Author: amritarosa

Struck inside crater of Mt. Tabor just after sunrise 12/22/2011.

Average size 13-14mm in diameter, 1.60-1.80mm thick

new-struck electrum zero coin

fine silver zero coins with singular and twinned stars

Dies Luna

Luna wn 90%v

Ritual openings/offering/communion as usual.

1.6g 24k gold combined with 1.6g .999 pure fine silver producing a 3.2g nugget of 50-50 alloy electrum (by weight).

I snipped up the 24k gold wire into fine (1mm or so) shreds, and in a bit of an excited hurry to combine it with the fine silver, I dug out a new pit in the charcoal block with the ball bur and put all the shreds of both metals in it. I also used a larger torch head since gold has a higher melting point than the silver.

Spent about an hour melting and turning, melting and turning the little blob of metal in an effort to get all the gold shreds to melt into the already soft/flowing silver. Looking back (and after doing a little more careful rereading of sources on the subject) I realize what I should have done is melt the gold to flow first, then add the silver chunks to the already-melted gold for better blending. It should also have been stirred.

Quenched and remelted a total of four times, coating all with flux for the final melt.

Observations:

Initially, the gold bits glowed red long before the silver even began to glow. Each held its form in individual shreds for quite a while, as the charcoal block grew hotter under constant flame.

The silver flowed, and the gold retained its integrity as red grains among a mercury-like flashing silver liquid drop. I intensified the heat and continued turning the bead until I watched all of the gold shreds lose shape and melt into the silver. On the final quench, it was apparent that all had melted together, but was not mixed evenly. There is a fine pale yellow sheen of varying intensity over the whole surface area of bright silver . It’s likely that most of the gold is concentrated in the center core, surrounded for the most part by a layer of fine silver.

It is beautiful, but it requires stirring. The metals are joined but not fully dissolved into one another.

Being in a hurry to do something exciting frequently makes more work. This time, I do not mind the more work part because looking at the little mirror-surfaced droplet rolling around on the charcoal was wonderful, watching one metal hold tension, then sigh and release into the other is pretty exciting. Fortunately I didn’t do anything that would even remotely ruin the $100+ of materials this time. When I get the carbon stirring rod and crucible, I’ll remelt it and stir the metals together for an even more thorough blend.

But still…. the best rule is to HASTEN SLOWLY! ( and read, re-read, re-read, and re-read again prior to jumping in).

Dies Mercurius

Luna wx 3%v

Dies Mars

Luna wx 87%v

Three 1ozt fine silver pieces yielded 31 three-gram portions, with 2.1g left over. Today I am grateful for the PEPE 6″ guillotine shear (one of my first studio purchases). Still, it took me a couple of hours to chop the measured 3g chunks into fine “metal confetti” in preparation for remelting into individual solid pieces.

Dies Jovis

Luna NEW

Almost a year after I had been given a recommendation for a good bullion dealer in town, yesterday I finally gathered the cash and went there.  It’s just up the street from West Coast Findings, so I stopped off there before proceeding to the metals dealer and purchased a decent electronic tabletop scale (also on my list for about a year).

I spoke to both dealers in the office, told them John sent me and about what I was looking for- .999 pure silver one ounce pieces. The atmosphere in there was…intense. “Heavy.” Not in a creepy pawn-shop way as I had halfway expected. Both dealers had great stares and shared a short, sharp economy of speech. Extremely reserved but pleasant. Fitting for a place where there are probably loaded guns resting just under the counter top and behind the desk.

The one fellow pulled out a tray of older silver bullion pieces and fine silver 1 ozt gift tokens of many shapes and imprints. He said since I was just going to cut them up and melt them down that he could sell me some of the older pieces at a slight discount since he would have a harder time moving them than the shiny new ones. That sounded fine to me, though I did want one new one. He selected a couple from the tray and pulled a new 2011 round for me as well. Needless to say I was pretty thrilled with the ones I left with, three for $33 each.

(dime shown for scale)

Today I’ll wash, purify them in a salt bed as well as pour out an offering of thanks to the earth that produced them, and to the spirits that were disturbed by their extraction and previous travels. Without denying the history of the material, the intent is to “re-virginize” the silver and realign it to this purpose. On Monday I’ll consecrate with fire by annealing, cut, and weigh out the pieces in preparation for melting them into really large granules. These spheres will be flattened a little with the hammer, and re-annealed in preparation for their striking in the mint.

It’s been a long, drawn-out process and the preparation of this first batch of silver will be a bit drawn-out too. More and more, though, I am coming to understand that there are tremendous advantages to this way of doing things. With time (more for my own organs of perception than anything else) the materials have room to tell me what I need to know in order to succeed.

Dies Luna

Hora Venus (8:00pm)

Luna wn 98%v in Pisces 28*

Sol in Virgo 20*

Khaire  Mousai! Helikoniades, Khairete!

Dies Jovis

Luna wx 96%v

Emerald pin settings for K disk (18k gold-filled pins w/sterling silver silver bezel cups, 4mm Indian emerald beads). I had to re-drill each one as the original drilling was done so badly that the center hole barely connected in the middle. It’s just as well because this allowed me to adjust one end of the opening to accommodate the gold bead a bit better, so that they are more nestled down into the gem. I got lucky and only shattered one!

Dies Luna

Luna wn 26%v

ebony, snakewood, brass

Dies Mars

Luna wn 72%v

Diev Venus

Luna NEW

Carving the cord and knots . It’s a challenge to carve into material 1/16-1/32″ deep without breaking through into the ebony. Solid bloodwood is relatively hard. Laminated bloodwood veneer, however, can be a wee bit brittle. I must go S L O W, keep the blade sharp, and remember to breathe! To the left, the seal cartouche also in-progress.

Dies Luna

Luna wn 60%v

Lenticular Space Charm

copper, brass, sterling silver, electrum, miniature black mirror

formed, fabricated, patinas

3.8 x 3.8 x 1.4 cm (1.5 x 1.5 x 0.6 inches)

Talisman for increased memory capacity, containing a mirror in its well.

Interior inscription circumscribing the well: MNEME METER POEIA – Mneme (Memory) Mother of Art.

Triangular charm on exterior shield: electrum center mark overstamped with O SO NOW ROSE KNOWS, second complementary triangle marked at points by three diamonds.

Dies Mercurius

Luna wn 98%v

Nox Saturnus

Luna wx 96%v

bronze 220, resin, fragments of the historic Portland Armory building, home of PCS and the Gerding and Ellyn Bye Theaters (black basalt, red brick, mortar, sand)

fabricated, forged, embedded resin

2.5 x 1.8 x 0.8cm (1.0 x 0.7 x 0.31 inches)

This pendant was created as a gift for a much loved coworker who has shared our bumpy road for nearly 10 years and is about to depart for New York for her next grand adventure. Happy trails, and see you down the road!

Dies Venus

Luna wx 81%v

Answers, phase I (Mysteria Maxima, the BIG economy):

What have I to offer You, Who are the source and end of all things?

motion, action, a unique tracing on the surface of space.
an arrangement, a choice; beauty.
your question.

What is the worthy offering, the proper sacrifice?

it may not be known until it is done
stand up, go, begin.
fall. find out.

burn.

Answers, phase II (Mousai Titanides):

What is the worthy offering, the proper sacrifice?

MNEME : honoring the (re)sources with proper reference/credit, submission to instruction, teaching what you have to offer

MELETE : work and persistence in the work, toil and labor in the studio (improving skill and actualizing the imagined)

AOIDE : allowing one’s own completed art to circulate out in the world, monthly “dues”, the sum of life-energy in the form of material or social resources committed to the work that may have been used for other things

ARETE : active truth in practice, integrity and what that may cost

Dies Luna

Luna wx 38%v

Two of Spades Padlock

Entirely handmade functional padlock and key (fabricated, forged, pierced, carved) with two of spades and wormwood foliate motif.

sterling silver, ebony, brass, steel, enamel paint

7.0 x 3.8 x 1.5cm lock (2.8 x 1.5 x 0.6 inches) lock

7.0 x 2.8 x 4cm (2.8 x 1.1 x 1.6 inches) key

Dies Luna

Luna wn 43%v

If money is becoming more and more digital all the time, that brings it closer to other symbolic expression that also can exist as electric or wave-form phenomenon. Money and music, digital imagery might just be cousins now. It’s exciting to think that someday one might be the equivalent of, or perform the functions of, the other. The actual form of the money could become intensely personalized (in contrast to a homogenous, standardized physical currency) and expressive.

What would the authenticating/validating feature of the money be then?

What would the performative aspects of money use/the dramatics of exchange be like?

How would that affect the form of the material basis?

Kind of exciting.

Dies Solis

Luna FULL

“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.”

-Robert Irwin, American installation artist, 1928-

.

“Magic, the reduction of properties to simplicity, making them transmutable to utilize them afresh by direction, without capitalization, bearing fruit many times.”

-Austin Osman Spare, English artist and magician 1886-1956

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Dies Mars

Luna wx 64%v