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I’ll open this entry with a shot of my display for Art by the Ferry  which took place the first two weekends of  June. The photo was taken by  our friend Sarah Yuster. It turned out to be a successful show. It was on the tail of that energy that I made the following new pieces for the upcoming show this weekend at the Conference House on the southern tip of Staten Island.  It is to be the first Raritan Bay Arts Festival.  Wish us luck and temperate weather.

I have just finished this long silver chain with faceted, polished aquamarine nuggets and hammered silver rings. I loved these stones the minute I saw them, I have others that will be wired together in the byzantine style as the summer progresses. 

Here’s a close up. The hammered silver rings flash and sparkle when the chain moves.

I finished this chain of triplets at the beginning of the week: a choker made of  polished aquamarine stones in a freeform cube shape with large round freshwater pearls, there are matching earrings.  The hook works in all of the large rings and the piece could probably be worn doubled as a bracelet.

This is a collection of earrings and a few pendants in stone and glass that I put together for summer and evening wear.

I also worked on the Lion Cup this week, It will take a little longer  than I expected getting it finished and ready for wine. There’s a lot of polishing to be done on the inside and on the lip. Here’s a photo of the cup as it came from the electro form mold.  We have ordered another one.

The Art By The Ferry Show will be coming up the first two weekends in June. I have been making a number of new pieces of jewelry for the event. Now that the Friends of Fire Store is open I have pieces there as well as the Red Carpet Gallery on Castleton, both of the establishments are on Staten Island.

The first pieces are Part of the fluorite collection I have been making for summer wear.  The fluorite beads are always cool to the touch and come in colors ranging from clear to greens and purples. A few of the beads will have several colors in them in bands or stripes.

This is an eggplant or deep amethyst colored  necklace. I chose the beads to make an elegant monochromatic statement. All the wires and findings are sterling silver, I make the hooks myself.

The next piece is more typically colored Fluorite showing a good range of the colors.

In person, these are all shades of green, the camera and lighting don’t do them justice. I added flashing hammered silver rings to make the piece sparkle as well as glow.

This last piece is made with Dragon Skin Agate. I like the reticulated character of the markings in the stone. The earth tones will compliment  almost every colored outfit, I like to make things that can be worn daily in stead of being saved for a night out or special occasion.  This is being old as a set too.

Saturday started with the arrival of a crushed box from Florida,  a plant I had ordered  online  was here in just about no time. Here’s the photo from the web.  There had been an email notice that it was on sale,  it was sort of like paying full price and getting free shipping.  The plant is more than 2 feet tall with wavy edged, arrow shaped, lax, very fleshy, succulent,  green leaves.  It’s in bud. . .  Traveling so fast did it some harm, but I think it should recover.  It’s name is Synandrospadix vermitoxicus,  does that mean it’s poisonous to mice?

This weekend was the first of two weekends that Art By the Ferry took place. It will run next weekend too. Colman and I got out early (for us), picked up our art works from the Staten Island Museum and found a parking place in the no-space-for-cars-land of St George. Walking toward the spaces where the art was being shown, we ran into so many people we knew that it was some time before we got to see any of the art. For those of you who don’t know what this event is, it’s a mass showing of hundreds of artworks and performances ( musical and words) by the artists, craftsmen, musicians and writers who live on this (larger than Manhattan ) island. It’s a great opportunity to see and hear a really wide range of works in a lot of different mediums. The art work is displayed in a number of buildings behind the Borough Hall on Stuyvesant Street all the way to a warehouse that we calla Fish’s Eddy (for the last tenant) toward Stapleton on Bay Street. I didn’t take many photos. Most of the people we knew were moving too fast that early in the morning.  Here is a photo of our friend Irma, who is known for her photography, (displayed in another space), she’s showing some of her jewelry here.

This is Denise with some of her work in the left background. 

The weather couldn’t have been better. It was nice to see a lot of our friends in person, in the open air, a lot of us are on FaceBook  so we have an idea of what we are doing but FB isn’t like actually seeing the work or as pleasant as being able to talk face to face.

As we were heading back to the car,  I noticed this hole in the sidewalk. it , at one time must have held a post of some sort.  A lot of alianthus seeds had germinated filling it with a bright green salad of leaves.  the photo is about life size. 

I spent most of today sewing books for a client, the telephone rang quite a bit too.  I took breaks to go outside to tend my  abutilon seedlings and see the the new flowers. This is a mid season azalea, Full Moon.  We bought it because  of the large white flowers and because the bush produces flowers in three  different  colors;  pure white, white broken with salmon (or solid salmon) and a picotee pink with a flare.  The leaves are a beautiful glossy green. 

This is the first day the martagon lilies opened.  We bought one bulb a long time ago, it’s the only martagon we have been able to keep. We don’t dare move it , once martagons are happy  in a place you let them stay there.  Last year there were two stems.  It’s martagon dalhansonii. 

This azalea is a seedling from one of my crosses done about 10 years ago,  it has a compact form and varied flowers. Most of my other seedlings are salmon colored late season plants. 

Henry is a constant shadow where ever we go. 

Friday, Colman and I went into the city to deliver paper and samples. We parked the car in the big lots on the far side of the ball park. Some of the new trees were in bloom, one type with large heart shaped leaves had large clusters of white flowers on it. here’s a shot of the whole tree followed by a close up of the flowers. Since the trees are new and young, there are branches close to the ground and we were able to see, and smell, the flowers up close. It is a very nice fragrance, the flowers are nicely marked with purple and yellow spotting.

   This weekend marks the first Art by the Ferry exhibition, a showcase for Staten Island artists and performers. Musical performances and readings at various venues will take place again next weekend along with the displays in the galleries, all within walking distance of the Ferry Terminal.

Saturday night we attended an opening at Gallery 6 on Beach Street. It’s a beautiful, Manhattan style loft space with good lighting. The show, Skin, features a lot of nudes in painting and sculpture.  It was the first time for me to see my friend Susan’s paper pulp sculptures presented in a gallery setting. Robert introduced some new large paintings of sycamore tree trunks, the compositions like close ups of aging bodies with greenish skin; a surprise, but an approach not too far from his figurative subject matter. I didn’t take any photos, maybe next weekend we’ll visit Gallery 6 again when there’s less of a crowd.

Sunday we went to see some more of the visual art on display at 120 Stuyvesant Place. The group had taken over the entire first floor of a building that used to be the College of Staten Island. We met Esteban there while passing through the 20 or so rooms. There was a lot of familiar work on the walls but we were surprised to see a lot of work by Staten Islanders completely unknown to us. I liked a number of pieces by these unknowns. Esteban walked with us to another gallery at 150 Stuyvesant Place and then, after a downpour, to a building on Richmond Terrace that had recently been a Fish’s Eddy Store. Here’s a shot of Esteban and Colman by a little park on the way, where some oakleaf hydrangeas were blooming. 

On the way to the Fish’s Eddy building I took these shots from the terrace which rises above the harbor at this end of Staten Island. 

Then, to the right of this red building, I made photos for a panoramic view to the side walk where Esteban and Colman were entering our next stop.

At the Fish’s Eddy building we met Griselda, here she is standing  in front of two of her paintings. We had seen a very nice group of small paintings of Snug Harbor scenes and a Autumn Hydrangea at the 120 Building. It was good to meet her and put a face with her work.

This is a piece by Julius Wasserstein, I’ve written about him in the old blog. It’s a been long time since then and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to see some of his new painting. I enjoy Julius’ work and I like this wild painting.

Esteban has a piece here in addition to the paintings and carved wood sculptures the 120 building. Here he is with his celestial City Curtain. Esteban has a web site at : http://www.estebanchavez.com/