Louise McClure will teach a class in creating a totem bracelet at Tryon Arts and Crafts School on Saturday, July 21 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The origins of embellishment are rooted in symbolism and spiritualism, McClure said. Humans adorn themselves and their environment with charms, amulets and talisman to seek protection from evil, encourage favor with the gods and invite prosperity in their lives. Not just objects of personal adornment that express wealth or identification, images, signs, symbols, stones and crystals have long been believed to impart certain energies and qualities to the wearer.
McClure will teach students how to create a multi-layered charm bracelet that she said only looks complicated to make. Everything needed to create four charms is included in the kit. Also included are celestial images, beads, bits, crystals, sterling silver wire, jump rings, antique silver finish metal chain and toggle closure.
Students will create four distinctive narrative charms by layering bits of paper ephemera under instant resin in a deep metal bezel, applying various celestial images and text with rubber stamps to additional metal bezels and glass mirrored discs using solvent based inks, adding color and texture with a selection of embossing powders and enhancing creations with mica flakes and metallic glass granules.
They will also learn wire finishing and wrapping techniques to attach their completed charms, beads, buttons, metal, stone and crystal embellishments to a double link chain base.
McClure has a B.S. in interior design. She left a successful corporate career spanning more than 20 years, sold her house in the San Francisco East Bay and moved to a remote barrier island of the Outer Banks of North Carolina to follow an artistic path: finding, assembling, creating and marketing jewelry that she calls sculpture in the form of wearable art. In 2000, she moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, where her work is well known by local connoisseurs of art jewelry.
Students should bring personal mementos and ephemera: decorative papers; greeting cards; copies of personal letters and photos; ticket stubs; images from magazines, books and/or junk mail catalogs; special buttons, beads and other small items.
If possible, students should bring scissors, tweezers, round nose pliers and chain nose pliers. They should also bring a lunch.
Advance registration for all workshops is required. For more information, contact Tryon Arts and Crafts School at 828-859-8323 or tryonartsandcrafts@windstream.net.
– article submitted by Julia McIntyre