writernramblings posted: " When I was in middle school at Clark AFB, Philippines, I was chosen to participate in a session with an artist in residence. I was a precocious and very artsy kid. I had a great art teacher, and she realized I had a bit of talent and a lot of enthusi" WriteRN Ramblings
When I was in middle school at Clark AFB, Philippines, I was chosen to participate in a session with an artist in residence.
I was a precocious and very artsy kid. I had a great art teacher, and she realized I had a bit of talent and a lot of enthusiasm, and she stoked that fire in me.
One year I was chosen to be in a small group of students that got to work with esteemed Native American artist Charles Loloma.
He taught us tufa casting. Tufa casting was introduced to Native Americans by the Spanish.
We were instructed to come up with a design for a piece of jewelry. Step one was drawing the design out, and then the assistants would let us know if our design would work in this medium. Mr Loloma walked around the room, softy giving ideas on the sketches coming to life on paper.
Once I had my design, I drew it with pencil on a brick sized piece of tufa stone, a type of soft volcanic rock. Then I scooped and carved the design into the stone.
The assistants came around and cut air vents in the pale stone, and clamped my carved stone against the flat surface of another tufa stone.
Next, under close adult supervision, molten silver was poured into the cast. Once set, the clamp was removed, and the stones separated to reveal my newly formed bracelet.
Next came the real work - turning this rough, flat design into a wearable piece of jewelry.
The assistants cut the sharp air vent silver spikes off the edges. Then I spent quite a long time working on the rough silver, using finer and finer grades of sandpaper, until the silver was smooth enough on all surfaces, pleasantly rounded off on the edges.
A wooden cone was given to me to help form the flat silver into a bracelet. After the assistants got it started, banging it onto the cone, I continued to bang the piece, until it fit my delicate wrist.
Now I had the bracelet I had designed and made, and I was amazed by the texture the stone had left in the silver.
We then showed Mr Loloma our pieces, one by one, proudly handing him our works.
As I got to him, he held the bracelet with a smile. Suddenly he produced a leather pouch from his pocket, and began pulling stones out of it. Each stone was beautiful, each a different size and shape, from turquoise and lapis lazuli, to stones that held desert colors that I could not identify.
One by one, Mr Loloma held stones up to my bracelet. Finally, he found a piece of turquoise that pleased him. With a grin, he motioned me over to his work station, where I watched him encase the bottom and sides of the stone with silver, and notch the edges around the stone, with an expert's ease.
He then attached the stone to the peak of my bracelet. His experienced hands took out a polishing clothe and lovingly polished my bracelet to a shine, before handing it back to me with a nod.
I thanked him profusely, both for the stone and for the entire experience. I walked out of the classroom with my bracelet on my left wrist, a perfect fit, admiring the turquoise as the sun hit it in the afternoon light.
Walking to the bus that would take me home, a man nearby said to me "I'll give you $1000 for it!" I was shocked - more from a strange man talking to me, but also that anyone would ask for this bracelet, which was already precious to me.
Now, over four decades later, the bracelet still fits perfectly. Every time I slide it on, it is cold, but warms quickly on my skin. It's at home on me - made in my imagination, brought to life with the patient guidance of Charles Loloma and the artist in residence program.
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