Book of Knowledge

Leslie Brier, Brier Design Studio

 This is the first piece I created last week in Stephanie Lee's Metal Magic Workshops at ArtBLISS. The pages inside are blank, but this book, for me, is a true Book of Knowledge. Stephanie shared a hundred- hundred big ideas and little suggestions with her students. I came home feeling inspired and empowered, and finally, after all these years of trying, unafraid of my torch!

And the group of artists that assembled for this class were amazing. They came from all over the US and beyond. Everyone brought their tools and their jewels. It was fun to see everyone's stash of treasures. This is the little pile of goodies that I started out with.

 Everyone came in with a spirit of collaboration and friendship. We really bonded over the few days that we had together. We all worked and played really hard, and everyone came away with absolutely beautiful work.

 This is the back page of my cover in its ugly duckling phase. The top piece of metal shows what it looked like before I Frankensteined it with the torch! It was fun, but it wasn't easy!

These are works in various stages by other classmates. I know the dragonfly piece belonged to Bette.  

 We got to create bezels, and fill them with my new favorite product, Ice Resin.

This is Michelle's finished book. It was only about 3" by 4", so sweet and so delicate! I haven't had time to add embelishments to the spine of mine yet. Look how beautiful these buttons were:

 This is another sweet little book, being worked on by Lois. She added ruching to the spine and it was absolutely gorgeous.

 This is the group from my table: Karen, me, Lois, Stephanie and Annie. We have vowed to stay in touch, and I really think we will. We already have a yahoo group started.

 This is the spine of my book. I got the knotting a little straighter on the second try. It'll all get covered eventually.

 Here is a closeup of my finised cover. As you can see, I did a lot of changing around before I got the final piece done. I was happy with the end result, and Annie had the perfect piece of leather for me to use as a tie.

More next week on the completion of this book, and the jewelry class  that was equally amazing! A big thank you to Jeanette and Cindy of ArtBLISS, Stephanie Lee and all of my classmates for a truly wonderful experience.