Creativefire

I’ve met American artist and metalsmith Ann Davis several times at conferences in the USA, back in the days when there was a big conference every year for metal clay artists. Ann works in a wide range of media including glass, metal, enamel, ceramics and metal clay, which is what makes her work so interesting.

Ann told me a bit about her home. “I live in Virginia, just across the river from Washington DC, with my wonderful husband Howard, who does my photography, and my two Hairless Chinese Crested pups. I consider myself to be a maker, artist and being my only employee, chief custodian, but I am a metalsmith.”

Brought up in Ft Worth, Texas, Ann’s creativity started early. “I remember stringing Pyracantha berries on kitchen string with my grandfather, I was about four. Or perhaps my earliest memory was using Silly Putty to transfer the newspapers colored comics onto…mmmm everything…walls too,” she laughed.

I asked her when she first discovered metal clay. “I think it was 96′ or 97′. The first thing I made was a small pendant, well not so small when it started,” she smiled. “I thought it was easy, but my minor was in ceramics. I had a keum boo class at the Torpedo Factory the next day and we were told to bring something in fine silver. Since I was a production caster at the time, and only cast sterling, I thought I would give it a try. I figured it was easier than depletion gilding something already made a dozen times. I fired it in my giant pottery floor kiln, it’s amazing it worked! Took it to class and keum booed it, perfect, then entered it in ‘Positively PMC’, I think the first national show and was accepted. There were some amazing pieces in that show that really opened my eyes to what could be done. I didn’t know anyone else doing it at the time.” (Image Ann Davis-“Tiger 1”) Continue reading…