[Jewelry making - Article 00422] - [Orchid] Show report...

[Tracy Burlison]

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    I promised everyone a show report, so here it is. I hope there is
    some information in here you might find useful. 

    I don't do many shows at all and this is my first time showing my
    metalsmithing work, as I have only been doing it in my spare time
    now for about a year. 

    I agreed to do the show because I got a small discount on the booth
    space and I work for the company who sponsored the show. It was very
    last-minute and I had two weeks to prepare. I know I have a lot of
    work to do on my booth setup, but it looks better than is has at
    previous shows. 

    I've done this show in the past, and have made enough to cover costs
    and then some. It's a little bit of a gamble and I knew that going
    in. This year was the pits.. the show was great, but the crowds were
    lackluster. Nobody was buying anything and as my booth helpers
    noted, they weren't really looking at the prices, either. The event
    is a women's expo and a 1-day show. This year's keynote speaker was
    Paige Davis, formerly of 'Trading Spaces'. I only sold enough to
    cover half my booth cost. We are in an area where the economy is
    doing fairly well with lots of new construction, so it's anyone's
    guess as to why people weren't in a spending mood. 

    For my metalsmithing, I work with only silver, fabricating and am
    exploring texturing techniques, hammering and punching, mainly. I'm
    fascinated with the look that incorporates different surfaces &
    looks next to each other, like a ring having a highly textured
    surface and antiquing outside and a matte-sanded finish inside with a
    highly-polished rim. Hopefully it looks better than the technical
    explanation of it :-D 

    Most of my work incorporates cabochon stones and I'm currently doing
    a line of hand-hammered link jewelry. 

    Even though the show wasn't a success, I learned a lot about myself
    and even had a couple of ah-ha! moments. 

    A couple of things that I'd like to share are: 

    1. Hard plastic grids for needlepoint sewing (with the large needle &
    thread) make excellent media screeners for stainless steel shot. I
    use the round one which fits inside a colander and over a bucket to
    screen out even the smallest pieces, which just fell through the
    colander holes. They are cheap, too! 

    2. Permanent ink, like from a Sharpie pen, makes a great resist for
    Jaxx Blackner (and should work with liver of sulphur, too). The
    citrus cleaners that remove ink, have no effect on the blackner, so
    you can draw a pattern in ink, dip the piece in blacker, remove the
    ink and have an crisp outline. In order to keep the black, you'll
    have to pattern the metal somehow.... so I plan to explore this
    technique further by crimping the metal (as soon as I buy a tube
    wringer) or punching/hammering and see what happens. I'll post
    pictures with my results later. I found this out partly by accident,
    partly by laziness. Please feel free to use and share this technique. 

    3. Shelving units make awesome displays. I took three wire shelves --
    like the kind used for closets -- and plastic tie binds and made a
    three-sided display that breaks down nearly flat for storage &
    transportation. (See photo below). They fit together great by the
    outside (shelf lip) holding the backside of the other shelf. I used
    a tie bind in three places per side and they are very strong &
    sturdy. To break them down, simply cut one side of tie binds and the
    unit folds up almost flat (cool, huh?). 

    And lastly, the best thing to come out of the show, was that a friend
    of a friend who were both helping me with my booth runs the gift
    store for the Columbia (SC) Museum of Art. She took some of my
    pieces on consignment after the show. Woo-hoo!! I'm officially an
    official artist. (grin) It's the first gallery I've been shown in and
    was one of my goals this year. Wish me luck! 

    We didn't manage to get a web site up and running, but thank you to
    all the people who helped me with backgrounds. That's the next major
    project. 

    And also thanks to everyone who suggested places to find tumbler O
    rings and just the support in general! What would I do without you
    guys?!?

    Here's some pictures from the show: 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth12.jpg 
          Me, on the left, after about 30 minutes of sleep in a 48-hour
          period. 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth11.jpg 
          My loyal booth helpers before the doors open. 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth3.jpg 
          Shelving units used for display. 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth8.jpg 
          hammered links necklace. 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth2.jpg 
          overall (still setting up) 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth7.jpg 
          detail of boxed rings 

    http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/booth1.jpg 
          detail necklaces/pendants 

All my best,
Tracy
Tracy's Treasures

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