The Summer Winds

'The summer winds came blowing in from across the sea...'

This is the kind of night that makes me wish I had my '86 VW Cabriolet again. The kind of night that I want to drive around with the top down on the car, a hoodie sweat shirt on, through the back roads... back roads that I am not sure where they lead... ahhhh getting lost on a night like tonight would be so lovely!!! Fire flies everywhere :)

I was standing out in the backyard with the wieners and it is so lovely out. The strong, warm and humid breeze rustling through the trees. The moon just visible through the scattered clouds. Oh! How much nicer can it be?

Honestly, it really doesn't take much to make me happy.

wiener muscle...

Just had to show off the boys... by the pool... in their new muscle shirts from the Black Dog on the Vineyard. My lovely Auntie Diane and Uncle David picked 'em up for my little men.

I'll just let the pictures do the talking!

a pit in the road :(

well, i should always know enough that when i set a time table to finish my work... i should just double it.

i had been working like a dog on my wax models recently (see a few postings prior to this for images) and i had 6 of them cast. well, the casting company FIRED them! completely over heated the metal! when you over heat metal, it burns out the alloy. when there is not enough alloy in the metal, it creates pits. and when there are pits, tracey is a very unhappy jeweler :(

what i would usually do is re-carve the models (and i may do that with one of them) but seeing a few of the models are so detailed and took hours upon hours (one of them took me nearly 2 days) so i cannot do that. well, tomorrow morning i have to get up around 5.30 in the a.m. to catch the early train into town. seeing i'm teaching right now, i have the opportunity to use their tools... there is an amazing tool called a laser welder (i don't own one, because it's about 30k for it) so i'm going to attempt to fill pits to bring the model to a point that i can have a rubber mold made from it. so i have to do this before class begins. ugggggg.

so i am off to bed early. but i swear, by this weekend i will post some new pictures!!! promise!!!

i'm in love with a strippa...

And that strippa is me! This weekend I did the long awaited Pole Dancing Intensive Bootie Camp!!! Myself and 2 of my Ho's (yes... this is how she referred to us... and Wendy, the instructor, was the Queen Ho) took the class.

We showed up and were completely shocked when our instructor met us in a trampy cop outfit. She took us into her 'costume' room... and told us to put on something that we would not usually wear (which I have realized I have become a conservative surf rat looking chickie over time, so anything shorter than my knee is daring for me) and we were all quite shy about being seen in our knickers... but trust me, by the end of the class, we all got over that.

After we put on our dancing boots (they had about an 6 or 7 inch heel, a 2 or 3 inch platform and to top it off the heel was clear acrylic) she had us sit and watch her do a dance... and oh what a dance that was. She told us to watch her like a man would :) hehehehe...

Okay... so basically, this was not just a pole dancing class... oh no it was not... it was a full crash course in exotic dancing! We did floor dancing... wall dancing... chair dancing... the basics of stripping... AND YES OH YES, THE POLE DANCING! She made us all repeat 'THE POLE IS MY FRIEND.' And you should see the bruises from me slamming my legs into the pole the wrong way... but I earned those bruises! Oh... and yes, I GOT UPSIDE DOWN!!! It was hard, my upper body is killing me (it's hard to pull yourself up!!!) but it was so worth it!!!

And at the end, Queen Ho had each of us do our own little dance (ha!)... I won't share all the dirty details, but I will tell you I ended spinning on the pole and hit the ground as the song ended... like I planned it or something! Ha!

Overall, other than the amazing day of dancing we had... we realized by the end we were all comfortable hanging out wearing almost nothing. The level of confidence it brought each of us was amazing. Honestly, when I would usually be fixing my clothes to hide things like, oh, my ass cheeks hanging out... it didn't even phase me... or any of the girls. Not to say that I would be wearing my ho clothes outside... but it's good to know that I can. I totally recommend this class for any woman that happens to live in the area... http://www.gypsyrosedancing.com/index.html and if you don't live in the neighborhood she'll have her idiots guide to pole dancing out in January. And yes, there is an instructional dvd and you can buy your own pole!!! And they come down in the matter of minutes and nobody needs to know :) I feel like this is the new version of the woman's empowerment classes they had in the 70's!

So, as I walked to work thru the financial district this morning... wearing my normal clothes, bruises over both legs, pole burns on my arms, floor burns on my legs, whole body aching... I could feel this evil little impish grin come across my face just thinking to myself 'I know something that you don't know.' I honestly feel like I was in some kind of a chick fight club yesterday, and I'm wearing my scars and muscle pain as a badge of honor. I feel amazing!

I just hope I can hold onto this feeling.

Oh... and for those who I told I would bring my camera and take pictures... Sorry... I'm not that comfortable yet :)

use your imagination!!!

Here are a couple of the waxes I have been working on. So basically you have to use your imagination (the ring will be in red gold and the bead in white gold.)

The ring is modeled after a coccolithophores (the little pink ball) which is found in the ocean. There are 3 sections on the ring to set diamonds (or other stones) in to create the little hubcap pattern.

The bead is modeled after a echinoderm, a stereocaderis to be exact. The long wavy lines will be set with diamonds.

Both pieces are part of some new designs I'm working on. As I said before, I don't want to give up too much information. But hopefully you can get a smidgen of an idea of what I'm attempting.

working my a** off...

Well... I've been a slacker on updating this, but I've been working like crazy at my bench. I'm working on some new designs (top secret... shhhhhh... if you tell anyone I'm going to have to kill you.)

So, most of my recent work is being done in wax. This is for a few reasons...

1. Metal is still high (it's dipped a smidgen since gold and plat hit an all time high, but it's still freekin expensive.) So wax is fairly inexpensive... very little waste :)
2. Most of the shapes are fairly organic, so carving wax is much more fun than doing it in metal.
3. If you screw up wax, you can just melt more on OR just throw it away.

Anyhoo, I'm still being somewhat secretive about the designs... and the idea behind them. I don't really want to give too much away. But I was hoping to attach a few images (you see, green wax blobs won't give away too much, leaves a great deal for the imagination) but I cannot find the cable for my camera right now. Oh well, maybe later :)

But more to come very shortly!