Making a Copper Mask, Part 2
October 26, 2009
Go HERE for the first post on how to design and shape the mask.
Copper Jaguar Mask
The Copper Jaguar Mask could be used as it is, but I want to add spots and fabric decorations.
RIVETS: A jaguar’s spots (like the markings on any spotted or striped cat) are unique to the individual, just like human finger prints. Even black jaguars have spots, though they may not be visible except in bright sunlight. But the spots on the mask will be highly stylized decorative rivets for a 3-D look. Rivets are small cylindrical pieces of metal that are commonly used to join two pieces of metal without heat (in blacksmithing, large steel rivets are heated, though the pieces to be joined may not be).
I drew dots on the copper with a permanent marker and used a drill press to drill holes from the inside of the mask, with the metal resting on a block of scrap wood. The three hole sizes fit the three sizes of wire that I chose for rivets.
Holes Drilled for Rivets
Copper wire in gauges 14, 10, and 6 was annealed to soften it. (Rivets smaller than 16 are more difficult to set, and anything larger than 6 is quite heavy). The pieces of wire must be long enough to form a substantial domed or flattened ”head” when they are hammered in, but not so long that the shank bends sideways or protrudes from the sheet metal. For this project, I cut pieces of wire about 3/16″ long, and file the ends flat and smooth. I usually lay the metal on the anvil for riveting, but the convex surface of the mask needed a domed support. Fortunately I have a specialized tool for the job: a forming stake, bought years ago from another blacksmith, made from a trailer hitch ball welded to a length of heavy square bar that slides into the hardy hole on my anvil. For each rivet, I laid the mask right-side-up on the stake, put the rivet in the hole, and carefully hammered the end of the wire with the ball end of the hammer. I worked on the edges of the rivet first, to stabilize it, then hammered the center to flatten it, and hammered the edges again to create a dome. I flipped the mask over and hammered the rivet a couple of times from the back, just to make sure it was securely fastened into the metal. Here’s the finished mask, with a closer view of some of the rivets.
Moon Pebble Necklace
October 15, 2009
I’ve been collecting round white quartz or chalcedony pebbles for many years, and for a long time I had an ever-changing series of them them arranged on a round ”Dark Moon Turtle Shell” mandala in my studio, to represent the 13 moons of the year. I have been (and still am) drawing the more interesting ones for the “Stones” half of my “Sticks and Stones” oracle. But I have always wanted to make some of them into a necklace. It took awhile to find the right beads to go with the stones, but the result was this Moon Pebble Choker. Holes were carved with small diamond drills. Pebbles were wrapped with 16-gauge copper wire (silver might seem like a more appropriate choice for a moon necklace, but it needs frequent polishing. The copper will tarnish gracefully and be a better match for the rough, earthy beads). The antique African forged iron beads are of two different types: bicones and simple flat-sided heishi. There are also two African bronze beads, my forged iron s-hooks (a little thicker than the ones I make for earrings) and 14-gauge copper wire hooks on a 4mm round natural leather cord.
Moon Pebble Necklace
Stones: (Left to right in photo). All are unpolished natural pebbles, but #5 has simple carving. I collected all except #1 and #8.
1. Beach pebble of hydrated Florida fossil coral agate. One of several stones that I inherited from a friend.
2. Hydrated chalcedony nodule with a uniform network of surface cracks. Oligocene White River Formation, Pine Bluffs, WY. “Hydration rinds” are common on chalcedony and chert pebbles that have been exposed to groundwater or weathering at the earth’s surface for a long time. The weathered part of the stone becomes white, porous, opaque, and relatively soft. This can be a thin “skin” or rind on the outside of the stone (#3,4), or just one or two spots (#6), or the entire stone (#1,2,7). Hydration rinds are common on petrified wood and even some flint artifacts. In chalky or clay-rich rock, chert may acquire a hydration rind while still embedded in the rock, which is what happened to this pebble. Basically it is “snakeskin agate” (see #8) that is completely hydrated.
3. Beach pebble of hydrated brown chert with a natural cuplike hollow, Nags Head, NC.
4. Pebble of gray flint with white hydration rind, Cretaceous chalk, Salisbury Plain, England.
5. Creek pebble of vein quartz from metamorphic rock, northern Virginia. Carved with a crescent moon and two rings.
6. Chalcedony ventifact (wind-polished pebble) with white hydration spot. Prairie gravel near Cheyenne, WY.
7. Lake Michigan shore pebble of hydrated chert from Ordovician limestone, Chicago, IL.
8. Snakeskin agate with thin reticulated hydration rind, Oligocene, eastern Oregon (purchased at a rock shop).
9. Chalcedony “button” from volcanic gravel near Tucson, AZ.
Chiltepins
October 12, 2009
Well, I didn’t expect to take such a long break from the blog, but self-promotion hasn’t been a priority lately, and life has been alternately chaotic and lethargic, so I have several projects in the works but have not finished much.
We have a magical plant growing wild in our backyard. This is the Chiltepin, Capsicum annuum, the wild “Mother of Chiles” that is the ancestor of all cultivated chili peppers. It is one of the most sacred, mythical, and useful plants in the New World. Despite the scientific name, it is not an annual, but a delicate perennial shrub that usually grows in the shade of a “nurse tree” (in my case, an old and often-pruned pyracantha which also shades a couple of young desert hackberry trees). Although primarily a native of mountain forests in Mexico, the chiltepin does grow in a few widely scattered localities in Arizona, Texas, and the eastern U.S. The seeds do not germinate easily, which makes the plants difficult to cultivate and is probably one reason that they are so rare in the wild. The tiny white starlike flowers are followed by green oval fruits that are only about 1/4″ long. The ripe chiles are bright red and will dry naturally on the stems as the plant dies back for the winter (unless the birds eat them!) They are among the hottest chiles in the world (hotter than the habanero, which usually claims the “hottest pepper” title) but their fierce heat does not last long.
Half hidden under the stout pyracantha branches (heavy with their own berries, now turning orange), the wild chile sparkles in the morning sun. The shadows under the bright green leaves are deeper than any shade in the desert, as if the jewel-like berries adorn a mysterious window into the Sierra Madre.
Chiltepin
A Rare Orchid
July 26, 2009
Today we hiked in Madera Canyon, the famous birdwatcher’s paradise in the Santa Rita Mountains not far from our house. It’s a popular hiking area in beautiful Madrean evergreen oak/pine woodland. Today there were very few birds (though we did spot a sulphur-bellied flycatcher in a sycamore tree). We followed a creek that flowed through a rocky canyon full of trumpetilla, scarlet cinquefoil, and other summer forest wildflowers. We saw two rare orchids: Hexalectris warnockii, a beautiful coralroot with deep purple flowers (unfortunately it had already bloomed, so we just saw the ripening seedpods) and Malaxis corymbosa, a Sierra Madre plant that grows in the U.S. only in shady wooded canyons in the Santa Rita, Huachuca, and Chiricahua mountains of southern Arizona. I had never seen this plant before and was delighted to make a new botanical friend.
Malaxis corymbosa
Animal Skulls for Trade
July 22, 2009
I have decided to release some natural history relics that I’ve collected over the years. These animal skulls are available for trade – make an offer for all or just one. (I like antlers, small handknitted objects, nice stones and other raw materials…I’m a picky but enthusiastic trader with diverse interests.) All skulls show some weathering and are not uniformly colored, but they are in very nice condition considering that they were found in nature. For spiritual use, curios, models for nature drawing…you decide.
Opossum, Raccoon, Red Fox, Gray Fox
1. Opossum Skull (Woodford Co., KY) – very old, large male. Missing some teeth – still has one canine and a few others.
2. Raccoon Skull (Cheyenne, WY) – big male, excellent condition with all teeth.
3. Red Fox Skull (Richmond, VA) – missing one canine; no lower jaw.
4. Gray Fox Skull (Tucson, AZ) – missing a few teeth from lower jaw.
I have a few other bones etc. as well. If interested, please reply by e-mail through my website, NOT in the blog comments. U.S. trades only, please. Thank you!
Summer Solstice
June 21, 2009
We celebrated the Summer Solstice with a day in the Catalinas, the big mountain range just north of Tucson. I wanted to look for Golden-flowered Agaves, whose blazing flower spikes are the very essence of Midsummer. Unfortunately, the 2003 Aspen Fire decimated the agave population (and a lot of other things) but we did see a few. This photo (taken from across the canyon) has a flower spike on the far right. The big tree is an oak that has dropped most of its leaves and is waiting for rain before putting out new ones.
Oak and Agave
Molino Basin, one of the lower scenic stops on the Mount Lemmon Highway, is one of the first places I visited in southern Arizona. I saw it within a day or two of my first visit to Tucson, in summer 1991. I still think it’s one of the best places to see some of the desert’s most spectacular and distinctive plants, including saguaros, several oak species, coralbean, Arizona rosewood, pineneedle milkweed, riparian-zone trees (ash, walnut, sycamore, willows, cottonwood), ferns, and many other things. A few miles up the road, Arizona cypresses and other evergreen trees appear, and shortly afterward the desert plants give way to pine forest and ultimately spruce and fir at the top of the mountain. But the zone where the saguaros mingle with desert oaks is my favorite.
Desert Incense
June 2, 2009
The desert is a fragrant place, since many of its shrubs contain aromatic oils. Some of these plants have medicinal properties and are usable for incense. Here are a couple of my favorites:
BRITTLEBUSH or INCIENSO - Encelia farinosa
Brittlebush
A very common small shrub among the saguaros, with triangular leaves that are covered in dense white fuzz. The pale stems are woody but very fragile. They exude beads of sticky golden resin that are a bit tedious to collect, but the wonderful incense is light, airy, and well suited to indoor use. Good for daytime purification work, and even the cats like it. It invokes the clean, arid brightness of the desert morning.
Brittlebush Gum
Along with creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) and seepwillow (several Baccharis species), brittlebush is one of the characteristic unforgettable scents of the Sonoran Desert after a rain. The yellow daisylike flowers bloom in spring, giving way to fuzzy seedheads in high summer. The plants drop their leaves during the dry months and may freeze to the ground in winter, but they sprout new leaves and branches very quickly after a rain. Brittlebush is easy to grow and is popular for xeriscapes. Individual plants usually live for fewer than ten years, but the seeds sprout easily, and a single plant can populate an entire hillside with tidy, rounded gray shrubs within five years. When the dried leafy branches are burned, they give off a creeping smoke that is an excellent mosquito repellent. Tea made from the leaves is good for colds – it is a mild analgesic and decongestant, gently calming but not a sedative.
COPAL, TOROTE, or ELEPHANT TREE – Bursera microphylla
Bursera microphylla
Bursera is a genus of aromatic Mexican trees that are the source for copal resin, which is sold for incense, perfume, and medicine. There are several species, but all Bursera trees have unusually thick, pale, gnarled trunks, which is why they have been nicknamed “elephant trees”. B. microphylla is the only species that is cold-tolerant enough to grow wild in the U.S., where it is restricted to south-facing slopes in a few widely scattered and remote desert mountain ranges in southern Arizona and California. The U.S. plants like the one in the photo are typically large, multi-trunked shrubs, and rarely reach tree size. Young twigs are dark red, older branches have a red and gray netlike pattern, and the stout trunks have pale, papery outer bark that peels or shreds away to reveal the smooth green inner bark. Bright green feathery leaves appear with the summer rains. The entire tree emits an exotic tropical fragrance, and the beads of resing are collected from wounds in the bark. Its scent is strong and complex, but not irritating. Bursera gum is an astringent with many medicinal uses.
When using incense for purification or healing, I employ a primitive form of “smoke divination” during the work. I burn the incense in a tiny forged iron bowl and carefully watch the smoke color and quantity, the direction it moves, any flames that are present, and how easily the incense burns.
Shaman Antlers
June 1, 2009
It’s not really the right time of year to use these, but I am finishing some projects that are cluttering the shop and making me feel unproductive. These are naturally shed antlers with decorations based on my personal symbolism for “black” and “white” shamans. The ”white” antler is from a Western Kentucky swamp. It has a lined hemp/silk drawstring bag with a hydrated snakeskin agate pebble from the Chalk Bluffs (NE Colorado and SE Wyoming) and a jingle shell (not visible in photo) from Cape Hatteras. The handwoven undyed Guatemalan cotton sash is spangled on both sides with aluminum shisha mirrors and silver beads. The ends are decorated with Chinese knots, shell buttons, and silk fringe. The sash represents the shaman’s rope or ladder for climbing into the sky. Four bone cores of deer toes are tied on with hemp cord. The “black” antler is from the Empire Mountains here in Arizona. It was broken, so I cut off the ragged splintered end and replaced it with a tapered, curved, and reverse-twisted forged iron wand set in a hand-hammered copper ferrule. A forged iron loop is set into the base and hung with deer toe rattles. The deer toes on both antlers were collected from a winter-killed deer, deep in a wooded hollow near the Kentucky River.
Shaman Antlers
I’ve also re-done the Pilgrim’s Companion bell to make it more compact and easier to hang, carry, or tie onto a walking stick. The new version is only 5.5″ long and has a hook that can be threaded with a cord.
Pilgrim's Bell
How to Draw Fire
April 1, 2009
Scapulimancy Fire
Here is a rather stylized egg tempera painting of fire glowing in the earth, surrounded by charred thorns:
Fire and Thorns
Copper Fire Bowl
