More about me

So I wanted to share a little more about who I am as a person and business. I grew up in Paradise California. It was a great place to grow up. I had a small creek behind my house where I play in a lot. I had friends within walking distance. Hills and trees everywhere making it a beautiful place to be. Early on I was interested in art. I remember going to Johnny apple seed day as a kid. I loved seeing the floats go down Sky Way and seeing vendors with handmade crafted items. I have always made little things out of leather or bracelets out of string. As I grew older I ventured into even more. In college I studied art and loved learning new techniques and new ideas to be more creative. I love camping too. I moved to Arizona to work at Anasazi Foundation which is a wilderness survival treatment program for youth. This is where I learned not only to help youth to see and hopefully find the right path in life, but to grow myself in new amazing ways. I also learned a lot more about primitive survival and crafts as a way of life along with leather working, pottery, bow making, flint napping, and survival.

When I got married to my beautiful wife I moved into jewelry making. I have never looked back. It’s fun and creative. I now design in CAD software where I’m allowed to be free to create anything and have it made into reality. I would love to turn my hobbies into a business, but I have never really had the time to make that work out. Lots of these crafts take up so much time that they really are not valued as they should be.

I have been making jewelry for over 20 years and still love it. For years I’ve wanted to make an about video to explain about me and my business. I’ve always wanted it to be more than just jewelry as I love so many crafts. I hope to share some of what I like and for you to get to know what I like. This way you might be able to understand me better as an artist. I did not include everything, but hopefully it captures a little something interesting about me. Enjoy!

Get to know me - Dana Arts

Blacksmithing

I’ve been playing around with steel. I don’t have a welder and have never welded steel, but it’s something I think would help create a lot of art. For now I’m just pounding away at hand forged pieces with no welding involved. In reality the same ideas or base principles can be applied to blacksmithing as I have learned for precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum. The main difference I have found is that ferrous metals such as steel is worked hot while the non ferrous metals such as silver, etc are worked cold. I really like pounding away at something like metal. It’s actually quite relaxing and fun. You get to see the metal transform slowly before your eyes. For me blacksmithing is something I’m just starting to experiment with and I find it harder to work in the sense that for me it’s a pain to keep hot all the time while I work it. Silver and gold is so much easier to work cold and then heat up to anneal it.

So here is an image of me pounding away at some metal. I make a Fairy Hair Pin in a similar manner. It’s pretty much my first product that I make and sell in steel. It’s not too hard to make and it’s fun. I love how it turns out every time. Each one is unique or at least the scroll and hammer marks are always slightly different. The small twist near the back end is made by taking the round rod and hammering a section flat and then twisted in just that area. Both ends of the hair pin are hammered to a point that involves hammering the tips of the rod into a pyramid shape flat on all four sides. You keep drawing the tips out like this until the desired length and thickness is desired. Then the edges are rounded back out so that the tips are then rounded. The scroll on the end is the funnest part. I like slowly bending and rolling the tip upon itself while red hot. It’s so interesting how metal is so hard until heated hot enough. While red hot it bends like butter. Love it. These hair pins are then finished with a hammered finish and a bees wax seal to keep moister out so they don’t rust. A true fairy hair pin that looks great when worn. As a side note, these pins can also be used as a level of protection. They are well made and strong so I’m just saying that it could be used as a weapon too, but you didn’t hear that from me.

So I hope to create more blacksmithing products. I’ll be sharing more of my ideas as I create them. I hope that you’ll stay tuned to see my new ideas as I evolve as an artist. I love to make functional art. Lets hope that it’s both beautiful and functional. I mean what is the use of having something you like and not be able to use it? Blacksmithing to me is another fun way to help create just that.

Stump

You know ever since I lived over in Laos and learned a little about raising metal, I've wanted to do the same here in the U.S.A. I never got that stump that I felt I needed to make it all happen. 20 or so years later I finally bought a stump and am motivated to start using it. Hopefully I can find the time to start learning this again. I love doing it so hopefully I can get some practice in. As yo can see in the image the first school I went to to learn silversmithing. I worked on the bowl for a long time over that stump and although I made it too thin by the end, it was my first one and I love how it turned out. We started by melting a bunch of silver into a button. Then from that point on it was all hammering and annealing. First hammer out the disc and then start to raise it. Then chase it at the end. I hope to do this process again because it brings back so many memories, but for now I think I'll buy the sheet to save time. Either way I now have a stump and a few hammers to get going. This was a long time waiting, so let's see what can come of it now.