I must confess that I have been singularly uninspired these past few weeks. This hardly ever happens to me. I’m back in the pottery studio and even threw a few pots last week which is great considering that I had CMC joint reconstruction surgery in October.
I have amassed a collection of canes over the years that I haven’t used and that have become crumbly with age. A few years ago, I played with a bunch of them to see what I could come up with.  Today, I dug up a few of the components I made and they’re not bad. I think I’ll take a few to Clayathon and see if I can combine them with wire work to make some necklaces.  In the meantime, I am going to dig through my old canes to see if I can do anything with them. More on that next week.
Anyway, here are some results from my first ugly cane experiment. I made veneers by passing sliced canes through the pasta machine and laminating them on sheets of clay. I kept rolling and laminating until I came up with something interesting. I set some of the pieces in metal, mostly heavy-gauge copper wire which I squared in my rolling mill.  I limited my color palate, something I did not do with the ugly cane experiments you will see next week. Let’s see where these ugly canes take me.
I made some pendants using jump rings to attach the lentil-shaped front component to a back component. While most lentil beads are attached at the edges, the parts of these swing freely.
I attached the polymer piece to this pendant by drilling holes in the polymer and threading 30 gauge wire to wrap around the metal frame.
More examples of uses for ugly canes next week.
Ornamento 