Today I met with a gentleman named Angar Mora who organizes art shows and events in Marin. Apparently a “scout” of his found my work somewhere and recommended me to him.  I will be having a show at the Cafe Arrivederci restaurant in San Rafael, along with an artist’s talk on Monday Aug 1st.  That should be fun.

At the studio, I spent a long time talking to my homey Scott Inguito about art (we do that a lot, which is quite a useful way to clarify my thoughts).  I then tried experimenting soldering to pennies, which winds up being difficult with my low wattage soldering iron.  I’ll probably just use epoxy as it won’t show.  After that, I touched up bare spots on the gas mask with fresh copper leaf.  The copper done last week has begun to tarnish and has quite a nice patina. The new stuff clashes a bit, but the patchwork effect is definitely cool.  I also randomly brushed on a mixture of vinegar and salt on the tarnished areas.  This has the effect of removing some of the tarnish, leaving a pinkish, almost human colored blotches of copper behind.  The mask now has lots of texture instead of being bright and shiny.  I think I prefer it this way; it looks much more animal-like.  Once the new copper develops a bit of a patina, I’ll seal the mask with laquer to stop anymore tarnishing.  It looks a LOT more interesting than spray painting ever would.

Note that I ordered a new filter.  The existing one is having a breakout of corrosion.  I should never have stripped off the paint. My original intention was to powder coat it which would require stripping, but the gilding looked so good I decided not too.

I then put a few coats of gilding primer paint on the magnifying glass motif frame. I’ll try copper leafing it tomorrow.

I observed something interesting with the fly piece.  The reverse side has burn marks from the laser which give an added illusion of curvature (the shadows help too).  This side looks a lot like a golf ball.

Burned side of fly eye

Compared to the front side:

I’m not sure what I’ll do.  I’m not crazy about the brownness, but I do like the shading.

Lastly, I’ve decided to have the crystal ball held up by two hands that I am going to make from casting resin.  I’ll probably use alginate for the mold, as I’ve used moulage in the past and found it too delicate.