Andrew S. Harmon

We had an art show at fuji studios.  I really liked some of the silkscreened fabric patterns that people had made.

Silver Ampersand necklace with inlayed stone that I made.

Process:

1. Cut ampersand out of 1 mm silver sheet (save the pieces that compose the negative space)
2.  Solder rectangle and tiny negative space pieces to another 1 mm silver sheet.  (The surface tension of the solder wants to pull all of the pieces together which makes things difficult)
3.  Solder sheet to another 1 mm sheet.  
4.  Cut, file and sand to exact rectangular shape
5.  File top with round file for tube to lay in.
6.  Solder tube in groove on top.
7.  Crush stones
8.  Apply  glue and place stone fragments in one at a time like a puzzle.
9.  Wait 12 hours for glue to dry
10.  Sand stones to level of metal, go back and fill holes
11.  Sand and polish
12.  Mask stones with tape
13.  Sandblast then remove tape.

Oh, and there a lot of intermediate steps (like pickling for 10 min after every soldering). But I managed to do it all this week (about 12 hours). 

During the waiting parts I made a married metal button as a practice piece before I move on to silver.

And a couple other places.

I went to Sicily and it snowed!  A lot too.  I was not exactly prepared for that so I was without a jacket and quite cold.  Night trains are also not cool.  But the way they got the train to the island was quite odd.  There was a train ferry.  Yes they put the train on a boat and took it across the sea.  You never even had to get out of the train cars (but trust me it is nice to get out and get some fresh air).  6 people in a 7′ x 5′ room is very cramped.  During the day it has 2 bench seats facing each other (three people per side).  At night 3 beds fold down on each side (6 beds total).  Between the loudness of the train, the cramped beds and the need to keep the window open while going 60 mph because of the heat you really don’t get much sleep.

We went to Corleone, Palermo, and a few other sites. I presented on the palace of Zisa.

Some miscellaneous pictures from florence and some things I have been making in my jewelry class.