The Zen of Bayou City Arts Festival

I have a line of mobiles that create rainbows when placed in a sunny window. They comprise about 50% of my sales. While over   50,000 of them are currently hanging in Windows around the world, mainly, only I can sell them. We don't sell many over the Internet. There is a wonderful store in Austin called Crystal Works that carries some of my classic designs. For some reason I can sell them hand over fist. Happily. 

I enjoy making them as well. Here are a few shots of a workspace that has proven very efficient for my purposes. 

This mat is stained from using a brass brush to polish fire stain off of various metals in the production of jewelry and small scalp metal sculpture  

The stump is a work in progress. Every so often I will spend 30 minutes or so sanding the surface. Same with the anvil. About every 6 weeks I will polish the face with successive grits of sand paper on a palm sander. These two surfaces are used in the forging of the cross beams of my mobiles.  

Pile of tools, steel wool, scotch bright, paper shop towels, silver polishing cloths  

A production list with the total value of the finished pieces. This is necessary not only to keep me focused on what to do-- the show is 18 days off  it also gives me a sense of the value of the inventory. I have a penchant for numbers 

Design journal and wooden forms for making small vessels and bracelets  

Wire brush is an awesome tool

2 or 3 different hammers used in the production of the mobiles  

This is Wednesday night. By Sunday night this area will be full of mobiles.  

then it will be special sculpture time. 

6 Roses

I cut 54 inches of this wire into 9" lengths

I flattened them out using a big carpenters hammer on a Kevin Potter round jewelers anvil

My favorite hammer.  I'm like a guitarist. I gave to talk about the. Instrument. This is a flat peen hammer designed by Jewelry artist, Michael Goode and manufactured by his neighbor in Maine, Bill Fretz. I met Bill.  Nice guy. Great tools several more are on my list. 

1st course finished. Next step is to heat up the metal to about 1200 degrees then drop it in water to cool it down real fast. That will loosen up the molecules and make these strips like clay again, ready for a second course.  

I'm going to make 6 Rearview Mirror hangers with Swarovski crystal