Lora Hart: Muse Personality

Website and Bio

www.lorahart.com

PMC Connection Senior Instructor Lora Hart began working with metal clay at the turn of the century. After nearly 20 years as a busy make-up artist in the entertainment industry, an actor’s strike put her career onhold. Four happily creative years later, she began a new and fulfilling life as an instructor in the greater Los Angeles area. Working out of her quaint Venice Beach Studio, Lora is honored that her work has been included in many publications including The PMC Guild Annual, Barbara Becker Simon’s Metal Clay Beads, Sherri Haab’s Metal Clay and Mixed Media Jewelry and Holly Gage’s The Art and Design of Metal Clay Jewelry. This year, Lora has begun an online challenge to make a Ring A Day and started work on the first level of The Master’s Registry.

Date started working in metal clay

I like to say that I started working with metal clay at the turn of the century. (2000)

Certified

PMCC L1 and L2, Mary Ellin D’Agostino; L3, Sherry Fotopolis; Rio, CeCe Wire; Art Clay Crossover, Jackie Truty. I know that the crossover was after the Albuquerque Conference, but the other’s were so long ago I just don’t remember. I wish I were made of money. I’d love to take cert classes from a huge variety of teachers. You learn so much from each person just by watching their hands.

Accomplished at what media in addition to metal clay

I’m afraid that metal clay is just about it for me. Other than eye shadow and lipstick – I was a make up artist in commercials for 17 years. I do practice hard metals techniques as often as I can, but I’d hardly say I was skilled. It took over a year to complete a felted purse during my one experience with knitting.

What is your inspiration now?  Do you have a muse?

I seem to find my muses in the often overlooked and dismissed things in life. I was gobsmacked at the texture on the wall of Geoffrey Rush’s office in The Kings Speech and adored the art direction in Robert Downey Jr’s version of Sherlock Holmes. The entire production had the most beautiful patina. Recently I’ve found some very talented flesh and blood muses on the pages of Crafthaus. It seems that today’s grad students are encouraged to experiment with all sorts of materials and techniques, ones that I would never have thought of in a million years. Their work is very exciting to me and it’s tempting me to look at “making” in a whole new light.

What is currently on your bench/workspace?

I’d have to clean it to tell you and I just don’t have enough time.

What project/direction are you working on now?

I’m exploring the concepts of family, history and memory. I’m intrigued with the way that the aesthetic of memory sometimes clashes with the historical fact. I had a less than ‘Father Knows Best” family experience – like a good majority of the world, but I have a footlocker filled with fabulous photographs that I just love to pour over. It’s interesting to me that our perception of a certain period can be changed and distorted (and sometimes made more palatable) by how we choose to frame our memories.

How much time do you average at the bench per week?

Well, I live in a tiny apartment and my even tinier “studio” takes up about a 5^th of the space. My bench is my computer desk, which is my dining table, which is my wrapping area, which is… I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in the same spot in my home. I’ve been using a lot of that time writing for PMC Connection’s new blog CornerStone, I have a million ideas scrolling around in by brain, but haven’t made the time to put roller to clay.

What’s the average time you spend on a piece?

I can spend anywhere between a few hours to a few weeks to work on a piece. It all depends.

Do you sell your work?  Where?

I say that my occupation is teaching (metal clay) and my hobby is selling. I do two fabulous high end craft shows a year and am honored to have work in a lovely gallery in my neighborhood called Mindful Nest. I’m afraid I’m not very good at marketing my art.

Do you keep a sketchbook and how do you organize it?

I just started work on something I’m calling my Mindful Observation Journal. There are sketches, clippings of anything I find beautiful or inspiring, descriptive words and phrases, and affirmations. I’m trying to make it a beautiful visual log of my jewelry making dreams. When I find an image I’m attracted to, instead of just realizing that I like it, I’m trying to dig deeper and think about what is it about the image that I’m particularly interested in. Is it a shape, the patina, a feeling, the symmetry? That frees my imagination to think about ways I might incorporate that element in my own work.

Are there places or things you avoid that zap your creativity?

Sometimes I’ve spent so much concentrated time there, that my home zaps my creativity and I have to get out and take a walk, go to a coffee shop and pull out the sketch book.

What would your perfect creative day be like?

My perfect creative day would be to indulge my Luddite tendencies and embrace my life without technology. No TV, no radio, no computer, no telephone and no addictive urge to use any of it. I’d take a class in something I’d never been exposed to before and lose myself in learning.