ENAMELING UP CLOSE // Learn How to Make Champlevé Jewelry In 3rd Ward's Enameling 2 Class

We're back with the second in our series of posts highlighting the techniques that you'll learn in 3rd Ward's Enameling 2 class. We started out with cloisonné and now we'll take a look at champlevé!

Champlevé involves carving out or casting a piece of metal so that there are recesses in its surface. These recesses are then filled with enamel and then fired in a kiln. The technique was first popularized in La Tène, a style of early Celtic art during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC.

Below you can take a look at the creation of a champlevé piece by jewelry maker Kira Scott, a friend of 3rd Ward teacher Max Goodman. Check out more of Scott's work on her blog and AnimaMetals Etsy page.

Want to create your own champlevé jewelry? Learn how in Enameling 2!

-- John Ruscher

ENAMELING UP CLOSE // Learn How to Create Cloisonné Jewelry in 3rd Ward's Enameling 2 Class!

We wear jewelry all the time, but the ways in which these beautiful accessories are created often remain a mystery. To shed some light on that we'll be taking a close-up look at some of the processes used in 3rd Ward's Enameling 2 class. First up is cloisonné!

Quick definition for you:

Cloisonné is the process of soldering an outline pattern onto a piece of metal, filling in the resulting compartments (cloisons in French) with colored enamel and then firing the piece in a kiln. This technique has been used to craft jewelry since at least the 12th century BC.

Below is a flower tri-pendant created by 3rd Ward jewelry teacher Max Goodman. Here's a description of the piece from her blog:

After painstakingly soldering the wire to the sterling silver sheet, I wet packed several layers of enamel and added some tubing for effect. I based the design on two separate art nouveau wallpaper patterns. When I’m out of formal ideas I return there often. The colors, though, are all my own. The entire piece is about 6″ long, and will hang in three parts.

Max Goodman's cloisonné tri-pendant before and after enameling.

Learn how to make cloissone pieces and more in Goodman's Enameling 2 class or get started with Intro to Enameling!

-- John Ruscher

Teacher Pursuits // Exploring Queens Through Design

CROSSCURRENTS: Queens College CUNY MFA Group Exhibition

NY Studio Gallery, 154 Stanton Street

March 23, 2011 through April 2, 2011

Reception: Friday March 25 7-9pm

Curated by Omar Lopez- Chahoud

Patty Harris, our InDesign Instructor, will be showing her work in a group show at the NY Studio Gallery.

A “crosscurrent” is defined as a current flowing into or across another current. The works in this show represent Queens' cultural and ethnic diversity through creative processes.

For example, Osaretin Ighile's industrial debris collected from garbage dumpsters morph into beautiful sculptures such as the portrait of President Obama. Antonia A. Perez's assemblages of everyday consumer products transform into formal, delicate, abstract works. Artists such as Joyce Chan and Karen Cintron explore traditional materials such as paper through weaving and collage. Becky Franco's haunting paintings of domestic spaces blur the line between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Indeed, the Queens College location is a fertile ground for these artists to emerge.

Learn from Patty in her InDesign class here and learn more about CROSSCURRENTS here.



Inflatable Sculpture Show Featured Artists

Here's a preview of what you can expect at the March 26 Inflatable Sculpture Show. (This is a working list and will be updated regularly as details come in). RSVP HERE.

Patrick Flibotte - Instructor
SUBTERRANEAN USED CAR LOT BLUES: 50 sculptures with 50 separate fans and LED lights
INFLATABLE SUPERHEROS: two giant inflatable superheros

Mariah Corrigan
JANUARY: A dead white/semitransparent spider on its back with its legs in the air. Illuminated from within.   9' w x 11' h.

Robert Collins, Jr.

DEER IN HEADLIGHTS:  4' w x 10' h.

Fabian Grateroles
GASTROPOD #34 : 15' ft w x 8' h x 8' d.

Eva Marie Lansberry
SPARKY the Translucent Juvenile Roundbelly Cowfish: Translucent Juvenile Roundbelly Cowfish 12' w x 12' h x 12' d

Meena H. Kim

NO MORE BATTLE PLEASE : 15' w x 15' h and extended arms

Gabriel Pulecio Guzman AKA Lustix
METALLOID TROUPE 6' w x 6' h with projections onto surface.

Lara Agulto

APOCALIPSTICK : a bust of a nun (inflatable) with laser beams (not inflatable) coming out of its eyes. Approx 9' tall.

Launa Eddy
CAT EYE : Giant glasses
 23' w x 
6' h x 14" d

Liz Medina
CHEW MY BALLS :  a giant gum ball machine you can crawl inside. There will be balloons floating inside. Everyone gets a complimentary gum ball too. 10' w x 13' h.

PLUS, a special performance by Anney Fresh's Space Kittys. 

Anney McKilligan Ozar, AKA Anney Fresh, is a creator and performer of costumes and puppets in New York City. She was nominated for seven Daytime Emmy Awards for Costume Design/ Styling with wins in 2007, 2009, and 2010 for Sesame Street. 

 ... and more details to come!

Installation Students Bring Their Art Home

ART TAKING OVER HOME

Saturday, March 26, 2011 // 3pm - 3am

201 Montrose Avenue, Apartment 2A

This Saturday, a group of students in our Installation: Creating an Environment class will present an immersive and innovative show that lets Art take over the Home through sound, video, painting, illustration, sculpture, interactive, performance, taste and smell, potential ghosts and -- of course -- collaborative installation.

What is Home? How has "adult Home" been influenced by "childhood Home"? How has the concept of Home been sacrificed for something like location, location, location? How have rodents or leaks or bed bugs compromised the concept of Home?    

Plus, take a seat and share a story about your Home, your neighbor's secrets, that truck that idles outside your window all night.

Want more? Learn more about installation and its exciting possibilities. Sign up for Installation: Creating an Environment here. Class starts April 3rd!



Shot at 3rd Ward // Behind-the-Scenes with Burdastyle

We've been loving all the shots Burdastyle took in Studio B the other week, including this wild cardi and this Pendleton cape. There's always so much energy in their photos, and now we know why -- they have fun! See below for a behind-the-scenes video of their 3rd Ward shoot and how Burdastyle brings their fashion to life.

Wanna get sew-savvy? Sign up for one of our Sewing Classes (Level 1 here and Level 2 here) -- taught with Burdastyle's beloved patterns.

Instructor Pursuits // From Thai Monk Bowls to Tiffany’s Trophies

When Preston Jones (Teacher since ’10) isn’t teaching Casting in Pewter, he works as a silversmith at one of the only producers of hand-wrought silver in the nation: Tiffany & Co. Though known for their jewelry, Tiffany’s has a distinguished legacy in hollowware, and has long made the silver trophies for the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals and more.

But here's a surprise -- Preston didn’t start off on 5^th Avenue. After studying at SUNY New Paltz and FIT, Preston took off for Thailand, where he studied with silversmithing monks. See below for some of his work.

Want to study with this well-traveled East-West metal master? We just posted a new Casting in Pewter section for this May. Sign up here today!



Instructor Pursuits // Submit to NOT NEW YORK

NOT NEW YORK is a website devoted to exploring the spiritual margins of New York City, co-founded by our resident anarcho-mystical scholar and Start a New Religion instructor, Robert Doto. (Possibly the most tweeted-about 3rd Ward class)

The idea? A sort of "Huffington Post" of marginal, taboo, beautiful and otherwise interesting spiritual haps. But they need your help!

Robert is looking for people who can follow up on the esoteric underbelly of our fair city: Temples to Isis, Satanists, Yippies, psychedelic cults, Doomsdayers, santeros, anarchist pagans, Jews for Jesus, tantrikas and sadhus, sufi mystics and whatever else you can uncover.

Interested in contributing? Email Robert at bdotop [at] yahoo [dot] com. And learn more about the Start Your Own Religion class here.

(Re) Made at 3rd Ward // Upholstery Upcycling

Erin Hathaway saw our magazine in a coffee shop and knew she had to take the Upholstery Class.

A landscape architect by day, Erin has sewn her whole life and wanted to use this class as a way to collaborate with her boyfriend, a furniture designer. Until now, the chair (bought for $20 in Erin's homestate of Kentucky) has been a scratching post for her cat. Now her retro chair has a modern look, her roommate doesn't have an eyesore in the living room, and Erin has a newfound passion.

The Before Shot. A chair desperately in need of love.The chair is stripped, revealing the old, yellowing padding underneathNewm comfortable batting cushion is added.

The new fabric is fitted over the back and arms.Voila! From scratching post to living room centerpiece.