On Henderson Avenue there appears to be a warm microclimate. It was startling to see a carpet of crocus in bloom, there are no leaves on the trees, we are all weary of winter gray. In my yard the snow drops are beginning to bloom and the daffodils are pushing up their glaucous greenish leaf tips.

I drove over there this afternoon especially to shoot this unexpected event. Here are some more shots.

I bought this plant online last June (2009). It arrived in a large box looking more than a little beaten up. I repotted it and watched it die over a period of a few months. It had come from a greenhouse in Florida and just wasn’t tough enough for the journey to New York where the climate was sure to be different from it’s previous home. I wrote to the green house because it had flowered, had seeds on it and was doing terribly. They assured me it would be okay, I should remove the dying foliage and keep the tuber warm and moist. I kept it in a bright window in the paste paper studio on the third floor. About a month ago it began to sprout, in no time at all there were two leaves, then a third leaf and the tip of a flowering stalk. That was about 5 or 6 days ago, then it started to open. I took the plant downstairs for photos on February 25th, (2010).

A day later, February 26th and it is opening more.  This is it’s New york home in the bright window.

I am expecting the little knobs to open and be covered with whitish pollen. The original photo shows a furry white column in the spathe.

Back at home in the window with some anthuriums.

Two days later and the spathe has fully opened.

I like the way the curls come together with the leaf and spathe.

Don’t know whether there will be pollen or not, it’s been open a few days now and there seems to be no change other than little clear balls of liquid appearing on the spathe. It’s March 6th today, I took these photos on the 3rd.

The first pair of beakers I made  are  for me chase designs that are influenced by cylinder seals. I cut stencils from sheets of mylar for two motifs from a seal’s impression, one of a lion with a goat and one of a large boar with a leaf form. The stencils allow me to place, repeat and reverse directions of the designs around the cup.

Designs were drawn onto the beaker with a sharpie and then scratched  in with an awl. I cleaned the sharpie ink off and set the supporting dowel into a vise so I could begin chasing the designs into the copper. In the next photo, I have already chased lines on the lip and foot of the cup, the scratches are where I will begin to chase the animals onto the cup.

The chasing has started.

I remade my small chasing tool. When it was made last year, it was for chasing curves, I never used it because the regular chasing tool made the gentle curves that I needed very well. The curve tool, however, seemed to just dig in to the metal and was difficult to use. This design requires tighter curves than I can make with the main chasing tool. I looked at the curve tool again and decided that it dug in because the arc of its bite was too round. It was annealed and I let it cool slowly between slabs of fire brick, then I filed the high part of the arc off of the tool to make it closely match the gentle arc of  my main tool. The arc is flatter now like the big tool, the curves are a close match, but this one is on a shorter length of bite.  Now the tool works like it should, gliding along without digging into the metal. I’m only chasing outlines at this stage, but I have scratched in some of the future detailling.

Here’s a close-up of some of the chasing.

Between sessions of chasing I was also raising on two new beakers, one slightly larger and one smaller than the pair I finished last week. Placing the design on the first beaker showed me that I would need some different diameters and heights. I bought a 5″ (126 mm) and a 6″ (172 mm) disk, raising one with a 45 MM diameter and the other with a 50 mm diameter,  aiming for  heights over 75 mm.  Here’s what my cache of pots looked like when I got to class last Friday. There’s also a pin in the lower left that I had begun to make for Colman (his birthday was the 21st).  While in class I made another snarling iron with a small tip. I know I will need one for the new designs.

I finished the pin Saturday and made a box out of paste paper and maroon velvet to present his gift.

Here I have begun to push one side of the chased line down, the branch and one side of the lion is done.

I won’t do the detail lines at all right now,  not having done final working drawings I want to think about it some more and look at photos of the impressions that cylinder seals make before committing to tool marks.  here’s a close-up.

I have to put the cup on the back side of the vise to get to some of the lines properly, the tool can only be seen from one side while I am working with it.

Now I am beginning to put the background down with broader polished tools.  The areas are large and I may have to make a pattern to get it all to go down to the same level around the cup.

Another close up, there’s still a lot of work to be done so I am not worried about the small flaws and irregularities.

I used the sharpie to mark in some of the details on the boar’s hind quarter.  Then I scratched in one line, chased it  and then scratched in the next line.  It felt like I had better control if I made one scratched and chased line at a time. Doing it that way allowed me to use the already chased line as a guide in chasing another line near it.  After  chasing I removed the ink for better visibility.

AfterI finish putting the background down I will remove the cup from the pitch and use a snarling iron to push the animals out a little, then it will be time to anneal and put the cup on the pitch ended dowel again for finishing.

It was a lazy, dark and very quiet morning. Yesterday, the snow plows were coming down Tysen street almost hourly until midnight. There were no scraping sounds of big trucks this morning and no sounds of people moving about. I got out of bed to look at the snowfall and was surprised to see that the front porch was covered right up to the front door with a 5 inch layer of powdery snow. Snow had even collected in the space behind the storm door, when I opened it, the door scraped an arc in the snow covered deck. 

I looked out the back door at our deck and  snow piled really high on our table, new snow on top of about 3 inches of the last storm’s remnants. I went back to bed, it was obvious nothing was going to happen fast today.

About 10 we got up to attack the day. It was obvious that the city had been sleeping in and was waking to the task of digging out.

Some bird tracks on a neighbor’s porch that was spared the deep snow covering mine.

My next door neighbor Gary was out shoveling his sidewalk while I was doing mine.  We’ve been having flurries all morning.

Snow plows didn’t arrive here until the late afternoon.  My ruler shows the depth of the snow on Tysen Street.

This afternoon it’s been pleasantly cool, the snow is melting and  falling off of the trees. Colman shoveled a path to the greenhouse in our 10 inches of snow. Henry wouldn’t go outside. I went out to make a little video from Henry’s perspective, I imagine this is what he would have seen if he followed us outside.  So far he’s only stuck his nose out the door.  No paws in wet snow.

After I made the video, the sky cleared and it got a lot brighter. Here are a few shots.

Henry in a warm, well lit spot.

I went into the city  last evening just before sundown, when I arrived at the Manhattan-side Ferry Terminal the sun was going down and I saw, on the horizon, the place where clouds are made and released into the atmosphere. Never realized it was so close by.

The FIT Jewelry Club  participated in the annual sale  put on by the Bead  Society of Greater New York. We had a table where we could sell our collection of donated beads.  Here’s a shot of Cait and Kim, I was there with a few other JC members to help out. The table was mobbed most of the evening and we sold a ton of beads at great prices.

While visiting a neighbor this morning I took these photos of our newest snow fall which had only begun early this morning.  The first shot is out of Fay and Robert’s back door. It’s really wet snow, falling in huge clumps.  My friends on FaceBook are  taking pictures and movies.   I was just out there shoveling a path on our sidewalk. It’s wet and as a neighbor said “wicked heavy”.  Clumps falling out of trees hit you like a wet snowball.

And here’s the view of my side of the street, from a perspective I rarely get to see. Colman and I live in the yellow house.

Here’s a wider shot showing more of Tysen Street.

I made a contour guide from one of the plastic post card coupons that come from Staples.  The outside of the bowl was marked  for planishing.  The center parts are the areas to be worked on so I planished the lip and foot  leaving the center part of the bowl soft from annealing.

In these photos, I have started to push the bowl out from the bottom, you can seethe bulge in its contour. The contour guide shows the space into which I will hammer to bowl’s sides.

I marked the inside of the top with  my dividers so that there would be a guide for pushing the sides out a little.  No contour guide here.

I wanted to set the shoulder an didn’t have a stake or a way to hold the top to do that.  I went to the basement with a hammer and wood chisel and carved a curved notch into a side of one of my little stumps.  I made the curve larger than I would need it to be and carved the groove to accommodate the  domed part of the lid.  Then I used the hook hammer to set the shoulder  in the groove like a negative of the stake I use to set the base.  It worked really well allowing me to strike on both sides of the shoulder angle.

In the studio at FIT I found some stakes that I needed to do a little planishing on the bowl, I had to switch a lot for the different parts of the curved side.

The dime was difficult. I couldn’t find a stake to fit anywhere, then I saw the hammers, this long hammer with a polished round face was perfect for the  top of the dome.

Then I found another raising hammer with a broader rectangular face to act as a stake while I evened out the shoulder. It still need s more work but I ran out of time and had to head for home.

Here’s a comparison shot of the shaping before and after, I’ll planish a little more, reshape the top of the bowl for a better fit and then I will be able to start chasing the surfaces.

Walking by Madison Square Park this morning, I decided to take a moment and get closer to the sculptures I had seen there since the beginning of Winter. The recent snow fall has has given them more of a stage and the black and white of the shapes fit into the landscape better now.  

I have decided that the stripes take away from the forms, interrupting and not adding to the presence of the sculpture, in effect diminishing their volume and flattening their appearance in the landscape. Maybe that is the sculptor’s intention. In my opinion, a misguided endeavor.

Someone else had another idea about sculpture.

We’re getting a big snow storm. It seems strange to call it a storm while the winds are calm and the snow is falling quietly.   It’s really building up on the branches and some are already breaking under the weight.

Tysen street about 1PM today.

And the back yard about the same hour.

Here’s a video taken  at the back door and while standing on the front porch.  It’s so cold out that my camera stops working, it tells me “lens error, please restart camera”  that happened while I was on Columbus circle last week when the wind was blowing and it was much colder.

It’s after 3PM now and I’ve taken a few more photos. The snow has been coming down steadily since we got home from the Y.  Here’s a shot of Tony’s house  across Gary’s garden as seen from my front porch.  A guy on a bicycle passed just before I took these pictures.

The redbud between our house and Gary’s.  The snow looks about 3 inches deep on the branches.

It even has built up on the chain link fence, the wind keeping it growing to one side.

Overhead in the back yard, branches are being lowered by the snow’s weight.

I started this project for two reasons. first I need to be more consistent with my hammer work and I wanted to see how closely I could raise a matching pair of vessels. Secondly I need to make some samples of repousse wine cups that embody a new direction in my ideas about decoration on these cups.

One disk has been started the other has only the center point marked with a punch. The disk is hammered in a depression on a stump from the perimeter toward the center.  This stretches the metal. I started with 5″ disks, 126 mm with hopes of raising a 60-70 mm beaker.

This photo shows the first round finished, the second round started where the roundness is restored and the finished second  round.

This is what it looked like after the third round which was struck with a ball peen hammer.  These three rounds were done without annealing but to continue I must now anneal.

I lightly set the bases on the inside so that I would have a reference point from which to begin raising the sides.

I marked the bases at 50 mm and raised the bowls on my pipe stake held in a vise. The bowl on the left is raised  the one on the right is still bowl shaped. The hammering from now on is all on the outside of the vessel. Top and side views below.

I crimped the second bowl  to see if there was any advantage to a more angular raising.

After raising the difference was minimal, only about 5 mm difference between the pieces.

I set the bases on a flat round stake  in my upstairs studio, the light is better there and I can set the stake at a higher position so that Ican see the reflections of my hammer strikes clearly as they are made.  I scratched a 50 mm circle on the base and  set the base by flattening the bottom and striking the sides as I worked my way around the base.  The first cup has been  nearly set in this photo, the next shot shows the flattened base before I struck the sides. 

This is the stake, I only use one small portion of the edge, striking only on that spot to keep the base round.

This is the second piece before any striking has been done.

This is the desk with all my projects, the vise and cups are on the far side under the lamp.

The cups went back downstairs where I began to raise them on the pipe in my vise.

This is the round completed  with the newly set bases before I annealed them.

Next,  I went for another round of raising trying to close the beaker a little faster, this photo shows how much I am trying to move the metal on my pipe stake in the vise.

The bases were set again and another round after annealing.

Another anneal and round of raising, the vessels are very close  to matching measurements.

At this point the bases are near where I wanted them to be but the tops were still too wide and not tall enough.

I planished the bases to about a 30 mm height  and raised the vessels closing them more the rest of the way.  The beaker on the left is ready to be annealed and the one on the right is almost finished for this round.

At this point I planished a little higher and closed the tops some more.  Another shot of the two pieces in two stages, the one on the left is ahead of the one on the right.

At this point I began to planish lightly after raising and before annealing,  I wanted to lower some of the hammer marks so that later planishing didn’t have to be so heavy. I made one more round to close the tops some more.

Planishing the tops after the final closing round made the beakers more circular. They had been slight ovals before I planished them.

Yesterday was the first day of my Spring classes at FIT, I took the beakers to show Gennady  who said I’d done a good job of raising them.  I told him about planishing lightly after completing a round of raising before annealing. He said that, with copper, light planishing was okay in most circumstances because copper is a pure metal. It is not a good idea to do that with  sterling silver,  which is an alloy.  The sterling surface could get “stretch marks” and there was a danger of causing the metal to layer,  with sterling it is always better to work on soft metal.

I took this short video of me annealing one of the beakers before I trimmed them.  Annealing happens very quickly when you heat from the inside  with a big torch. I also marked that when the green flames turned orange the piece was annealed. I think the flames were telling me the oxidation was finished and the metal had relaxed. You’ll hear the quench near the end of the video.

The beakers had already been marked with my surface gauge to a height of 65 mm which is where I trimmed them.

Thursday, January 28th 2010

The day started early and cold. It was snowing, but because the roads weren’t yet holding much snow, we thought it would be all right leaving for New Jersey in the tail end of the rush hour.

Once we had crossed  on the Outerbridge Crossing the snow had stopped, as we got further on the Garden State Parkway it looked as if there hadn’t been any snow there at all. Colman and I were the second and third visitors to arrive.  This arrangement of plants greeted us as we entered the greenhouse.

Anthony Silva, Colman and Joe Silva.

A greenhouse cat found me and rode on my shoulders for the first walk through the main greenhouse. She felt like a kitten but they said she is about 12 years old.

I like this green orchid, the blooms form a ring around the pot edge making a wreath under a canopy of bold, broadly ribbed leaves.

There are a great number of green cymbidiums in bloom, this end of a bench that went around a corner and about a third of the length of the greenhouse.

This is a species paphiopedalum from Vietnam. The flower is in its last days but still has a remarkable presence above netted leaves.

This plant is in full bloom, a lot of flowers in one pot.  A close-up follows this photo.

This little dendrobium was hiding in the very back of the greenhouse with the cool masdevallias. It is a dendrobium,  in a 3″ pot, it’s my favorite of all the plants I have seen this trip. If we had a cool enough place to grow it we would have taken it. It was picked up by a couple that spoke with a German(?) accent.

Joe talking with some of the other visitors.

Our friend  Ron arrived as we were finishing up looking and buying plants.

A couple of visitors found this bulbifilum growing in a fern root basket on a high shelf.  This is another favorite.