February challenge

Thank you, everyone who voted for me! It is such an honor to win an Aspiring Metalsmiths Team challenge. All of you who daily see the beautiful jewelry posted by our members know how talented they are.

For the next challenge I have chosen a theme that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, and you are free to interpret it in whichever way you want. First of all, as mentioned in about every previous challenge:

Please participate!

I think we should all think of this as you would do of a yoga session. Yoga is about (literally) stretching yourself that extra inch that you didn't manage last week and be happy with that result. And even if you only managed to stay as inflexible as you were last week, you at least didn't get worse. You don't compare yourself to the person next to you because you have different bodies and it is completely irrelevant! Similarly, we are a team of very different skill levels, so some of you may not dare to enter, but please do! I always find that these challenges push me to do things I haven't been able to make myself do before, and even if that goal is just to enter, then you have taken that extra step.

Enough of that.
(except that we need more than four participants!)
(please!)

This month's challenge is movement. I will give you some examples.

This is a sculpture by a Romanian sculptor called Constantin Brancusi. The sculpture is called Bird in Flight.

See how he creates movement in the sculpture by the shape and shine of the brass. It almost looks like it's about to take off.

On the right is another way to interpret movement. This is Clarity's bracelet (you can find it in her shop, ScrollworkDesigns), and the stone slides on the silver wire. Dangly earrings would be a simple variety on this kind of movement.

Then there is the illusion of movement you create with tools. Melting, forging, chasing, fold forming, hammering, casting, there are so many options.

I hope you will have fun with this one. The deadline for this challenge is February 27th (a Sunday), at midnight EST. Put your challenge entry in the Flickr group and tag it 'February AMT challenge'.

Happy playing!