From Ginger, the tour guide...

An artist friend of mine is most affectionate about what he calls the "muddled middle" of the creative process. Beginning or ending a project are not his favorite moments, and I would tend to agree. Beginning a project is a moment of heightened awareness of potential, or it's a time of being debilitated by the vastness of the options. Ending a project is either a time of celebration for the accomplishments either aesthetic, narrative or technical, or it's a moment of sadness because a chapter is ending.

But, in the muddled middle, thoughts come quickly, solutions are revealed, and we are often in the presence of forces beyond ourselves.

I think this is why everyone loves a studio tour! It's fascinating to steal a glimpse into another person's creative process. From the haphazard resting place of a tool on a bench, or the selection of books or music, or the pile of sketches on the corner of the table, we can witness traces of the magical muddled middle.

At the writing of this post, I have recently (just a few days ago) moved my studio to a new venue. It's a very different locale from where I spent my last five years, so it's going to take me a while to adjust to the new space - the flow, designations and processes. I am also setting it up with future students in mind, which is very different from establishing a space for solo studio work.

After the new venue is a little more like a good pair of sneakers, I will create a new "studio tour" post to share here with you. In the meantime, scroll down to read about my previous studio location.

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Welcome to the studio! It may look like a mess to you, but to me it's full of nothing but potential. I resisted the urge to clean up before snapping these shots. It's a space that is designated for creating, which in and of itself is a beautiful thing.

But first, let's start outside...

Welcome to Historic Downtown Wake Forest.

Welcome to The Cotton Company.  Inside are three resident artists and more than 50 vendor boutiques. It's the largest shopping venue downtown. And, in addition to the usual flurry of shoppers and clients, every second Friday of every month the community comes to see the work of the monthly featured artists, who are invited to show their work in a variety of media. Resident artists, including Ginger, also feature conceptual shows each year, along with a group show in the fall.

Ginger's work is featured in display cases in the gallery. As you are perusing the cases, you may hear hammering coming from someplace nearby.

It must be coming from the metals studio.

I know. I know. It's a mess. But I know where everything is!

My main bench is to the right in the first room, and then you can see the hot table in the second room.

My bench is a modified watchmaker's bench. Elsewhere in the bench room I also have a standard jeweler's bench with the curved cutout and scrap tray, and a modified wooden desk with a skin (jewelers know what this is). Adjusting to the flat front of a watchmaker's bench was tough, but now I enjoy it. It works well for me, especially with my GRS Benchmate. Because it is a watchmaker's bench, it does offer a much better array of drawers, as does the watch crystal cabinet to the right behind my purple chair. This is a cabinet for Flex-O crystals with a foot pedal in the base that operates the arm on top to install crystals.

Many jewelers have torch setups at their benches. I prefer to have the torches in a separate location, along with an assortment of firebrick (see right), honeycomb and tripods, etc. I need to be able to work "large" with the torch, and I couldn't do that safely at the bench. I have two torch outfits - one air/acetylene and one oxy-propane. My range of torch tips is quite broad - #00 to #8.

Back in the bench room, most of my hammers, except the really large and heavy ones, are on the peg board overhead. The latest addition (shown in the overall photo on the right with the black head) is the large vertical cross-peen hammer I found at SNAG last year. I was so excited about finding that! But my favorite are the Peddinghaus forming hammers. They have always served me well. The Germans make great hammers.

I also have three anvils, but the Peddinghaus is my favorite. It is a small one, only 45 pounds. It sits just to my right when I'm at the bench. I need to do something about that big crack in the stump. As the wood has dried over the years indoors, that crack keeps getting bigger. It's too easy to lose parts in there. (Hmm, I could make a sheet lining to fit there that would be great for forming....)

My other anvils include a really large rough one given to me by a cattleman. Its flat horn is broken, but I don't mind. I call her Isabel, named for her stump, which my dad brought me after Hurricane Isabel took down a huge maple in his yard. The third one is made from a section of railroad iron.

Pliers are incredibly important for me. I really enjoy using an assortment of specialty pliers. Many metalsmiths prefer to get by with a basic set, but I like tools, and I don't mind buying a tool even if it only performs one little function. It sure does help when its time comes. Of course, this means I have lots of pliers. I don't know how many. I suppose I could count them, but I don't really need to know that, do I?

In a case to my right when I'm sitting at my bench is a stack of shelves with pieces from my found object collection. I like to have these things where I can watch them, or see them, and see what might develop. I really enjoy working with found objects, and I've collected lots of interesting relics. Who knows what they will become.

Getting back to the tools, I have many favorites. This dapping set (to the right), containing punches and a beautifully polished block, is fantastic. One of the punches has a gouge in it, and it arrived that way. Most people would have returned it and required a replacement be sent, but I didn't. I just work around it, or not.

I also found this corrugating roller in a jeweler's supply shop in Florence, Italy. What a wonderful way for me to remember that trip, along with the Italian hammer and oval bezel mandrel. (The Italians make nice tools, too!)

My rolling mill is also a relic. I purchased it from another metalsmith. I did a little research on the manufacturer, and discovered that the company was only in operation for about 20 years around the turn of the 20th century. So, my rolling mill is a centenarian. I had the rollers redressed at a machine shop. He's holding up well.

I really enjoy getting tools that have a little history whenever possible. A watchmaker in my area retired, and I bought his collection of watch crystals, most of which were vintage, never used. I also bought a couple of benches from him, as well as several watch crystal cabinets. I may never exhaust this supply of crystals. I have thousands of them, all different kinds. It's nice to have when a customer requests a replacement, as is my inventory of watch bands. But, really, I use them for other things, such as lockets or windows in sculptural pieces. Just imagine!

I enjoy various types of artwork around me as I'm working. The music is important, as is the other artwork. I have a clothesline overhead with a rotating collection of images of other metalsmiths' work. I enjoy collecting these cards, and find them perpetually inspiring. I have paintings and photography that is the work of my friends, but my favorite is a strange but simple installation I did using my vintage typewriter (also a precious gift), and an antique frame from our family.

Scroll down to check it out.

Thanks for reading.