sarah loertscher

april studio sale

2010-04-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

big poly earrings

I am hosting an online studio sale starting today, April 1st. The jewelry is all work that I currently have in my studio, and once it's sold, it's sold, so check it out early! new work from my kite + polygon series, which I am really loving right now. please follow the april sale link to see the gallery!

gold scratch ring

cushion post earrings

double kite earrings

thanks & enjoy- happy april!

accumulation!

2010-03-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

Opening at Fancy

Friday, April 9th
reception from 6-9 p.m.
show on display through May 7th.

"Accumulation- New Work from Rachel Rader, Dixie Darling, and Sarah Loertscher. "

Fancy presents new work from three Seattle based emerging art-jewelry stars.
Their concepts are all unique but similar in that each breaks the mold of what is expected in the medium.

map + directions

acc baltimore 2010

2010-03-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

well, I'm back in seattle and slowly catching up on life post-Baltimore. In a nutshell, it was an intense and rewarding experience. I met some amazing people, both artists and attendees, and more than one group of attendees told stories of how attending the ACC show was a tradition spanning over thirty years and several generations. It was heartening to learn about more traditions that surround craft; I tend to focus on the traditions of making craft and hadn't considered the larger circle of people who make a true tradition of supporting it. So thank you, all of you supporters.

me & my display

The lovely and talented Marilyn Brogan was my amazing assistant/pillar of strength/averter of breakdowns and had just enough sass to put mean ladies in their place while making everyone laugh. I could NOT have done it without her.

sarah & marilyn

Highlights include, but are not limited to, meeting some of my favorite/new favorite jewelers:

Pat Flynn

Hongsock Lee

George Sawyer

Biba Schutz

Todd Reed

It was an incredible experience to be able to see and touch so much jewelry that I had only seen in magazines and books, and meet the artists. I felt like my jewelry was warmly received by my peers, which was seriously affirming. When all of the above look closely at your work and give it a nod of approval... that's a good sign.

I was also able to reconnect with a ton of Penland folk from my Core Student days at Penland; Thor Bueno (glass), Joanna Gollberg (jewelry), Devin Burgess (glass), and Jenny Mendes (clay), to name a few. I have very serious art crushes on all of these artists, and it was great to see them and their work again.

Thor & Jennifer Bueno

Joanna Gollberg

Devin Burgess

Jenny Mendes

About the show: for a first-time exhibitor, the AltCraft section was a good place to start. It's now ACC's only emerging artist award, and I wish the ACC would advertise it as such. "Alternative Craft" seemed like a miss-title for many of us; most artists were using traditional materials and traditional techniques, and the reality was that we needed to apply through AltCraft because it was the only way we could afford to do the show. I hope that ACC will expand this section in the future, and shift their emphasis from "alternative" to "emerging."

The very best part of being in the AltCraft section was our neighbor, Sue Eggen of Giant Dwarf. Marilyn and I had met Sue at a Chicago Renegade show a few years ago, and we were thrilled to have her as our darling neighbor.

As an AltCraft artist, one of the questions I was asked the most was, "Will you back next year?"

I'm not sure what the answer will be. Financially, it was a stretch to cover my expenses and booth fee, which were very low compared to the rest of the exhibitors. If I had a full booth, I would have definitely been hurting. I'll have to see what 2010 holds for me before I can commit to reapplying as a full-paying exhibitor.

In conclusion, ACC was a huge learning experience for me. My experience there also made be very aware of the questions I have surrounding my field, mainly, why is craft important? What is my role going to be in preserving craft? (and it must be an active role!) What does the future look like for craft? and as a young crafter, whose emphasis is on mastering techniques and creating (eventually) high-end works of art, where is my place? Big questions, and ones that are exciting to think about and try to answer. I'm starting a project in the near future which will (hopefully) start clarifying some of them, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading.

baltimore in-process

2010-02-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving for baltimore in less than a week! this is exciting and terrifying. here are some in-process images of the studio, in lieu of ring a day!

booth mock-up

pile o' risers

pile o' risers being painted

I have resorted to laying out all my work on labeled paper, with labels like "tumble in steel shot," "patina," etc so I can (try to) stay organized. this is my "hopefuls" page of jewelry that wants to be.

new necklace on soldering block

bench

ring a day, feb 3

2010-02-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

production time!! I am going to try to still keep up a few rings-a-day (ring-a-week?) but I'm working on getting inventory ready for the rapidly-approaching ACC show in Baltimore. I'll try to post what I'm working on in the studio- I'm making a bunch of new work and there are a few things that I'm really excited about.

these rings are a new, smaller version of the facet rings that I've been making for a few years. I'm really happy with the new ones- plus, they're stackable and create a cluster of faceted goodness.

ring a day, jan 28

2010-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

this ring is built out of oddly-shaped steel hexagons that didn't quite become earrings or pendants.

steel, sterling silver

also, these band-aids happened on the same day I was fabricating this piece, and seemed like an appropriate image to share- they're kind of like rings!

ring a day, jan 27

2010-01-27T09:39:00.000-08:00

narwhal! I didn't know this ring was going to be a narwhal until it was one. I love narwhals. I know, everyone does right now (I mean, there was a narwhal printed inside my trader joe's candy cane green tea box), but I've loved them for so long, and this is why: I learned about them the same time I was learning about dinosaurs, and dragons, and unicorns, and zebras. when I got older, I learned about how some of these things weren't "real," like the unicorns and the dragons. so when I rediscovered the narwhal, it was like someone said, "no, [insert imaginary animal here] ARE real! they just live where it's really cold!" so, to me the narwhal was like a fairy tale redelivered, when I was old enough to know better.

steel. also, his horn is shorter than it should be because he's a young narwhal. it should be full grown in a few years.

ring a day, jan 26

2010-01-26T09:30:00.000-08:00

this ring is another experiment with my new castings. I thought it was going to be an earring, but then it happened to be finger-sized- and I think I like it better as a ring.

sterling silver

ring a day, jan 19

2010-01-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

in my head, the gold hexagons looked more like molecular structures, but all I can think about when I see it is a shattered golden egg on a silver platter.

sterling silver, 18k bimetal

ring a day, jan 13

2010-01-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

This ring makes me think of a moth or other such winged insect. these elements are some of my new castings I am experimenting with.

sterling silver, oxidized

rime frost

2010-01-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

so this isn't jewelry per se, but if you think about it, it really is.

this is rime frost. my mother sent me images of it this morning- she knows what I love! rime frost is one of my most favorite things that nature creates, hands down. it's a perfect image to follow up yesterday's ring, too.

frozen water, pine needles

ring a day, jan 12

2010-01-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

I love this one! this is an accumulation of a bunch of copper samples from about a year ago. I was sawing sheet into hexagons, fitting them together in different patterns, and then soldering them in place.

copper, sterling silver

ring a day, jan 11

2010-01-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

for as long as I can remember, my grandfather has made beads with church bulletins, tacky glue, and toothpicks. he slices the paper in long triangular strips, covers one side with tacky glue, and rolls each one up on a toothpick- this is one of his favorite past times. when we would come over to visit, all the girls - cousins, aunts, daughters, and daughter-in-law - would pick out their favorite colors from the hundreds of beads he had on display. this past fall, my grandfather was able to stay with my parents for three months, and of course continued to made his beads. I love having his necklaces in my studio, and my mother just sent me a huge amount of them from the stash he left from his visit. using his beads makes me feel connected to what his hands have made, and lucky to be able to collaborate with him.

paper, glue, string, metallic beads

ring a day, jan 9

2010-01-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

this ring needed to be quick, because yesterday seemed to be a day-long study in running late & I didn't want to abandon RAD in my second day.

when I was in a blacksmithing class last fall at pratt fine art center with local blacksmith & jeweler paul casey, I made these tangly scrolls that I really liked. I was thinking about turning them into jewelry somehow, but they're awfully heavy. this ring was a lighter version of its forged forefathers.

steel binding wire, twisted & soldered.

ring a day, jan 8

2010-01-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

I began the ring-a-day project yesterday that was started by nina dinoff at the beginning of january. the only parameter is that what you make should fit around your finger- materials and techniques are completely open. my added rules are that it should be quick (under an hour - a half hour is ideal!) and I want to use my scraps as often as possible- there are loads of interesting-but-abandoned ideas buried in my silver scrap bowls.

also, I'm imagining the execution of the ring-a-day project will become more like a seven-rings-in-a-week project.

the first ring is copper, stamped with faceted stamps I made last summer at penland, and scored, folded, and patinaed.