Play Date with Carrie Boucher

Somehow I found Carrie Boucher's blog on the internet.  I fell down the rabbit hole and there it was. I was blown away by her work, and touched as much by her sensitive writing.  Here's some of Carrie's work ...

Since she's in production, if you go to her etsy site, you'll have to look at her sold pieces for inspiration! 


We got together at the studio ... which was before we had done any of the renovations.  It was fun.  Carrie left for a 6-week immersion in clay sculpture in Peru and we worked on setting up shop.  We had another play date on Sunday.  I asked Carrie if she could give me some soldering tips. She brought all her stuff.


After Carrie ran me through a few soldering exercises that are standard in most classrooms, we decided to experiment.  Let me give you some background first.  Missy and Patty are two of my loyal customers, who have become friends.  They drive from Melbourne to St. Pete pretty frequently ... I'm guessing it's once a week.   Anyway, Missy brought in these darling rose-shaped enamel pieces.  These, she explained, are the curls that come from trimming a sheet of copper ... and she hates "to throw anything away!"  Missy gave one to Laura.  Laura is  always after me to make rings so I thought I could use this in a ring for her.  Here's what I did ... I used a diamond file to remove the enamel from the bottom of the rose.  Then I soldered it to a copper disc. The enamel held up and the solder joint is strong.  This is the beginning of Laura's ring.

Then we moved on to Carrie's things.  She brought some of her works-in-progress.  She wanted to enamel some discs that would be incorporated into her multi-layered pieces, where the color would just peek out ... adding yet another layer of interest to her already stunning work.  We did find out that 26 gauge sterling doesn't hold up well to the torch!

The 26 gauge that didn't survive!

Some of Carrie's pierced work

We enameled a black washer for this one.  A little peek of black just beyond the red looked nice!

It was a wonderful afternoon.  Happy accidents abound!  One of the things we both realized is that Carrie will be able to use less costly copper for her enamel washers. I'm thrilled to be able to offer Carrie something of myself.  It's so humbling to be in the presence of such talent!