I loved my visit to Paris.  While I went feeling a bit intimidated by the city, I left feeling comfortable and wanting to stay longer.  I hope I get a chance to return now that I feel more confident about getting around.  It's a clean city, at least the parts that I saw.  There are trash containers on every block and these lovely recycling bins for empty wine bottles, etc. are everywhere☺ And notice the bicycles.  You can rent them (coin operated) and drop them off at your destination.

Many Parisians speak some English so if you make an effort to learn a few French phrases they'll be happy to assist you.  I didn't run into any of the arrogant French that I've read about.  Although one young sales clerk in a department store who told me I was shopping in the wrong clothing section as the styles I was looking at were for younger women came pretty close. 

I came away with a few observations that may help prepare others going to Paris for the first time.
Paris is an old city and many of the streets are still cobblestone.  You really need to look down because if you’re looking up you might miss a raised stone or the hole from a missing stone.  Entrances into small boutiques in the older parts of the city such as Marais may have an unexpected (2-3”) step up or down.  I tripped over several. 

You have no personal space in Paris.  In lines or crowded subways, people cluster right up against one another.  On the narrow sidewalks they walk toward you without slowing down.  I dodged more umbrellas!  I’m sure that’s why there are so many signs telling you to beware of pickpockets.  People are close.  Restaurants, in order to cram in as many people as possible, have many small tables—about 2’ in diameter.  And they push them right next to one another.  So plates have to be small, you can’t lift your elbows, and you need to wait until you’re outside to put your coat back on without hitting someone.  It’s probably why Parisians have no weight problems.   I don’t think I saw even one overweight person there—like the species has adapted to the environment.  I should definitely move there to try that theory out.

There are crossing lights for pedestrians on most major streets.  People don’t always pay attention to them (kinda like New York) but they do work.  The problem, however, is that cars are still legally able to make a left or right turn into the side street that you may be crossing.  They do stop though just short of hitting you (disregard for personal space again).  A little scary for people who think pedestrians should have the right of way.

While I bought a hop on bus pass and metro card ahead (both being good for unlimited rides over 2 consecutive days), you can also buy a 1 day bus pass directly from the bus driver on the day you decide to use it.  That way if you need it over 2 non-consecutive days, you can just buy another one later.

The Metro Pass was a nice idea but it’s just as easy to buy a ticket at any of the stations and unless you make several trips, you could save some money.  You have to use the automated machine but English is an option.  I didn’t see where you could buy an all day pass like in NYC, but we bought a ticket for each ride.  It costs 1.80 Euros each way.  Get a Metro map and plan your trips ahead.  Know what direction you’re going in and at what stop you’ll need to change trains, the new line number, and at what stop you’ll be getting off or changing trains again.  I made a quick list before we got on the Metro and everything went very smoothly.  BTW, their PA system for calling out stations is much clearer than NY.
Scarves are de rigueur in Paris.  Most women wear them all the time and a large percentage of the men do too.  Want to look like you belong there?  Buy a scarf and wear it all the time—with a jacket or just a short sleeve T.  It doesn’t matter.  And there are 100 ways to tie it.

All week I only saw one man in public talking on his cell phone.  And he wasn’t speaking French so I’m sure he was from out of town.  You'll see Parisians walking with headsets or smoking a cigarette. But they don’t walk around with a cell phone in their ear talking loudly on the street, in stores, or on the Metro.  They are a quiet people.  Their conversations are whispered. And while I saw one or two check their phone, I didn’t see anyone talking on them.

We were advised that Parisian women generally wear dark colors and never wear sneakers on the streets of Paris.  This for the most part is true.  Yet the fashion houses and clothing stores are filled with bright orange and lime green apparel for the summer.  Who wears these clothes and where?  And while they don’t wear sneakers many wear sneaker-like tie shoes in a variety of colors.  If you don’t wear 6” platform heels, you’ll love Paris shoe stores.

So several of the Paris shoe stores have stylish yet comfortable shoes and I bought them.  Actually I bought 3 pair and a pair of sandals.  Prices are generally under $100 unless you’re buying designer shoes.

On the right bank and across the Seine from Notre Dame is the Marais District. This is one of Paris’ oldest quarters.  Once favored by royalty it eventually fell into ruin.   Comprising a rich ethnic mix, this unique area houses the remains of the old Jewish quarter.  Jews first settled here in the 1300s, with a large influx coming from eastern and central Europe around the turn of the 20th century.  

 Since its revival in the 1960's, it has become as a center of Parisian artistic and cultural life and is one of the only areas that preserves the narrow streets and architectural styles of Medieval and Renaissance-era Paris.  Now kosher butchers mix with falafel shops and Italian designer shoes. The streets are still cobbled here and the area is swamped with boutiques, lively bars, bistros and galleries.  I was told I’d find some great boutiques here but on Monday morning most places were closed.  It seems people don’t rise early in Marais as it wasn’t until about 2pm that we noticed some open shops and an increase in activity.My daughter decided that she wanted to try samples from as many chocolate shops as we could find.  She came with a list and we tried to find as many as possible so she could buy a bar of chocolate from each to compare them.  We didn’t find all those chocolate shops though we found a few she didn’t have listed.  There’s chocolate on every block in Paris.  Personally, I know the difference between European chocolate and Hershey/Nestle.  It’s creamier, not as sweet, and melts in your mouth.  But among the shops in Paris, they all taste the same to me—wonderful.  Not being a chocolate connoisseur, my personal favorite was Larnicol.  You can scoop truffles, caramels and various chocolates with nuts from bins and it all sells for the same price by weight. 


So compared to a lovely, fancy box of 6 decorated ¾" x ¾" chocolates for 28 euros, I bought 3 bags of truffles, jellies, and caramels for 35 euros.  They’re also open much later than a lot of the other chocolate shops. We didn’t go to Paris to eat, though we did, of course.  We had the names of some restaurants recommended by Americans living in Paris but we never found them.  We pretty much ate when we were hungry at restaurants nearby.  About every 3^rd shop is a restaurant, bistro, or café.  The menus are posted outside.  So we just went to the one with good choices that had the most customers.  We never had a bad or expensive meal. 

Getting Around in Paris

After doing some research I decided to purchase a combo Paris Pass, museum pass, and Metro Pass.   The drawback about this is that they are all only good for 2 days—in a row. Paris Pass allows you to hop on and hop off a tour bus and the museum pass gets you into 55 museums in Paris.  We used these 2 passes simultaneously to get to all the tourist “must visits”.  The bus worked out very well.  It makes 9 stops and comes by each every 15 minutes or so.  We picked it up at Notre Dame and took it up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower but bypassed the Palais Royal and L’Opera.  On the second day we took it to the Musee d’Orsay, L’Orangerie, & The Louvre.

While the Louvre is the world’s largest art museum and certainly houses some wonderful works of art, I have to say that I like the Musee D’Orsay much better.  If you go to Paris for the first time, of course you’ll have to see the Louvre, Mona Lisa, and Venus de Milo.  And you can take pictures there though you can’t use a flash.  But if I go back again, I’ll definitely return to the Musee d’Orsay.  It’s a converted train station that features Cezanne, Degas, Delacroix, Denis, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec, and my favorite, Van Gogh.  There are sculptures as well and in the main hall we found 3 busts done in bronze and marble by Charles Cordier.  While taking photos wasn’t allowed, I managed to sneak a shot of one of these busts.  Doesn’t he look familiar?

    
While the bus pass was a great time saver, the museum pass is a big waste of money.  There’s no way you’ll visit 55 museums in 2 days, or even half that.  As it's not a museum, it doesn’t get you into the Eiffel Tower. And while it advertises that it will allow you to bypass the long lines, that only happened at the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe.  There are security issues at some museums like D’Orsay so though you don’t have to buy a ticket, you do still have to wait in line and have your bags searched.  
We used the Metro Pass on Saturday to get to the Flea Market in northern Paris.  Once we figured out how easy it was to get around, we bought more tickets on Monday and took it to Marais.  The system is easier than the NYC subway. The stations are clean and, like NY, you sometimes run into musicians—only here there was an accordion player with a repertoire of traditional French tangos and waltzes.  It was so French!

Speaking of the Flea, it isn't like Brimfield at all.  The permanent installations there sell serious antiques with serious price tags.  Oh, there are some vintage jewelry dealers and vintage postcard shops but their prices are high as well.  The temporary tents that line the route to the Flea are just filled with more of those resellers of imported jewelry, t-shirts, scarves, jeans, leather coats, fake leather shoes, and... hookahs.  

The Artisans of Western Mass. finally found a venue for a craft fair we've been trying to have for about 2 years.  We've signed a contract with the Pushkin Gallery in Greenfield.  We did have a smaller show a couple years back in Northampton, but this, we hope, will be the beginning of a yearly event.  Local ARTery will take place on Saturday,  May 19, from 10-5.  Check the website for a list of artisans who will be there.

In the meantime, my gardening skills have tanked.  I haven't grown any vegetables for 2 years because of soil issues.  This year I find that my tulips are only producing leaves.  Doing a little research online I find that there are a number of reasons why this is.  Mostly it's that the bulbs have been damaged by soil, temperature or some other conditions.  I pulled a couple of them out and found that they looked like someone took a bite out of them.  Could it be those nasty squirrels?




Anyway, I've decided to just pull them all out and plant some new ones in the fall.

Jansjems next craft event will be on April 21 on the Amherst town common. The Sustainability Festival is a yearly event that promotes clean energy and sustainable products.  We'll be there with our steampunk jewelry along with a few other AWM members.  We have lots of new designs to pick from so stop by our tent and look around.

As for the rest of the week,  I'll continue working on regaining some of my high school French for the trip.  

I'm not making jewelry at the moment, actually not for a couple of weeks now.  Even if I needed to I just haven't had time.  But last week I did spend some time organizing my work area.  Oh, those hoarder shows are soooo inspirational!

I'm usually pretty organized -- a place for everything and everything in its place so I can find it again.  Yes, that library mentality.  But when I'm working, my space is chaos.  And somehow I'm not bothered by it as I'm so "in the moment".  During this last round of creations, though, I bought a few new toys (there's always something new that you just need to try) and there was just no place to put them. And, as I didn't have time to clean up, the room was a mess.

Wandering into Pier One last month I came across a cabinet that was on sale as the right side door wouldn't stay closed all the way.  It looked spacious and the doors folded back against the sides exposing the whole interior.  It was almost 1/2 price and I had a vision.

Hubby is pretty handy. So I ordered some of those wooden roll out trays and we customized the cabinet.  It not only holds most of my tools and equipment, I can pull out the trays and have lots of stuff visible and within arm's reach.

Unfortunately I didn't take any "before" pictures.  But these pictures are what it looks like once I get everything hidden away.  Of course it won't stay that way once I start working again. But in between creative periods I can actually let our new cat into the room.

Valentine's Day is tomorrow and my first show of the year, Handmade with Love, was successful though I only sold one piece with hearts all day.

Karen & Aviva had organized a craft show twice last year in the same space at Eastworks.  Both times I sold a lot of steampunk and a few fine silver pieces.  This time, with the exception of a pair of steampunk earrings, I sold all silver pieces.  I created a lot of new designs in January and felt pretty good about them.  It was so nice to see customers seemed to like them too.  But does that mean that steampunk has lost its steam?

The same craft show can be so different from year to year.  You get different customers, or the same customers whose tastes have changed.  One year half your customers pay with American Express and the next they use primarily cash.

In the pages on the left of this blog I write craft show reviews.  In trying to be helpful I try to cover traffic, type of traffic, and what people are buying.  But I'm never sure if that helps artisans find a good show for next year.  So much seems to change even in a stable economy.

My next event is the Sustainability Festival in Amherst in April.  In the past it's been a great venue for steampunk jewelry.   Maybe this year I should bring a few silver pieces as well.

Jansjems' table is just after the "girl with the curl, right in the middle of her forehead."

I've been waiting for some new steampunk designs from my youngest daughter.  She's the one in Virginia.  She sent a few pictures of her pieces but I haven't gotten the package yet.  I'm not sure if this is a pendant or a brooch but it's really beautiful.








I'm not quite finished with the silver but I've managed to create a few new items while I wait for the clay to dry or fire.  My steampunk often have a little bling on them.  I can't resist a gemstone or 2 for color.







Of course with Valentine's Day coming soon, I had to create at least one appropriate piece of jewelry.



One of my favorites is this larger piece with lots of character.

Watch the Etsy shop for new pieces going up slowly as I find time to photograph them.

The clay is all gone :(  It certainly didn't take long.  It's all jewelry now.  And you can tell me what you think.

I have to say that except for a couple of classes with a certified metal clay artist, I've been learning the hard way.  Fortunately I've only had a couple of projects that were a total loss but still...  I've been reading a lot and watching YouTube videos (what did we do before YouTube?).  As a result my new collection includes bezel set stones and some pretty fancy colors.

I started off with a few simple things.  For craft shows I need to have a wide range of styles and prices.  Simple pendants and earrings sell well so make sure to have a  few.  This one has a square cut peridot in the center that can be set right into wet clay and then fired.  Some stones can actually stand the super high temperature of 1650 degrees that silver clay can tolerate.  But peridot can only be fired at 1430 degrees for 30 minutes.



At the high end, I've created 4 pendants with bezel set stones.  These have stones that can't handle heat at all.  You need to create the piece and the bezel separately.  Then attach the 2 pieces together and fire again at1650 degrees for an hour or two.  Once it's all done, you can set the stone in the bezel.  This one below is my favorite.  The stone is aqua chalcedony and I've added a few pearls.

Oxidizing silver is pretty much hit or miss.  I've collected a few formulas used by other artisans and they have helped.  But a lot depends on the clay.  Fresh clay oxidizes better than reconstituted clay.  It also depends on the temperature of the sulfur solution.  I've used straight liver of sulfur and tried adding ammonia.  You can imagine how bad the work room smells.  And I've never had the same results twice.

Something really interesting happened with a pendant I made in the steampunk style. The key and lock were created at different times from different wads of clay.  I attached them and dipped the entire pendant into one of my new formulas hoping for a little color and this was the result.  If I had actually wanted the key to be a completely different color from the lock I could never have figured out how to make it happen.


 Then there's this bracelet.  I really only wanted it to be lightly oxidized to bring out the pattern in the links.  I didn't want any color so I just used a watered down liver of sulfur solution. This blue and gold combination was another surprise!

It takes time and practice to be able to handle silver clay well.  There are classes and there's a whole certification process with a series of projects to help artists get proficient and learn to do things like set stones, make hinges, create lockets and boxes.  It costs a lot of money and takes a bit of time so I'm not sure I'm ready yet.  I was getting a 35% discount from my supplier.  But now that the manufacturer of the clay is making it mandatory to be certified in order to receive that 35% discount, so I may be compelled to get the certification.

It's finally 2012 and I hope that my year from Hell is finally over.  Splitting my a time between Western Mass. & Southbridge took a toll on my health.  I really couldn't maintain any kind of normalcy here and spent way too much time dealing with social services, paperwork, insurance companies, etc. Am now taking blood pressure meds:(   I got some great help from Elderly Services when a counselor helped me through a 19 page application for VA survivor benefits for Mom.  The application was sent out in early April and I was told I would hear in approximately 90 days.  It's been 9 months, Mom has passed,  & I've gotten 3 letters from them saying they still hadn't made a decision.  I was told that I shouldn't inform them of Mom's death until I get a decision as it would just create confusion and more paperwork.

So far, 2 weeks into 2012, all is well.   Though last year started out pretty decent too.  It didn't take a bad turn until late February.  Well, I have big hopes for this year--and some big plans.

To Recap--
I spent a lot of time with Mom so I did fewer craft shows last year and made less money at the ones I did attend.  Bad economy?  Well I hope that's all it was but we'll see how this years works out.

At the end of the year I was asked to participate in a holiday market in the center of Greenfield--a shop set up just until Christmas.  The Pushkin Gallery turned out to be a great venue as I was asked twice to bring in more stock.  I don't really have time to create new pieces during that time of year but I did the best I could.  Sales there somewhat made up for losses during the rest of the year.  I also have some items at the Daylily here in town and, while not booming, sales are steady.

I did lots of cooking and baking as both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve was at our house.  We had a houseful at Thanksgiving and my youngest daughter drove up from Virginia.  Christmas was quiet, fewer people, missed Mom, and we ended up at the movies on Christmas day watching the Muppets.

Mom's house is still not on the market and I continue to drive to Southbridge more often than I'd like.  We had the floors refinished, the back porch rebuilt, a new bathtub surround installed, some sheet rock repaired, and work done in the basement.  The people who did that work found some plumbing issues that they said needed to be addressed.  A plumber is scheduled for this coming week.   Still need to get the building inspector in and Hubby and I plan to spend a couple of weekends painting 2 or 3 rooms.  I hope to get it listed by the end of February.

On the Positive Side--
It's now January, I've already applied to 6 shows, and have so far gotten into 3 of them.  Woo Hoo!  It's also the only time of year when I can spend large blocks of quality time creating jewelry. I have some new skills--riveting and soldering.  So I made some new steampunk pieces the first week of January.  And this past week I finally opened up my new shipment of silver clay. Made a few pendants and earrings.  But I'm most proud that I successfully set a triangular cabochon of rainbow silica.  Another woo hoo!!

But the best news is that yesterday I purchased tickets for a flight to Paris.  I said that after I retired I would travel and I will finally start this spring.  My oldest daughter & I have a hotel room in the Latin Quarter close to many of the traditional tourist sights.  But we also have a list of 2nd hand shops where we'll look for couture on the cheap.  We're also planning to go to the largest of the the Paris flea markets--Les Puces--to look for some unique findings that we can use in our steampunk designs.  We go shopping every year to NYC.  Maybe we can add Paris to our yearly itinerary.

While I have taken a couple of classes in the art of making silver clay jewelry, my steampunk designs are truly "trial and error" works of art.  I started creating from vintage found objects as a challenge and the designs have evolved as I learned new things about working with metals.

The components in my steampunk jewelry are held together by wire or epoxy as I don't solder.  My youngest daughter, however, has taken a steampunk course.  Yes, they do exist in some places. And she learned to make rivets.  So over the Thanksgiving holiday I got a quick course in rivet making.

Though it requires a little practice to make nice, round rivets, it's not very difficult.  The hardest thing was finding wire thick enough yet soft enough to hammer into flat heads.  The wire Hubby uses for wrapping his bonsai plants turned out to be perfect.  I think it's aluminum.  Basically, you drill holes where you want the pieces attached.  Find a wire of that thickness. Then create a head on one end by holding a piece of wire sticking up about 3-4mm in a stationary vise and hammer straight down with a ball peen hammer.  Insert the wire through the holes of the connection, cut it to about 2-3mm above the metal and create another head on the other end.  The new steampunk piece above is my first attempt at rivets.  I still have to work on making them nice and smooth and round without so much sanding.  But I'm loving this new technique--well, new to me.

Someone suggested that I create a tutorial as that always makes a great blog post.  But in searching google there are several out there already, like this one.

Also, if you can afford it, there are tools  that drill the holes and place manufactured rivets neatly for you.  Maybe someday.  But right now I'm enjoying the whole manual process.