Greetings All!
It was great to have a well attended AGM on the 29th July, despite the cold, dark night. Thanks to all who attended or sent in their apologies. It makes our job easier to provide you all with a great place to learn, socialize, and share skills and resources when we get to meet each other.
Coming Up
Precious Metal Clay Workshop, with Susan Brown
Saturday 10th August, 10am - 3pm.
$20, plus $90 for 25gm packet of Precious Metal Clay
There are still a few places left for this fantastic workshop. Susan is a very experienced PMC artist and a great teacher and we are very fortunate to have her share her knowledge with us! Take a look at the following links to see some of her work.
http://sbsilversmith.com
http://www.hokitikacraftgallery.co.nz/artists.asp?media=3&artist=22
Ring Arthur on 03 382 1332 to secure your place
September's Workshop will be Raising Silver with Nicola Roake,(Click on her name for her website), making a silver spoon or bowl. A materials list will be sent out beforehand. This is also a really special class with a very accomplished artist. Take a look at her video on this page too.
Exhibition News - Time to get Ready
We still don't have a venue for this year's planned exhibition. We are hoping that Magma gallery will be able to accommodate us when they open, but nothing is very clear at the moment. We have explored several possibilities, but they have all proved to be too expensive, or too far away.
Our thinking at this point is that we may hold a members' exhibition in our own workshop towards the end of the year, unless something better becomes available. In the light of this uncertainty we suggest that being ready is the main thing to focus on. So, we encourage all of our members to start planning and creating up to 10 pieces of jewellery to be ready by the end of October. This will give us time to create a catalogue, take photos for publicity, and organize the details for where ever we have our exhibition.
This is really exciting. We have been unable to hold our exhibition since the earthquakes, and it will be fantastic to get together and make a big splash with all our diverse skills and creative talents. Something to celebrate together and share with each other and the rest of Christchurch. We have beautiful display cabinets and we can do something great with the studio workshop if Magma turn out to be unavailable. We encourage you all to work to this deadline (deadlines help me to get stuff done!), and join in to make a great show.
Patina Recipes
A couple of members have sent this in for the newsletter, thanks for sharing
- Some great recipes for colouring your metals, from a Craftsy newsletter.
For patinas on copper, go to ScienceCompany.com and click on "chemicals." Scroll down and click on "patina chemicals" and then click the DIY patinas at the top. It will give you 32 patina recipes!
Let me know about your experiments and results, and maybe a few photos? It is inspiring to see what people are doing!
On-Line Places to Visit
Here's another group some of us subscribe to. There are lots of lovely people doing interesting stuff, lots of photos, and places to ask questions. On top of that it is a New Zealand based group!
Lost Wax Casting Workshop
Crystal Mathieson
We had a fantastic wax-carving workshop midway through July, with great attendance and enthusiasm! This workshop was run by John Ogilvie, Arthur Harrison and John Weeber, who were fantastic as always in their setup, examples and on-hand direction and assistance.
The workshop was a 2-day event, with Saturday being the day for wax carving itself, with some experimentation in carving methods and design, and Sunday for casting, finishing and results!
Wax carving was an very interesting undertaking, with a very wide variety of wax available. It was something I personally thought I’d be no good at, but it didn’t take long to get the initial hang of it, wax has no grain so you just have to get a ‘feel’ for how it will react to your carving efforts. It was impressive to see the variety of designs tackled.
To name some examples if the wax available, there was;
- Half round wax strips
- Round wax strips
- Square wax strips
- Ring blanks of wax
- Flat blocks about 5 - 10mm thick
- Very thin hardened flat blocks - for fine work
- And much more!
These strips were available in different widths ie 2, and 4mm. And there was a really suprising variety of both the pre-formed sizes and strips available, as well as the hardness and type. For example, if you were to give it a go by ordering some wax from Regal, you could start with “File A Wax” for carving, and “melting wax” to mend and join any breakages as you go.
After deciding on your design you then had the option to carve from one block, or it's possible to carve separate items and join them together, for example a crossbow and separate arrow design, as I... attempted.
We used a variety of dental tools to carve and etch our designs, as well as files specific to the purpose, and what I found most handy was a simple small craft knife.
DAY ONE was a lot of experimentation and carving, and ended with our carvings being set in a specific casting solution, and left in the oven so that the wax would melt out overnight, leaving the mould.
DAY TWO was a comfortable midday start (but not for our dedicated tutors who where there at a very early hour to check on the casts – thanks blokes!). We used a gravity driven device with our cast mounted in next to a crucible, our silver melted in the crucible and the device set off to gravity feed our melted silver into our moulds. Once the cast was put into water the casting solution desolved, giving us our newly cast silver creations to spend the remainder of the day cutting and polishing into miniature works of art.
There was a great variety of designs that came out from a wonderful variety of silversmithers, all adventurously giving it a go. Pleased to say that all involved had success on the day with successful casts and I'm sure most of us would not hesitate to sign up for another workshop of the same, so my advice to you would be to get in quick if you get the opportunity to try this very enjoyable creative jewellery process!
Photos by Crystal Mathieson
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SSG Minutes Summary July 1, 2013
Arthur, Diederic, Solvejg, Jo, Noeline, Karen, John Weeber, Crystal,
Anita – all committee present.
Minutes from last meeting were accepted.
Matters arising:
Arthur reported that the cracks in the floor were filled again and
might be fixed completely.
Diederic said the cashbook and other info being collected from sales
for bookkeeping needs to be more detailed. When students owe money we will let them
know before class starts and they will have a week to pay. If they owe for more than a week they will
not be able to buy more silver.
Noeline said she could leave the tablet and stick if it would make our
on-site bookkeeping easier.
We will add to the class brochure notes that cash is due at class
within one week and that there is no parking except on the street.
Correspondence: The City Scape magazine contacted us to say
that they will have a special issue on The Tannery and will sell us an ad for
$300 to 400. No decision was made.
Diederic received information from The Tannery about signage. Crystal
and Anita will get together to look at the Tannery rules and options for
signage for windows, doors, etc. and will propose something to the committee.
Diederic received a bill from “Properties something” that has been
charging us $7.84 per month and owing $64 now.
This is to include us as tenants in the Tannery’s marketing. This includes list of tenants on signs and
the like.
We will shift from the current hygiene company to the Tannery’s
supplier as soon as they get one.
No news yet from Creative NZ regarding our final report on how the
money was spent.
Solvejg sent a letter to Kobi Bossard thanking him for talking to our
group when he visited and proposing a design workshop (master class?) in
October. She offered two dates and said
that Mr. Bossard could stay with Sol and Diederic and use their car. We discussed offering $250 in cash but will
wait until we hear from him. We probably
cannot afford to pay also for travel costs.
Treasurer’s report: Diederic reported
that finances look good. Accepted by all.
Classes report: Noeline reported that for next term Tues,
Level 1 has ten students. Weds, Level 2
has 9 with 5 paid and 4 to pay. Thurs
morning has 11 with 7 in Level 1 and 4 in Level 2. All to pay.
She has received two confirmed and paid people for Term 4.
Noeline will analyse the class surveys and send results to committee. She will also arrange certificates after the tutors note who has
completed classes.
Regarding missing and making up classes, if it is the fault of the
Guild that a class is missed the student can make up the time in another class
if there is space.
Karen and Solvejg will add on an extra Thursday morning class because
of the conflict with regular school term and child care issues. This only affects three people but we will
invite the rest of the class to come as well.
There will be tutor’s tutorial
class to assess current and prospective tutors.
Annual meeting: Diederic has
printed out all the material he has to be included in the mailout before the
July 29 meeting. Anita will send out new
membership cards with the mailout.
Exhibition: Karen reported
that the University offered lecture rooms for hire at an hourly rate. This would not be suitable for the Guild
exhibition. Other possible spaces for an
exhibition such as Oxford, Cheviot and a new space called the Art Box (Anita
will get a business card from them) were discussed. Since we have our own display cases we could
possibly have a touring exhibit. Magma
Gallery is so far the best option but she will not commit since her gallery is
not open yet and there is still a question of whether or not she will have
enough space. We will hope for Magma but
also plan to show in the Studio in connection with another Tannery open
day. Jo will make a call to the membership
for ten pieces each by the end of October.
General: Crystal will collect photos of work sent to her by
Solvejg and Noeline for the new publicity bookmarks.
Solvejg asked if we could ask students to bring their own fine Sharpie
markers since ours disappear.
Jo suggests purchasing a combination ingot maker for melting silver
scrap into usable shapes. The guild has subscribed to 3 journals this year.
The key for the Hazadous Substances cupboard is the same one as for the other padlocks.
Karen will do next Saturday studio time for Crystal and Crystal and
Arthur will fill in for her while she is not available for 6 weeks.
Anita was given keys and a code for the alarm.
Nicola Roake workshop – we need costs for silver for each project,
amount of payment she needs and a list of materials from her.
Parking issues. Arthur will talk
to Grant McIver.
Meeting adjourned 8:30 p.m. Next meeting July 29, 2013.
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Summary of SSG AGM 29/7/13
Present: Nicola Roake, Cora
Baillie, Jo Crompton, Crystal Mathieson, Noeline Walker, John Weeber, Megan
Collings, Karen Atherton, Mark Atherton, Anita Parris, Diederic Ruarus, Solvejg
Ruarus, Arthur Harrison, David Caddie,
Michele Boston.
Meeting opened 7 p.m.
Apologies: John
Ogilvie, Eddie Freeman, Pam Englefield, Sylvia Campbell, Yvonne Hall, Chloe
Judd, Debbie Smithson
Apologies accepted.
Arthur read the minutes from the last AGM and moved that they be
accepted. John Weeber seconded and the
minutes were accepted. No matters
arising from minutes.
Chair’s annual report was acknowledged as read by the group. Arthur proposed acceptance, Diederic
seconded. Report was accepted.
Treasurer’s report. Diederic
summarized his financial report and said we are in good financial shape.
Elections. Arthur
vacated the chair and John Weeber called for nominations for offices. Arthur will continue as chair and all the
other committee members will continue in their positions. Karen asked if anyone else was interested in
joining the committee. No
responses. We chatted briefly about
studio hours and agreed to continue them as they are.
Constitutional changes.
Diederic confirmed that the Constitution
states that any motions for the AGM agenda shall reach the committee six weeks
before the meeting. All documents for an annual meeting need to reach members at
least 3 weeks prior to the date of the meeting.
NB: For a special meeting the
notice is 14 days (see 9.0 f)
The motion to change section 8.0 (a) to make
the subscription payment deadline May 1st rather than April 1st
did not pass. The motion to change 8.0
(b) regarding the date of when members who do not pay subs may be struck off
did not pass either. Members
who do not pay subscriptions will be struck from the members' list 3 months
after the 1st of April, i.e. 30th of June.
The motion to change 11.0 (a) from “The control and investment of the
funds of the Guild shall be wholly within the power of the Guild, which may
open and operate accounts at any bank as it deems fit. The Trustees of any such accounts shall be
the secretary or treasurer and any two officers or members of the executive
committee appointed by the Guild for that purpose; cheques and withdrawal
warrants shall be signed by the secretary and one other Trustee.”
To
“The control and investment of the funds of the Guild shall be wholly
within the power of the Guild, which may open and operate accounts at any bank
it deems fit. The trustees of any such accounts shall be the treasurer and any
two members of the executive committee appointed by the Guild for that
purpose. Also,
1. Cheques and withdrawal warrants shall be
signed by the treasurer and one other committee member.
2. The treasurer is authorised
to make electronic payment to a maximum amount as decided by the executive
committee from time to time; for all payments exceeding that amount the
treasurer needs the authorisation of the other two signatories.”
John Weeber proposed and Nicola seconded the motion for vote. All in favour. Motion passed.
11.0 (c) “The accounts of the
Guild shall be audited at the end of each financial year by an Honorary
Auditor, who shall hold professional qualifications in accountancy. The Honorary Auditor shall be appointed each
year by the executive committee and ratified at the Annual General Meeting.”
This was changed by group discussion to read
“The accounts of the Guild shall be reviewed at the end of each
financial year by an Honorary Auditor who shall be competent in accountancy.
The Honorary Auditor shall be appointed each year by the executive committee
and ratified at the Annual General Meeting 9.0 (b).”
All present agreed.
Diederic suggested that we propose a motion at the next AGM to amend
the constitution to allow for conflict resolution. Cora suggested checking non-profit websites
for possible wording.
David Caddie had a question about insurance from the Arts Centre for
our lost contents. Arthur explained that
since we got most of our possessions out of the Arts Centre and only had to
abandon the large, heavy workbenches and cabinets that were worth less than
$1,000 we were better off not claiming.
New Business. Solvejg
moved to make Arthur a life member in recognition of his excellent service to
the group. Karen seconded the motion and
it was unanimously passed. Thanks and congratulations from all to Arthur for
all his hard work and long hours getting us moved in and settled into The
Tannery.
Mark asked for a note in the minutes about the final report having gone
to Creative NZ. Arthur said that had
already been taken care of in ordinary committee meetings but started a short
discussion about what future funding there might be from CNZ. We are interested in finding out more about
funding for master classes, members’ workshop time, website or other digital
projects. Arthur said that we do need to
expand our workshop offerings to meet the needs of long-time members who have
cycled through all the usual workshops.
Susan Brown for casting, Nicola Roake for forming and Kobi Bosshard for
design are all good but we need the ideas to be ongoing.
Meeting adjourned at 8:10 p.m.
