Using Copper For Baskets and Printing

Here's a copper basket I was working on today. It's still not finished, but I've gotten a good start on it.

It was a busy day at Spanish Village, for me at least. Some relatives came by and a number of the glassblowing students were in the studio next door. The furance broke again, so they were working on fixing it. It was going back up in temperature as we left this afternoon. They'll be able to blow glass on Tuesday. The Village is closed Christmas Day.

While my relatives were visiting me, we got into a conversation about the equipment they use to print newspapers and mail order catalogs. Apparently they create a copper plate that goes on a cylinder. Actually, they create four plates, one for each color. And they can print a million copies. I was amazed to hear that. Our printmaking professor always talks about the fact that a zinc plate will last for about 100 prints, maybe 150. I assumed the copper would last for about the same number of copies. But according to my cousin's husband, copper makes a very good, clear lasting print. That's so interesting. Later Philip said he worked at a newspaper in Alabama where they used that kind of a press for printing.

Yesterday and then later last night I was able to do a little enameling with my teacher in the Enamel Guild. I would like to make enough pieces to become a member of the Guild and also to jury into Spanish Village with my enamels. People seem to be responding well to the baskets and plates I've done. I had some of them out on my worktable this afternoon. During the month of December, we can sell any thing we make, in any medium. We don't have to be juried in with it. During the rest of the year, we're not allowed to display or sell any media for which we're not juried in.

In between the visit from my relatives and conversations with glassblowing students and Philip, I was working on the copper basket. Late in the afternoon, a man came up to my table and started looking at the baskets and asking me about my sheet of copper and the spool of copper wire. As it turns out, he is one of the exhibitors in the show currently in Gallery 21. It's a woodturners' show, and his hobby is woodturning, but he works at a salvage yard in Chula Vista, on of the towns south of San Diego.

I took him in my studio and showed him some of the surplus hardware I had collected and the assemblage that I'm working on now. He asked me abot one of the bracelets I had made by rolling a piece of copper and a zinc etching plate through a rolling mill. He told me that I could clean and polish copper with catsup. I'll have to bring home one of my bracelets and try it. So, next week I'll make a trip down to his business to take a look. I'm always looking for "new," neat stuff. It was worth my day just to get that information. I might take Jon with me down there. It sounds like the kind of place he'd like to go.