Metal Retreat 2013!

There's something about the community of jewelry-makers that blows me away - their creativity, their generosity, their love of a good get-together. Metal Retreat 2013 kicked off yesterday and although most of us didn't know one another except through the internet, what started as a group of new acquaintances quickly turned into this:

Impromptu demos broke out spontaneously as people began creating - last night after dinner, several of us walked through bezel setting and roll printing. The creativity is amazing. (And did you recognize the smiley face in photo 3 above? It's AJE's own Kristi, who I am meeting in person for the very first time!)

Today we're starting work on challenge projects - we've been broken up into three teams and given a bag of components. Collaboratively, each team has to come up with and execute a design that reflects a combination of each team member's style. Here's my team's bag:

We think we have a direction to go in - I'll be sure to let you know what we come up with!

Until next time -