The hiatus is back off again! I’m officially resurrecting the Elixir9 blog, starting today. Had to give it a rest for a bit as it was turning into an unexpected time suck. I’ve been focusing on Twitter and Facebook for their ease and convenience—a link here, 140 characters there… Maintaining an online presence for one’s brand can be a full time job in and of itself. So the new strategy is to keep things short and sweet. A couple lines of personal perspective vs. 100, comin at ya on Thursdays. Cheers!

Kicking things off: passing word that the contemporary French jewelry show, also known as jewelry, closes this Sunday, October 25, 2009 at Velvet da Vinci Gallery. >MAP< I actually haven’t seen it myself, so I’ll be checking it out too. Velvet da Vinci is open Tues–Sat 12–6 and Sun 12–4.

The crew celebrated C’s birthday this past weekend at Project.One, a chill new gallery /slash/ lounge bar out in lower Potrero Hill. (You might call it SOMISSPO if you’re familiar with Mighty trying to invent its own neighborhood.) Everyone was totally enamored with the glitter artwork of San Francisco artist René Garcia, Jr., especially the 8′ tall woman-with-scorpion cropped above. (Full image here.) The smooth shading he achieves with the glitter is just incredible, and the final sparkly result can’t help but make you happy; I was giddy for glitter. Moxie award: 5/5! Getting a cab out in Potrero Hill award: 0/5!

I’m used to soldering being a rather intense experience—setting some fuel on fire, adding in highly-explosive oxygen to create a wicked hot flame, flowing your solder without creating a melted puddle of metal… Now soldering circuits, on the other hand, is just as exciting and so much more chill! At Maker Faire a few weeks ago I met Steen from Noisebridge, a co-op of programmers, engineers, hardware hackers and the like located in the Mission. I’ve always wanted to learn to solder LEDs and he suggested I check out their Monday night workshop. I went last night and had a total blast, met some really cool people, and for $7 built one of the circuits above—the Trippy RGB Waves Kit v1.0 to be exact. The LED cycles through different colors and has an infrared sensor that detects when your hand passes above and resets. When arranged in a group you can time the reset to make patterns with the light. Sooo cool! Noisebridge is awesome and I recommend checking em out. Yet another reason why, for all its silliness, I totally love living in this City.

Cuz the Steelers!… have big fingers… Yinz gotta check out the size of this hefty 6th Superbowl ring! Earlier this month Jostens delivered the 3.7 oz 14K gold rings to Pittsburgh for presentation to the first team to ever win six NFL World Championships. The ring features six round brilliant cut diamonds plus a sprinkling of smaller diamonds, totaling 3.61 carats. The hypocycloid logo is composed of three colored gemstones. GO STILLERS!

I was in NYC this past New Year’s and got to see this awesome exhibit put on by the National Jewelry Institute, “Masterpieces of Ancient Jewelry: Exquisite Objects from the Cradle of Civilization.” I had to snap a no-flash pic of this amazing Iranian gold armlet from 1030 CE. It’s granulation overload! There are so many things I want to know about this: How much does it weigh? What stones used to sit in those bezels? Who wore it? How long did it take to make? What kind of person was the artist who made this? Was this their final masterpiece, the piece they were most proud of? As a maker of tangible artifacts, I’m impressed with the gravity that something I make with my hands may still be around 1,000 years from now. Yet how much of me, the artist, will still be Googleable in the next millenium? What we leave behind in metal—of a quality high enough to escape the melting pot—is likely the only record we can hope for. Someday, decades from now, I’ll have a piece that stands that chance and I’ll remember to sign it “This is my very best.” Til then, this true masterpiece is still on view at the Field Museum of Chicago through July 5, 2009.

For several years now we’ve had an awesome Doze Green skateboard deck displayed on the wall in our apartment. I made the mounting block back when I had access to a woodshop, but two new Jeremy Fish decks from Upper Playground needed to be added to the display. The guys at the skateboard shop said they usually just use fishing wire strung through the holes to hang them. And that’s cool, but I really wanted a more elegant solution that actually held the deck away from the wall in a sturdy earthquake-safe fashion. So I set about recreating the old block and thought I’d document the design. Here are the basic instructions for how to make a removable, non-destructive skateboard mounting block.

So basically, the block itself is screwed into the wall. Then the posts go through the deck into the block, holding the deck without damaging it. Guideline dimensions for the block are shown above, but you could vary a lot from these and be fine. I found some 4″ wide scrap hardwood in my closet (random, yes—but industrial types tend to have random stuff like this buried in closets) and had it cut at my local hardware store into 2″ chunks. A slice of a pressure-treated 2×4 would work nicely. Then I found the center of the face of the block, and measured and marked the distance between the holes in the deck.

Now the original Doze Green deck had holes with a diameter that perfectly matched the screwposts often used in bookbinding. You can find those individually at an art store for super cheap. The new decks, unfortunately, had slightly smaller holes. I used my soldering skillz to fabricate brass and sterling posts with the correct diameter. Fabricating these was the only time-consuming part of this process. In a pinch, you could drill the holes in the deck to a larger diameter to fit the screwposts. Or only buy decks that fit the screwposts. Or find some other piece of hardware—like a hex bolt—with a matching diameter.

Drill the holes to receive the posts in the block to the same diameter as the posts. Test the posts/deck/block assembly for fit. It should be a nice snug pressure fit. Then drill the center hole. Drill all the way through at a diameter that will just allow the wall screw threads to pass through (I used #8 phillips head screws). Then follow it with a 1/2″ or so hole that doesn’t go all the way through. This will leave a little shelf inside for the screw head to sit on, and allow you to get a screwdriver inside. If you have a narrower screwdriver, you don’t need to go so big. The depth of that countersink recess will determine how long your screws need to be.

To install the blocks, I used anchors in my drywall and then screwed in the blocks nice and tight at just about level. Then I mounted the decks and tweaked the assembly until level. (Doesn’t make much sense to level the block by itself if your holes are drilled slightly off level.) Final display:

Z keeps asking me: When’s Project Runway back on? I love that he’s as much a fan as myself. It definitely taps into some mutual freshman design studio nostalgia, plus there’s been some killer design work over the seasons. But some quick research revealed two things: 1) PR has jumped over to Lifetime, a move that hasn’t been without controversy, and 2) the new season will start up August 20. So check. But! On the Bravo side of things, my lazy holiday weekend channel surfing landed me on their new show, The Fashion Show. Hosted by the charismatic Isaac Mizrahi and the rather bland Kelly Rowland, the show has a more ready-to-wear focus than PR, eschewing the “grocery store challenge” craziness for the practicality of “design a jacket with a secret double function.” I caught up on the first three episodes, which were fun enough to keep me watching. There are some ridiculous personalities in the bunch, and I hope the show doesn’t get caught up in that nonsense. Yet there were some interesting clashes between designers who can’t sew or cut a pattern and the designers who do have those basic construction skills. I dig that the show emphasizes fundamentals, even button sewing and hem repair, and not just over-the-top design. I’ll stay tuned.

The hiatus is back off again! I returned yesterday from a fantastically refreshingly rejuvenating Maui vacation with Z plus nine friends. Epic times were had by all. An unexpected highlight was meeting fellow craftsman Michael Mahnensmith of Island Sandals on a post-lunch post-surf lesson stroll. S and I were hunting for postcard stamps, but the random machinery parked outside his shop piqued my curiosity. Inside his little corner of Lahaina we stood entranced by his stories of the 3,000-year-old design of his handcrafted sandals, the custom fit and arch support they offer, and especially his experience living in the Haight during the 60s and selling his sandals up at Ghirardelli square. At the end of the hour we spent chatting with Michael (or was it two? the shop and Michael’s manner had a time warp effect…) we of course both ordered pairs of sandals, traced around our feet directly onto the leather blanks by Michael himself. It’s gonna be a long 4 to 6 weeks waiting for my sandals! Oh, and FYI, S and I are now official agents of Island Sandals and are trained in the art of proper foot tracing, should you decide you’d like some custom crafted sandals for yourself—gimme a shout!

Semi-known fact: I once spent an entire summer living on an island working at a hat store. I’ve had a love affair with Erik Javits ever since. New love! The fantastically fantastic hats of Ryan Wilde. Her hats take a cup of 40s vintage, a dash of punk, a bushel of feathers, and stir em up together in a cauldron of couture. Hats like this are such a fun, joy-inducing accessory, but do require some chutzpah to pull em off with grace. Moxie Rating: 4/5!