MJSA would like to interview any artists who have used used self-produced books via websites such as Snapfish or Blurb to promote their work to galleries or curators or as show catalogs. Article deadline is looming. Please email Sharon Elaine Thompson ASAP sharonet@sharonelainethompson.com

Our Blog Carnival* topic this month is “nobody’s perfect”. We are frequently told this applies to us. Someone once said “art is making the difficult look easy. Maybe, but not the way we usually do it.... read more at 2Roses' blog: Jewelry…

I've been working intently on a couple of projects for the last few days. As I sit at my bench, late on a Sunday evening,my perspective changes from the very focused 3 x 3 inch window of my optivisors to the full scope of my bench. CARAMBA! What happened!?…

You may have heard all the ruckus about Pinterest of late and wondered, why is this such a big deal? It looks like this is just a successful social networking site that is driving lots of traffic to my Etsy shop.  Well…not exactly.   Read on and I’ll explain how sites like Pinterest really make money.  Note: I am using Pinterest as just one example of a type of website/business model that is growing rapidly.

Pinterest makes money by directing traffic to websites who agree to…

2Roses weigh in on the pros and cons of selling jewelry online. http://jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com/

I have been talking for some time about the idea that the image of a piece of work is more valuable to the artist than the work itself.  This is a fairly radical concept for many in the arts, but it’s an accepted fact for most people in media, technology and marketing. This idea is the result of convergence, the merger of previously distinct technologies or fields into a new form, requiring new practices. What has happened in video, music, telecommunications and computing over the last two…

Van Cleef & Arpels’ ad on the back cover of the February 2012 issue of Art News is the latest in a sad legacy of the haute couture jewelry design world.  The ad displays an exquisitely crafted platinum and bejeweled “zipper” necklace.  It’s an impressive piece of work, advertised to coincide with the…

2Roses of Anaheim California won 1st and 2nd Place in the Polymer Clay category of  Bead and Button's 2011 Bead Dreams Competition. A prize of $500 accompanies the award.

2Roses, "La Reine Noir"

Polymer Clay, Sterling Silver

 …

Open letter to the The Michigan Silversmiths Guild

The recent national call for entry for your regional show sounded enticing. Interesting theme, notable juror - even a small amount of prize money. The $35 entry fee seemed in line with many other exhibitions of the same level. Then we read in the fine print that membership in the Michigan Silversmiths Guild is required to enter - another $35 fee, bringing cost of entry to $70.

This thinly disguised membership…

Check out our article on making large stone beads.

We recently had an opportunity to do some glass blowing with master glass artist Stephen Woodruff. We love adding skills to our repertoire. Corliss is making a drinking glass here. That glass on the end of the

tube is cherry red molten hot. And yes, a glass studio is only slightly

less hotter than hell, particularly in Southern California in July. But glass blowing is more fun than a barrel of

monkeys...in…

The latest from the folks at Etsy Metal - A challenge that paired two artists who made portraits of each other - in jewelry.…

"Why don't you make nice jewelry that normal people can wear?" My mother-in-law is generally a sweet person, but our jewelry seriously disrupts the balance of her universe. We don't have the heart to let her

know that we actually find this amusing. Instead we made these, as a sort of offering/sacrifice. Unfortunately, we did not anticipate the law of unintended consequences, as this gesture simply reinforced her…

One of the cool things about handmade items is that there is almost always a story behind the piece. Take this pendant, for example. It’s made of Biggs Jasper, which comes from Oregon. We have been prospectors and rockhounds for many decades, and collected the rough used in this pendant in the late 1970’s. You generally have to get pretty far off the trail to find anything good when you’re…

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."

Andy Warhol