Making Time for Making
flexing creative muscles for 9-5ers…
So what do you do when you’re a creative type with a 9-5 office job? Strangely enough, I’ve found that the past two years I’ve been cubicle-bound have been some of the more product years for my art practice. Something about creating balance, I guess. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy to find the time for ‘making’.
This is my favourite piece that I made in my metalsmithing class:
it’s a ring designed after a twig, made using the lost-wax casting technique; I wear it every day!
As a strategy to ensure I set aside the time I need to flex my creative muscles, I’ve been signing up for weekly evening classes. I’ve done a metalsmithing and jewellery making class at the Organic Metal Gallery, and two sessions of copper enamelling courses at George Brown College. Learning how to work with these mostly new-to-me materials is really fun; it activates a completely different part of my brain than I’m using every day at work, and then getting down to making stuff with my hands provides a kind of meditation/therapy – other makers out there, I’m sure you know what I mean.
For this enameled copper project I shaped silver wires on a piece of copper, added gold foil to the shapes made for the ‘goldfish’, and applied thin layers of enamel (powdered glass) for the colour, firing the piece in a kiln between each of these applications.
If you’re in the Toronto area I’d highly recommend both of these classes. George Brown offers a ton of continuing education classes in fields like fashion studies (design, merchandising, jewellery making), performing arts (acting, film, dance), and various fine arts (graphic design, garden design, photography), not to mention their culinary arts classes! Seriously, I want to take them all.
Other classes I daydream about are sewing and quilt making!
