The Georgia Goldsmith's Group had a workshop recently with Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez. Juan Carlos is an Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and I first came across his work at Wildacres in North Carolina last summer. All of the students in his class carried on and on about what a wonderful learning experience they were having, and I have to admit I was a wee bit jealous. So when I heard GGG was bringing Juan-Carlos to Atlanta, I signed up immediately.
| Juan Carlos |
Our class was all about textures and embellishments. We started off texturing round Steel Blocks (in any pattern we desired), which we can now use to add texture to our metal. We also textured hammers and made numerous stamps out of steel and nails. The picture below is one of the steel blocks I textured with separating disks ground into the metal. The photo underneath shows how the texture looks after hammering a piece of silver onto the block.
We also spent a good amount of time etching. We used PnP, paint pens, sharpies, contact paper, stamps, universal etching ground, bees wax...just about anything that would resist the etching solution.
| Kathy and Debby |
| Barbara, Cyndi and Anna Juan Carlos demonstrated how to obtain many of the techniques used in this piece below, i.e., texturing, scoring and folding, rolling mill techniques, forging. He demonstrated flush setting tiny stones (and he made it look so easy), depletion guilding and cleaning with a DRY brass brush (great tip!). I think we all agreed it was a wonderfully inspiring week. We'll take everything we learned back home with us and, hopefully, some of what we absorbed will come out in what we now create. |
