Alright, it has been a very long time since I have posted, and many things have happened over the course of this year and a half so let me try and cum things up in a nutshell.
about a year ago I moved up to Seattle and, after a brief stint of moving to Kirkland I am now located centrally in The Emerald City. I move my studio into an awesome space full of artists and blacksmiths call Equinox Studios in south Seattle. http://www.equinoxstudios.org/
Last May, right as I got a job as a jewelry sales rep. I also got the opportunity to work on a large art installation for BUrning Man, a giant interactive art festival in the Nevada Desert that experiments in communal living and concepts of radical free expression. The project: a 35ft tall interactive rubiks cube which required three people at three control panels to solve it collectively... a real experiment in collaborating on a large scale project, that's goal was to itself stimulate collaboration among stranger. www.groovik.com
After a long summer or basically 20hr of work a week on this giant cube (I helped with Welding, soldering electronics, and sewing mainly.) I got a not so surprising lay-off (recession, blah) conveniently a month before Burning Man. We went, we installed, we had amazing success!
Post Burn I immediately landed a full-time job in high end custom jewelry design with Green Lake Jewelry Works and after a summer of hard work on art I began to have a normal and routine life, and due to the fact that I was designing jewelry 40 hrs a week my studio time, and attention to my personal work decreased, and my focus and attention to my gemological studies picked up.
Nov. and Dec. of 2009 were filled with busy holiday season happenings. Equinox had a winter opening on Dec. 12th and I basically worked 40hrs at my job and 20 hrs a week or myself with my goal of trying to create a small but stylistically solid production line for the holiday art opening. In the end I created 30 pieces in 4 week and sold 1/3 of my inventory the first night and another 1/3 over the next month... ok so it was a hit! I was a bit surprised! but it made me confident that I could potentially sell my work and that low and behold people really liked it!
Jan. 2010 took me to Thailand where I studied at GIA, the Gemological Institute of America and took several final exams and completing 85% of my Graduate Gemologist Degree. By the time I am certified I will be able to identify, and confidently purchase my own gemstones for my jewelry/metalwork, not to mention I am able to discuss gem knowledge in choosing appropriate gemstones for custom design work for customers and friends.... aka a good skill to have. (not to mention a good thing on my resume if ever wanting a job in my field.)
...whew... ! that was a lot... still not done with updating, more to come!
Wheee!!!!
-mellington
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