Saturday was a gorgeous day at Liberty Station and thanks to the hard work of the folks at the San Diego Blood Bank we saw 18 donors and collected 18 pints of blood, saving 54 lives in our community. Eight of the participants were first time donors, which is fantastic! I gave blood at noon and was delighted to discover that they were showing Godzilla King of the Monsters! I literally didn't even notice when the nurse started the blood draw because I was watching Mothra. So much fun! AND, everyone who donated got a voucher for a free pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream. The best thing of all is that I had set a modest goal of collecting 30 donations in our first year of hosting the Bloodmobile. I am very happy to announce that we blew past that goal with 41 donations! Next Blood Drive is tentatively scheduled for March 2020.  

Hundreds of visitors attended the live concert, open artist studios, gallery viewings, food and wine at September's First Friday. This was an "Amplified" month, which brought another opportunity for our students to offer their pieces at the Local Bazaar outdoor sale. Beth Peckham, Thida Key and Yoko Rover really pulled out the stops to finish some great work and create beautiful table displays. Meanwhile up in the Lab, Jeff Fulkerson offered some of his beautiful jewelry along with colorful cabochons and Anne demo'd mokume gane raising. We had some great visitors too including past ring clients and current students Cecilia & Gina, Pat & Marie and Yvonne - who arrived with little Zinnia, Sophia and Christof too! Thank you SO MUCH to our dedicated students who staffed the table representing the Lab, to Jeff for being on hand to explain his upcoming class offerings and to everyone who stopped by the say hello. 

What an absolute joy it was to sit down with Bette Barnett and hear about her upcoming Steel and Gold Workshop here at Anneville Jewelry Lab. She is smart, extremely knowledgeable and funny, her class is going to be fantastic. To purchase your gold casting grain we recommend Rio Grande (this is not an affiliate link): https://www.riogrande.com/product/24k-yellow-gold-casting-grain/608700

If you're not already signed up, here's the registration info, please let us know in the comments if you have any questions and help us spread the word, as of today we still have a few seats available!

Steel & Gold Workshop
Visiting Artist Workshop - Bette Barnett
3-day intensive, Fri-Sat & Sun August 23-25, 2019 - 9am-4pm
Instructor: Bette Barnett. Tuition $440 plus $50 materials fee payable in class.
Steel is an amazing metal – strong, light weight and malleable. One of the most fascinating characteristics of steel is its affinity for gold. Simply put, steel “loves” gold and marrying the two results in dramatic mixed metals jewelry that responds to today’s aesthetic for work that ranges from bold and rich to gritty and rustic.In this three-day workshop, you will learn how to create dramatic steel and gold jewelry. We’ll cover how to work with mild (cold rolled) steel and explore techniques required to create jewelry from steel, including sourcing, cutting, forming, texturing, patinating and finishing. During the workshop you will learn how to alloy and roll our own gold, torch-fuse gold to steel and apply gold to steel using the Keum Boo technique. At the completion of the workshop, you’ll have at least one finished piece and other in-progress work that you can complete in your own studio. You’ll also come away with the skills you need to create dramatic, eye-catching steel and gold jewelry. Students must also bring 2 pennyweights of 24k gold casting grain (available from Rio Grande), more details sent after registration. Register.