Claudia Walsh is a fourth generation crafter who creates beautiful jewelry using found stones and processes like hard solder fabrication, forging and fusing, and ”lost wax casting”, to name a few.  If you live in the Chicago area, you may have seen some of her work at the St. Charles Fine Art Show this Memorial Day weekend.

Elginite crafts new art with inspiration, materials from past

May 18, 2009
By ROMI HERRON For The Courier-News

ST. CHARLES — Claudia Walsh of Elgin considers herself a Renaissance artist. She also happens to be a fourth-generation metal smith whose jewelry studio, Dry Creek Trappings, holds a collection of stones she and her husband Hugh have “rock-hounded” from various regions of the United States.

Walsh’s jewelry has been selected for the 11th Annual St. Charles Fine Art Show, set for Memorial Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday in downtown St. Charles. Nearly 100 artists from the greater Chicago area and throughout the country will present their work for exhibit and sale in the juried show.

Last year, the event — which is hosted by the Downtown St. Charles Partnership — drew close to 8,000 visitors.

“I’ve always been interested in art … photography, sewing, drawing, etching,” said Walsh, who creates rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pins and money clips from natural metals and stones.

Her process includes “lost wax casting,” hard solder fabrication, forging and fusing. None of her pieces is plated metal; and stones include sapphires from North Carolina, and opals from New Mexico. Her pieces carry price tags ranging from $50 to $2,000.

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Since the 1940′s, the Meadow Gold sign along the famous Route 66 has been a source of pride for residents of Tulsa and harkens back to the days when Meadow Gold had a formidable market presence .  In 2004, the sign was taken apart and put in storage when the building upon which it stood was demolished.  5 years later, its restoration has begun, thanks to private donations and a team a master fabricators:

Famous Route 66 Landmark Returns

BY CHARLES CANTRELL
Associate Editor
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Recently randomly stacked around the shop floor of Claude Neon Federal Signs (CNF Signs), among the shiny painted metal boxes holding high-tech, state-of-the-art, computer driven electronic message center signs, were numerous very old, very large, handmade metal and porcelain letters in various stages of deterioration. Arranged correctly they spell “Meadow Gold” and they represent a Tulsa historic treasure.

Tulsans can celebrate, as the sign has been restored and now stands proudly on 11th Street just east of Peoria Avenue, and one mile west of the original location at 11th Street and Lewis Avenue.

The Meadow Gold brand was once the property of Beatrice Food Company. Through a complex series of corporate mergers, acquisitions, sell-offs and bankruptcies, the brand that was once a popular provider of milk and ice cream for the midwestern consumer market slipped into obscurity.

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Last week, I went to the San Diego zoo, and near the front gate were these scrap metal statues. Big ones. Tall, tall statues of people with strange apparatus on their faces. One with the head of a camel who was holding a stand-up bass. Inside the shops were more statues of different types of animals. Some birds. I think there was a giraffe somewhere…

But my favorite had to be a life-size statue of a gorilla that I found in the one of the shops near the primate exhibits. I almost wanted to reach out and touch it, but the cashier was standing right behind me.

These amazing statues are all the work of one Kenyan artist, Kioko Mwitiki.

An art student turned welder, one day Kioko was practicing welding bits of scrap metal together. A passerby asked him, “How much?” and the rest is history. An artist was born.

Today his sculptures are featured internationally. He has an installation of a life-size herd of elephants at the Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and his work has been purchased by art lovers the world over.

For information and to see a selection of Kioko’s work:

Kioko Mwitiki’s art for sale

An article by the Kenyan Daily Nation

A Flickr account with several of his works

These sculptures come from all over the U.S.A. Big ones. Small ones. Lots of Tin Men. A couple of Tin Women. A veritable zoo of animals including elephants and… lobsters? I concentrated on those that are welded, but beyond that, you could look for days.

These are some of the finest specimens of folk art in the country as per this fantastic site.

Fire Hydrant Jack
Location:
In shelbourne on the east side of Rt 7 north of Church Rd.
Chittenden Co – VT
Latitude: N44° 22.77
Longitude: W73° 13.67
Notes:
Photo July 2005

We did our first video shoot at Arc-Zone.com last week. We’ve seen the rough cuts, and we’ll be posting them online soon, but in the meantime, check out Joe Welder’s write up on how the day went –>