When we started in March of 2020, Metal Arts Adventures with Anne and Ame (MAA) was just a way to stay connected as the pandemic pushed us into isolation. We thought we'd do the show a few times, never imagining it would take on a life of its own for over a year. Together we've virtually traveled the world, learned tips & tricks, celebrated holidays, found solace and shared inspiration. As the world reopens, it's time to pursue exciting new endeavors. In this show, master metalsmith Earl Bushey shares top-notch mokume gane tips and Bette Barnett introduces us to the fascinating world of powdered metals. For links to resources and classes mentioned by Bette, visit her at studiomigoto.com.

As for us, watch for future updates from here on  sandiegojewelrylab.com and on annevillestudio.com as well our social media channels and if you haven't done so already, do sign up for our mailing list. Be  well and keep in touch!

The discussion topic for tonight's Sawing Circle was "What is your favorite tool, what do you use it for and where can we get it?" and boy did we have fun with that. For Annette it was her Genie, Charlotte said it's emery boards for sanding, Carmen lovingly praised her Micromark mini bandsaw, Ame mentioned (rather irrelevantly) her computer tablet and stylus, Kathe showed us her new favorite Grobet hand file and Anne shared her fancy digital calipers. Jan got a new rolling mill and we discussed rolling mill care and feeding a bit and then Dale gave us an update on his sick rolling mill. We also had a grand time seeing recent works by Annette and Jan and a spirited talk about step bezels. Read on for links and more photos.

When we started in March of 2020, MAA was just a way to stay connected as the pandemic pushed us into isolation. We thought we'd do the show a few times, never imagining it would take on a life of its own for over a year. Together we've virtually traveled the world, learned tips & tricks, celebrated holidays, found solace and shared inspiration. As the world reopens, it's time to pursue exciting new endeavors. In July’s show, master metalsmith Earl Bushey will share top-notch mokume gane tips and Bette Barnett will introduce us to the fascinating world of powdered metals. As always, Metal Arts Adventures is all about you so please join us for our Grand Finale episode on July 15th.

Metal Arts Adventures #27: Emerge Online Opening
Put on a swanky outfit, pour yourself a glass of something sophisticated and imagine yourself making a grand entrance into an artsy gallery space populated with interesting people and jazz .... it's our online opening reception for "Emerge" our juried exhibition! Wander around nibbling cheese (make yourself a small plate of cheese beforehand to get the full effect) and see the jewelry metal art works while listening to celebrity judges Anne Wolf of Anneville Studio and Bette Barnett of Studio Migoto discuss the technical prowess and design merits of each piece. Guess the winners and stick around til the end to see if you're right as we unveil the Best of Show, Best Mokume, Best Steel Piece and Most Creative Piece and award each artist their fabulous prizes. We want to hear from you - leave a comment below. Do you know of a jewelry metal arts work space reopening? Have you heard about a fair that's going to be live again this year? Do you know what's up with Idyllwild Arts, the San Diego Gem & Mineral Society or a cool place in your area? We're looking for signs of things getting back to normal and we'd love to hear from you so jot down a few notes and raise your hand or type them into the chat window during the show. Step into the gallery to view the online show "Emerge" and see who won!

Nine artists participated by donating jewelry pieces to the Fandango Under the Stars Online Auction with funds going to support Guadalupe Home, an organization that helps women and families experiencing homelessness. This year, due to COVID, the event went virtual so bids were submitted online. Here's the update from Sky:

"Greetings everyone, I'm happy to see [our] donations being looked at and bid upon. The pictures do not do the pieces justice but you can see them at the Online auction: one.bidpal.net/fandango2021/browse/all, on Facebook: facebook.com/CatholicCharitiesSA/, or on Instagram: instagram.com/catholiccharitiessanantonio/. Thank you all for the great support for this event. ~ Sky".

Let's give a big hand to Sky for providing such a great community opportunity and a round of applause to our participating artists! For photos and descriptions of each piece see our previous post: Guadalupe Home Jewelry Team Update.

From sharing new creations and tips & tricks to chit chatting about jewelry metal arts topics, our live Tuesday night Sawing Circle has continued to be an online creative oasis for metal arts geeks throughout April and May. June's hosts include Dale in Anchorage (AK), Carmen in Laguna Nigel (CA), Jan in San Jose (CA) and Garage Kathe, Ame and Anne here in sunny San Diego. We sometimes have interesting surprise guests too! So feel free to join us any Tuesday from 5-7pm Pacific Time. No RSVP or emails needed, simply click the link on our Home page and bring your questions or latest creations for show & tell.

San Diego Jewelry Lab invites all jewelry/metals arts artists to enter their work in our upcoming online exhibit "Emerge". Pieces will be juried by San Diego Jewelry Lab co-owners Anne Wolf and Ame Stanko on craftsmanship, creativity and use of the theme and our panel of instructor judges will award prizes for the best submissions. Exhibition is open to metalsmiths worldwide. Work can be any size; wearable, functional, or sculptural; made within the last year. Get details on our Emerge event page.

Come with us to Japan to meet master mokume gane metalsmith and designated National Treasure  Norio Tamagawa! We tour his home, work a bit in his studio and even enjoy tea hosted by his wife, who is a master in the art of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Afterwards we take a spectacular hike up Mt. Yahiko to commune with the gods of mokume (well, most of the trip is by tram...) plus, we hear stories and see some great photos from Yoko and Karen, metalsmiths who also recently visited Tsubame-Sanjo area and made their own cool metalsmithing discoveries. News alert! We are also excited to announce that we're now accepting entries for Emerge, our brand new juried online show. Continue on for photos.

From host Garage Kathe: We had about 18 people attend our March 9th Sawing Circle. One of the resources mentioned was Eva Sherman. She's a metal artist from Cleveland who teaches and has done some demos on the FB group “Friday Freebies for Metalsmiths” and anyone can join. We also discussed Metals week at  Idyllwild Arts in June - Ann R. and Karen R. spoke of the fun of live classes in past years. This year all metal classes are on Zoom - 2 or 3 day formats so you sign up for multiple classes, registration is open now.  Monica Cardone is teaching Bad Ass Bezels with the Hammer Hand Piece, but her class is full. You can get a discount on Hammer hand pieces from Pepe Tools with a code from Monica.

One of our Metal Arts Adventures presenters has brought us a really cool opportunity. Metalsmith and lapidarist Sky Paxton donates jewelry to Guadelupe Home, a transitional shelter for pregnant and parenting mothers who find themselves homeless. This year, he's inviting us to join him in providing pieces to their fundraiser auction. Finished, boxed pieces valued between $150-$500 need to be mailed to Sky by April 25th and he will submit them to the auction folks. So far we have two spots filled - Sky and Anne Wolf - so we're looking for just 6 more people.

If you would like to join in just let us know in the comments  below and we will follow up. Thank you!!

Thursday, February 21st from 5-6pm Pacific Time
Meet & Greet starts at 4:45pm.
Online via Zoom
Take a virtual trek deep into the heart of the Costa Rican rainforest to visit the Maleku people, see how they create their hand-painted seed jewelry and learn about their unique language and culture with award-winning jewelry designer Ileana Rojas-Bennett. Next, Anne's will show us a great approach to making brooch backs (there's a trick to it!) and we'll announce the details about our brand new call for art. Stick around till the end for our lively Q&A discussion of all things metal arts from torch tips to patina particulars. MAAA is a FREE weekly online metal arts live show. In this fun, interactive gathering we offer demos, share tips & tricks, feature work by artists and students from around the world, go on virtual studio tours, discuss historical metal arts traditions and share resources. You're invited to join in! Need help with a tricky soldering job? Wondering if a tip you saw really works? Want to give us a tour of your studio or recommend an instructor? Submit a question or segment idea and we'll follow up. Send it in! ​

Next Sawing Circle is Tuesday, February 9th, 5-7pm
Thursdays were just too packed with cool metal arts stuff so we've moved our Sawing Circle to Tuesdays starting this month. Our Sawing Circle is like a book club but instead of reading, we work on cool stuff, help each other with problems, share ideas and provide accountability for ongoing work. If you've been looking for support for moving forward on your projects during quarantine then this is the online gathering for you. Join us from your studio to work in the good conversation and company of like-minded friends. Totally free, no need to RSVP, simply make yourself a nice snack, settle down at your bench and click the link to join in via Zoom. We're also looking for volunteers to fill in one night a month to help take our Sawing Circle weekly. Interested? Fill out our Volunteer Form.

Journey with us into the colorful, 500 year old labyrinth of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar guided by San Diego jewelry student & artist Karen Savel. We'll marvel at the ancient arches, see local jewelers at work in their tiny shop, walk in the footsteps of Rick Steve's and visit a gold smelter, stop to watch a street lapidarist at work and finish off with some classic Turkish delights. Next, we sit back and enjoy an informative how-to by enamelist Kay Yee as she shows us her method for creating blackboard brooches. Kay also shares a great list of resources including an inexpensive starter kit and online classes. Read more for resource links.

As we ended the year and the news of the new and more contagious covid variant came out, we really started to feel like we were in a crazy video game so, here we share with you our 2020 Game Recap.

Congratulations, it looks like you’ve made it with us to Level 12 of this awful Game of 2020. We’d give it no stars if possible; at this point all we can do is hold on to a sense of humor and keep going. Level 1 began well, we had a year of trips planned and classes scheduled for our Jewelry Lab business. The worst demon in our land, Orange Windbag, was slashed with the Sword of Impeachment and things were looking good! But then the Land of Koalas caught fire and rumors surfaced of a mysterious new foe in a distant land. Nevertheless, by Level 2 Ame had saved up enough Coin for a trip to visit her father, Vance of La Playa, in the Land of Mariachis and Anne made a foray to the nearby Land of Saguaro to learn patina alchemy. 

At our online Holiday Party we looked back at some 2020 highlights (we did find some!) and shared our plans for 2021. The recipe exchange was a hoot with concoctions for tasty treats as well as Mokume Goo from Earl, DIY Solder from Sky and Niello from Anne (note: don't eat!). We also had fun enjoying everyone's home decor and festive apparel. The winners of our holiday cheer prize drawing were Patty (congrats on the agate burnisher!) and Joanne (edible gemstones!). After that we heard from several people about their own 2020 - good and bad - along with hopes and dreams for 2021. We capped it all off with our Holiday Raffle. Many thanks to everyone who decorated, dressed up and shared goodies. Read on to download the recipes and get some cool free coloring pages and a handy circle divider tool. 

​It took a lot of work on the part of our hand medal creators (and a few late nights for us making envelopes and sewing on ribbons) but we did it! Thank you so much to everyone who participated and shared extra pins and ribbons - we used every last bit and finished with 152! The medals will be presented soon and we’ll share any additional details as we get them. Of course Anne had to make a mokume gane one! The diversity of designs, details and ribbons made them all so fun and different! Congratulations to our Hand Medal Project winners too! Karen won the award for “Most Prolific” with 20 medals completed while Nancy won the prize for “Most Intricate” for her addition of a teeny tiny bracelet to all 11 hands she made. Since we started the project in the summer time, their prizes are tiki face masks - going out in the mail today. Thanks again to everyone who participated. Get involved with our next project: we’re making fold-formed copper leaves in November at our free online Sawing Circle. Click Read More to see photos.

While we wait for that other result🗳, we can announce our #HandMedalProject winners! Karen won the award for “Most Prolific” with 20 medals completed 🏆 while Nancy won the prize for “Most Intricate” for her addition of a teeny tiny bracelet to all 11 hands she made🏅. Since we started the project in the summer time, their prizes are tiki face masks😷🦜🍹🗿- going out in the mail today. Thanks again to everyone who participated.
🍁🍂 Get involved with our next project: we’re making fold-formed copper leaves this month at our free online #SawingCircle. See our website for a free video demo and the date & time.

​Brought to us by SDSU instructor and materialsmith Kerianne Quick, the Hand Medal Project is an international metal arts collaboration in which metalsmiths around the world are making small, wearable hands as a sign of gratitude for health care workers. The hands are reminiscent of milagros or ex votos - religious objects used to invoke miracles. At great risk to themselves and their families, our health care workers are saving lives every day - a miracle indeed. As a part of Keri’s team, our goal is to produce 180 medals - one for each health care professional at Scripps. The Anneville Jewelry Club is a free group that comes together for excursions, online gatherings, group projects. This will be our second event for 2020. Joining our Hand Medal Team is totally free and, if you know us, we'll have some fun with it for sure. Read on for details and sign up.