would you like me to let your coach know how condescending, ignorant, and unsportsmanlike you're being?" replies the coach while the first baseman contemplates what condescending might mean. It sounds like it could be bad. He becomes sullen.
"No."
"No, what?"
"No, sir."
The refs are speaking to the head coach of #3's team. The coach, who couldn't find his way out of a cardboard box but would never admit there could be a problem, had lined up the batters out of order. He hadn't kept a copy of his list, apparently forever convinced of his own infallibility. The refs take away the last point scored, and, the inning now over, #3 comes into the dugout, still oblivious in his elation that his two RBI's and his first hit ever didn't count. It's now up to me to explain it to him, while the other Little League parents talk of wanting blood. Parenting is not for wimps.
In the second half of the last inning, #3 caught a ball in left field and kept the opposing team from scoring, and his buddy #5 scored a home run, which many of us suspected was inspired in part by his less than supportive father's lack of attendance. Still, we lost 10 to 3. As soon as the game was over, sometime between my phone call to my videographer, and the assisting coach returned to the dugout from the obligatory "good game" high fives, the head coach was caught in a feeding frenzy of indignant and angry parents. After yelling, "I quit!!!" he pointed a finger at the bewildered assiting coach, aka Daddy-o, and said, "You're now the head coach."
I hate sports, yet I dare never let on. It's moments like these that David Byrne sings through my head, "And you may ask yourself, 'How did I get here'?!?"
10:12 AM
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The Art of Opening: Bottles and Their Toppers opens at the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia PA on May 1, 2009 and runs through July 19. I'm happy to announce that I have 2 bottle stoppers, 1 unconventional corkscrew, and 1 wild video in the show.
7:58 PM
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It's a lovely warm spring day here in Hotlanta. It's been in the 70's since the end of last week. Sunday it got so hot in the house that I unabashedly revealed to my honey a shocking site that he hadn't seen since the end of last September: my bare feet. Of course, when contrasted with snow we had on Sunday, March 1, that makes living here just plain weird and as unpredictable as the coming economy.
The view from my studio:
2:24 PM
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I can't say that I completely agree with this take on creativity, yet I found it so utterly moving that by the end of the video I had tears in my eyes. I have watched so many polished speakers and performers that I was quiet surprised at how someone speaking so earnestly with all the "um's" and "uh's" of a conversation, could keep me riveted to the screen and drive home a brilliant idea with absolutely no guile. Whether you think of yourself as creative or not, it's well worth the 20 minutes out of you life, but then I've yet to find a TED video that isn't.
8:20 PM
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More new work on the front page
Parallel Universe
Original pattern Side Weave Mesh* bracelet with a granulation clasp
Fine Silver, sterling silver, 22k gold, dolomite
7" long x 1-1/2" wide
©2009, V. Lansford
*This pattern is taught in my latest publication, All Chained Up
7:11 PM
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This article is from The Journal of Horticultural Science & Biotechnology It can be read for free at the link in the title.
If you're still not buying the whole "organic-is-better" argument, this study might convince you otherwise. As Davis points out, more than three billion people around the world suffer from malnourishment and yet, ironically, efforts to increase food production have actually produced food that is less nourishing. Fruits seem to be less affected by genetic and environmental dilution, but one can't help but wonder how nutritionally bankrupt veggies can be avoided. Supplementing them is problematic, too: don't look to vitamin pills, as recent research indicates that those aren't very helpful either.
I haven't followed the recent research on vitamin pills. I supposed my frequently forgetting to take them isn't as bad for me as I might have thought. Eating organic though, is something I am passionate about. Frankly, I'd like to die of old age with all of my parts, organs, and hair still attached. There's a great deal I can't control in this overly plasticized, oil hungry world, but I can certainly fork over for organic potatoes and such.
I have friends and family, who insist that eating organic is too expensive, but we spend far less on groceries than most of them do. We're very careful not to buy more than we need and not let food go to waste. Organic or conventional, letting food form the basis for science experiments in the fridge is like wadding up part of your paycheck and throwing it in the trash.
The truth is that I'm so passionate about eating organic foods, I don't succumb to much that's not at the very least all natural. Ok, yes, my idea of health food includes organic sugar, organic chocolate, and organic potato chips. Hey, I want health and quality not a life without the basic necessities! (Yes, I eat organic veggies too!)
6:07 PM
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From Tammy Powley
About Guide to Jewelry Making, part of The New York Times Company
Victoria Lansford's jewelry is stunning. ...for the designer who is ready to advance his or her jewelry skills, Victoria's text is a wonderful learning tool.
Read the whole review here.
9:50 PM
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As passionate as I am about metalsmithing, the processes and techniques I do plus 20 years of experience doing them, leaves much of my brain free to wander as I tap tap tap with my chasing hammer on a piece of repoussé or fuse that 400th link for a long complex chain. Most of my mental meanderings revolve around the creative process and what is entailed in starting it up and keeping it going. Put all that time theorizing and creating with over two decades of helping others to unlock their own creative powers in the realms of visual and performing arts, and I might know a few things.
There is one powerful thing I have learned about my own process, that every time I forget, I have to spend hours or even days recovering from: I should not venture out from under my very selective rock. Now it takes my clueless expression at a reference to a certain news items, celebrity gossip, or the latest stupid trendy chachkha, which Americans are conned into buying before anyone realizes that I'm not merely the gregarious, out there artist happy to share her expertise and opinions with the world. (I'm proud to say all references to American Idol cause me to assume the same polite but bored expression, despite my friend, Beth, coercing me into watching an episode a few weeks ago.)
A manufacturer I was speaking with a while back was aghast that I had no idea what Pandora jewelry was. I almost asked if it was related to the online music website but thought that might make him wonder if I was on medication. Not wishing to be rude, I refrained from asking, "Why would I know what that is?" but really, why would I?!? Like any decent artist I like to think I help set trends not follow them. I don't go for the pre-packaged, don't question it world, and being bombarded with reminders of it doesn't make for good flow states.
I was talking with friends yesterday about how so much of what we take in informs our ideas without our even being aware of it. Our brains are constantly yet unconsciously registering all manner of input from the commanding no nonsense helvetica fonts on street signs to the decadent swirls of the filling on a TV commercial for chocolate candy. As I stare at my monitor the naked branches of the water oak tree in my back yard are visible above it through the window in front of my desk. Though I'm not focusing on the tree, my brain takes in not only the shapes and lines of the branches, but also the gray-blue light of the negative shapes that are formed by them at the same time as the minor keys and blue notes of Jazz 24 stream through my speakers.
How these shapes and sounds will morph and synthisize with all the other semi and unconscious input that I will receive today, or any input from the thousands of days past, is anyone's guess, but they will likely one day inspire and inform concrete objects that have yet to come into being. That I will not be able to contain the overwhelming desire that drives me to release their synthesized form is at the heart of being an artist. The endless process of perfecting the craft of one's choice is merely the vehicle through which such objects are born in an endless recycling of the world which surrounds us.
That lofty statement said, I have found it essential to screen what gets in the same way health nuts don't eat junk food. Now this might sound snobbish, but it's really just discernment for survival. I'm not like most people, who can rent and watch 3 movies in a weekend. I watched Cassablanca last weekend, and I'm still replaying the scenes in my head and processing the absolutely insane attention to detail that director Micahel Curtiz created. I still have all the frequently quoted lines running through my head, which is a hell of a lot of dialog because, like Hamlet, Cassablanca is one oft repeated sound byte after another from "Here's looking at you kid" to "Round up the usual suspects" to "Louis, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" to "If she can stand it, I can. Play it!"... you get the idea. - One of my favorite bits of trivia is that Rick never actually said, "Play it again, Sam." That was Woody Allen.
It takes days or weeks for me to finish the deep ponderings of books, movies, and certain TV shows. (I finally read Harry Potter 6 & 7 a few weeks ago, and I'm still reeling just a bit.) Watching the news if far more depressing than hearing it from my honey or my friends (who are always happy to tell me whether I want to hear it or not) If I get a song stuck in my head, there's always a bit of lyric that's playing like a looped Freudian slip until I decipher what's really on my mind, so you might imagine that in order to maintain any kind of clarity and productivity (or sanity) I'm rather careful about where I spend my time. It's not so much OCD as it is a desperate need to solve things. My left brain will hack away at a piece of information or a problem with the same tenacity and determination that drives a border collie to catch a frisbee.
Less atuned people might dub me "too sensitive," but I've spent decades expanding my capacity for taking more in because doing so allows me to delve deeper into design and composition to create the unexpected and the innovative. Art is a congommeration of details all in service of the larger picture (pun intneded). If I can't be aware of all those nuances, including the balls in the air, house of cards processes of hammers, punches, tiny wires, and fire, then I'd probably make a lot of unexciting half melted pieces.
For each of us, the limit of what we'd really like to let in is probably far less than the amount of stimulus we Westerners receive and are expected to engage in and return. I'll happily champion anyone's right to be part ostrcih with his/her head in the sand just enough to survive. (How else could I have successfully made beautiful things or raised a happy child in the George W. Bush years?) If we are what we eat, then I believe our creations are the bodies of our synthesized soul foods, perceptions, feelings, and ideas. Be selective. Be reflective. Be creative.
11:53 AM
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Give a gift that is as unique as your love and one you'll know she won't take back.
Gift Certificates now available at VictoriaLansford.com!
Good on all available artwork, book, and DVDs. Not redeemable for workshops or commission work. Status of available artwork updated periodically but may not indicate work recently sold on exhibition.
11:56 PM
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for gallery updates & workshop info
Click on DVD thumbnails to watch previews
Victoria's new solder removes all the drudgery from the technique, leaving only the fun part. .75 troy oz jar (lasts for years) $29.95
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