I recently had the pleasure of interviewing an amazing local artist, DeAnna Cochran, who specializes in crafting gold, silver and bronze jewelry. At first glance her jewelry is visually stunning and very unique but don’t be fooled by the pretty looks, there is a complex and very clever process that goes into making her artwork;

If you look a little deeper into the process behind DeAnna Cochran’s jewelry pieces you will uncover a fascinating story including recycled cell phones, recycled computers, Japanese scientists and a zero waste business model!

DeAnna is passionate about running her charity focused “Jewelry for a Cause” business and she tries to keep the business operating with a zero waste policy.

Simply, I love creating and more so I love that what I create holds a higher purpose of giving back and making a difference.

- DeAnna Cochran, Metalsmith and Artist

During my interview with DeAnna I could clearly hear the passion that she has for the “craft” involved in creating her jewelry, the part that fascinated me was that her jewelry is made with a Precious Metal Clay which uses re-claimed metals from scrap electronics! The Precious Metal Clay contains small particles of gold, silver or bronze and when it it freshly out of the packaging it is very soft and workable. DeAnna explained that PMC looks and works very much like a regular clay compound, it uses a water based binder and is completely non-toxic. DeAnna’s wonderful jewelry creations are full of fine details and she said that the PMC allows her to create these fine details with a high level of confidence in the final result.

Once DeAnna has finished her design the PMC can be fired or cured in a kiln. The PMC generally shrinks in size by approximately 10% due to the organic binders being burnt off. What is left behind is a wonderfully pure gold, silver or bronze piece of jewelry! DeAnna explained that she has enjoyed working recently with bronze, it is relatively new to the PMC line of products.

Needless to say, my curiosity was lit and I went off to do some research into Precious Metal Clay. Let’s start with some of the science… Did you know that all cell phones and computers, in fact pretty much anything with a circuit board, contains small amounts of silver, gold and other precious metals?

To quote Richard Alcorn from Finishing.com;

One ton (2000 lbs) of “average” circuit board from modern computers and electronics generally yields (in a very good system) between 8 and 11 troy ounces of 24k gold.

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Today my wife and I got up early and set out on a mission to buy donuts and mulch! Our front yard has long flower beds which have gathered lots of weeds over the early months of the year and it was tim’s to get serious about yard work!

We passed on the donuts and went for a healthier breakfast but our mission to buy lots of mulch went as planned…

We bought pine mulch to put on our Azaleas and cedar mulch for the rest of our flower beds.

The cedar mulch smells awesome and our dog, Nanna, seemed to approve! She laid in the fresh mulch while we continued to work.

Mulching is important because it allows the soil to conserve water on hot days, prevents weeds and can deter insects and grubs. Reducing weeds and pests means no need for weed killer or pest repellents which is better for everyone including mother Earth.

Saving Water:
Studies have shown that mulching can reduce the need to water plants by up to 25 percent! You can read more on the study here;
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/2006/nov06/ScienceFair.html

We finished our mulching and were very pleased with the results, we also found a small grass snake which we released safely into a pile of leaves by our fence line.

It was a lovely day to complete our mulching project and we hope you get a chance to do the same, after all, it will cut down on the need to water and use nasty chemicals whilst keeping your garden looking it’s best.

Thanks for reading!

The Mulching Finished

I feel so very blessed to be able to intertwine my art with such a beautiful venue as the Gallery at Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park. Not only is it beautiful, they work very hard to support our environment. My work will be on exhibition beginning March 22 and ending July 31, 2010. There will be an Opening Reception for the Exhibit on March 26th from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm at the Gallery. Texas Discovery Gardens’ 7.5 acres offer a wonderful diversity of garden styles and botanical collections. The Gardens feature native plants and plant species from other regions of the world that are adapted to the challenging climate and soils of North Texas. Plants are also selected for their benefits in providing habitat for native wildlife, including butterflies, bugs, and birds. You can also enjoy more than 15 native species of butterflies in the Rosine Smith Sammons Butterfly House and Insectarium, as well as many new tropical butterflies. They offer many fun, hands-on environmental education programs for children and adults. What a great place to spend a Saturday enjoying art, flowers, butterflies and fun! www.sharenchatterton.com

Pink Penta

Organic in the City

I am beginning a new painting called “Zebra Longwings” which I will be donating to the Texas Discovery Gardens for their Charity event Organic in the City Fashion Show and Auction. This event is one of the major fund raisers for the Texas Discovery Gardens. Texas Discovery Gardens is an educational organic garden facility in North Central Texas, that advances the knowledge and skill set of the community to restore, conserve and preserve nature in the urban environment. They accomplish this using their conservatory, greenhouse and 7.5 acre outdoor gardens in urban Dallas along with a full array of teaching programs developed for children and adults.  Their reach begins with small children and adults new to gardening and continues up to and through the Master Gardener level.  Texas Discovery Gardens serves thousands of inner-city students each year.  With the opening of the new Rosine Smith Sammons Butterfly House and Insectarium and the new indoor children’s classroom, Texas Discovery Gardens is now able to offer its EarthKeeper’s® Children’s Education Programs year round.  These programs are educational and fun and they promote excitement and interest in learning math and science via the natural world, they expand student knowledge and understanding of living sustainably, and help youth appreciate and embrace nature. The Organic in the City Fashion Show and Auction is an exciting, fun event eagerly anticipated by fashion, gardening and green living advocates.  Through this event Texas Discovery Gardens will raise thousands of dollars for the expansion of the children’s EarthKeeper’s programs and to bring Butterfly Gardens to schools across Dallas. For more information on Texas Discovery Gardens and this event, click on the link below.

http://www.texasdiscoverygardens.org

"Zebra Longwings" the beginning

To see more of my work, click on the links below.

www.sharenchatterton.com

www.lunaazulstudio.com

Green Kids Game by Play Green

Our gifts at Christmas this year had a distinctively green theme and one particular fun gift was this spinning top game by “ImagiPlay Play Green Spinning Tops“. This toys is made with all natural sustainable rubberwoods and managed-forest pines which are fast growing. Even the packaging is green, it is made from the same sustainable farming wood and doubles up as the “arena” for the spinning tops.

Play Green Spinning Tops - All Natural Eco Game

The top of the packaging slides out and can be reversed and slotted back into the box to create a battle field for the duelling spinning tops!
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Zebra Longwings Butterfly photo by Sharen Chatterton

According to an American Indian Legend – If anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it. Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly cannot reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all. In gratitude for giving the beautiful butterfly its freedom, the Great Spirit always grants the wish. So, according to legend, by making a wish and giving the butterfly its freedom, the wish will be taken to the heavens and be granted.

Most People just like butterflies, whats not to like, they are graceful, beautiful, colorful creations. I don’t think any other insect has been the inspiration for so many, artists, writers as well as naturalists.

However butterfly populations all over the world are being threatened by loss of habitat. Butterfly gardening, is a great way to provide additional habitat for butterfly species in your area. The species of butterfly vary by region, but by doing a little investigating and planting both nectar plants to attract the adult butterflies and also planting larvae foodplants for the caterpillars, you can increase the local population of butterflies in your area. Not to mention increase your gardens beauty with these colorful winged flowers. Throughout the country, the general requirements for butterfly gardening are the same: full sun, nectar source plants, larval host plants, a pesticide-free environment, and knowledge of the local butterflies. Many butterfly-attracting plants are natives and require little attention, as they are naturally adapted to the region in which they live. Butterfly gardens are best planted in the spring with younger plants or in the fall with mature plants that will become dormant quickly and re-emerge in the spring.

Butterfly Attracting Plants

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I got a Sony portable reader system for Christmas, and I have to say, I love it! It is easy to download books on, easy to read (you can enlarge the print) and it’s lightweight.

Now that I own an e-reader, I started to wonder if it is eco-friendly to use one of these or better to buy the books. Here is what I found out…

The current book ordering system in the U.S. encourages bookstores to order more books than they could every really sell. This certainly increases the number of published copies but it also creates more returns. You not only have all the resources that go into producing the book, as in the printing , packaging , shipping and the paper (from trees), you also have the cost of shipping, gas and packaging to return it back to the publisher. For some Publishers, it isn’t worth the expense for the bookstores to return the books, so they have the store strip the covers and return only that for credit, they then throw away the rest of the book. That leaves about a third of the mass market paperbacks that are printed being dumped in a landfill without ever being read!

Here’s an excerpt from an article about reading on a computer vs. printing out an article to read it;

“The contrast is quite convincing, one-tenth of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions from reading the document on the computer, versus almost one-quarter of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions for printing it out!”

Another article lays out the environmental impact of reading a newspaper on a reader and reading the New York Times on an e-reader. Their conclusion;

“Reading the physical version of the NY Times for a year uses 7300 MJ of energy and emits 700 kg of CO2. Reading it on a Kindle uses 100 MJ energy and emits 10kg of CO2.”

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