Our last selling event of the year in Chico

We'll be leaving in the morning for our 36th year of selling our mixed metal jewels just before Christmas in Chico, CA. Above are a few of the new jewels we've finished in the last few days. We will probably have the best selection of jewels that we have ever had at a Bah! Humbug festival of crafts. We are looking forward to seeing all of our Chico friends and customers. Looks like it may be a rainy time between now and Christmas, we're bringing rain coats and umbrellas. Go to our Show Schedule page to find out place and time details for the Bah! Humbug Festival.

Driving in the rain to Davis

Well, if the weather reports are correct, we will be driving in the rain from the Mendocino coast to Davis, CA tomorrow. We hope that it pauses when it's time to unload our fair display from our van into the Davis Art Center, where we will be selling our mixed metal jewels for 3 days. Above are a number of newly finished pieces that I just took pictures of a little while ago. We are looking forward to connecting with friends and customers and hopefully making some money this weekend.

The little silver piece that says Words in the picture. I was sitting at my work bench a couple of days ago thinking about putting words in some of my jewelry designs, something I've thought about for several years but haven't followed through with doing. I was trying to think of some amazing word to put in metal and nothing was coming to me and then I just thought, well, what about words? Seemed interesting and offbeat and I wondered why anyone would want to buy it but went ahead and did it and here it is. Hopefully I'll think of some other words and ways to use them in jewelry pieces, we'll see. Stay tuned.

Mixed Metal Jewelry at the Sacramento Arts Festival

These are jewels that we have just finished, I spent part of Sunday taking pictures so I could get another collage of images that we will have at the show up on the blog. There are still more new pieces to be finished, some interesting ones that I will try to get images of and post before the show.
We are very happy about the rain that we just got, the plants in my yard are very happy too. Hoping for more (after the Sacramento show). It's windy city here on the coast today, I was walking around Ft. Bragg today putting up flyers for the Caspar Community Center's upcoming events and it was a challenge to keep them from flying away.

Getting Ready for the Sacramento Arts Festival

For the 18th time we will soon be showing our work at the Sacramento Arts Festival at the Convention Center in midtown. We will have a very good selection of our mixed metal jewels.
Both of us have been enjoying our jewelry work in the studio and trying out some new ideas. Playing and trying new things has helped us enjoy the process of making jewelry for approaching 50 years. We think we'll do it for a few more years yet although we will continue to cut our show schedule.

Before we moved to the Mendocino Coast, we lived in the Nevada City, Grass Valley area for 20 years and starting in about 1975-76 we sold our work at as many as 6 to 10 shows a year in the Sacramento/Davis area. A lot of small shows at first, Sac State, Town & Country Village, K St. Mall, Sunrise Village, Birdcage Walk, other little street shows in Folsom, Roseville, Lincoln, Auburn, Stockton, Nimbus Winery and the list goes on & on for years & years. We only do two shows a year in the area now, the Sacramento Arts Festival & the Davis Art Center's Holiday Fair.
Our business there now is very successful due to the loyalty of the almost 40 years of clients that have bought our work over those years and continue to do so. We are very thankful.

Making Mixed Metal Jewelry for Mendocino

We're continuing to do our mixing of metals in our jewelry pieces, having creative fun and preparing for our upcoming fair in Mendocino and our Labor Day Weekend fair in the bay area. We did take a few days to spend with our grandkids in Pacific Grove and Monterey, visiting the Aquarium and Cannery Row and having a relaxing time. Now we are back at the work/play bench. These are all newly finished pieces at the right. More on the way.

Getting Ready for the Mendocino Street Fairs

The pieces at the left are ones that we have recently finished and will have at our only local showings of our work, the Mendocino Street Fairs on two Saturdays in July, the 4th and the 25th. We have quite a few other new pieces and are looking forward to our only at home area fairs for this year. Weather here is being very wonderful, 65 to 70 degrees and mostly sunny with some fog and clouds in the morning time. If you live in a hot area and are thinking of traveling to the coast in July, below are a few other things that are happening.

Mendocino has a long running, fun, interesting and idiosyncratic 4th of July parade on Saturday. Also on the 4th is the largest salmon barbecue in the world at Noyo Harbor in Ft. Bragg. http://www.mendocino.com/?id=3211

The 2nd Street Fair always happens on the last Saturday of the Mendocino Music Festival, this year is the 29th annual and it runs from July 11th to the 25th drawing visitors from all over the state.
http://mendocinomusic.org/

My final mention is of the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, a really lovely place, beautifully done. It's at the southern edge of Ft. Bragg. The dahlia garden should be in bloom in July.
http://www.gardenbythesea.org/

Just finished our Los Altos Fair

We had a fun and profitable time at the Los Altos Rotary Art Fair on the 16th & 17th of May. Showing at the right are some of the work that we have recently finished and will have for our next fairs, our only local shows this year, the Mendocino Street Fairs in July. We will have a lot of additional new Mixed Metal Jewels by July. stay tuned for pictures.

Finishing Mixed Metal Jewels for Chico

I just spent the last two hours taking pictures of jewels that we have finished in the last couple of weeks, many of them just having the final touches put on them today. To the left is a collage of a few of the pieces that I found interesting. It amazing that we still enjoy the process of making jewelry after doing it for so many years. We do though. I must admit however that I'm happy to be doing very few art shows any more, we've kept only the very good ones in areas where we have 30-40 years of customers. We'll be leaving for our first show of the year in Chico midday tomorrow. Hope to see some of you there.

More New Mixed Metal Jewels

We're still working steadily getting ready for our May shows in Chico and Los Altos. Here are a few more pictures of pieces we finished this week. Lots more to come. I'll try to get another collage of new jewels posted before we leave for the Chico show.

Mixed Metal Jewels First Fairs of the Year

Our first shows of the year are coming up starting in a few weeks and we have been productive in our little jewelry studio in Ft. Bragg. In the collage to the right are a few of the recently finished pieces that I just took pictures of. We are both making a lot of earring designs. Carlie usually does that but I'm making an unusually high number for me. At the end of the year last year when we did a show just before Christmas in Chico I had more jewelry to display than Carlie but she had a lot more earrings and because of that she made almost as much money as I did. So, guess what, I'm making more earrings. I'll be putting more pictures on the blog in the next week or two, we are starting to finish a lot of jewels at this point. I'm really happy to have the space to create a space for taking jewelry pictures that I can leave functional all the time in our new more spacious dwelling, makes taking pictures easier and easier to get good images.