Gold Leafing

In the last week I have been working on trying to make a wax mold that looks like a somewhat authentic gold bar with some success. Since then I have been researching and learning the technique of applying gold leafing to a portion of my fish skeleton. I thought that maybe someone might be interested in using this technique in the future so I have included the instructions below:

• Gold size is painted onto the surface to be gilded with a brush (clean brush with mineral spirits afterward),
• allowed to dry until it is tacky to the touch.
• tests for correct tackiness by touching the surface with the knuckle (less likely to be greasy). "It should not stick, but when pulled away, you should feel a slight pull and hear a slight 'tick'."
• too wet, it will work its way up through the gold leaf and leave a sticky surface. If it is too dry the leaf will not adhere.
• work in a draft-free environment.
• You can apply the entire sheet at one time on larger surfaces using a "gilder's tip" (a soft brush the same width as the leaf),
• or you can tear off smaller pieces of leaf and apply them with a small brush. A natural bristle brush (sable) can be used.
• The leaf is picked up with the brush by charging the brush with static electricity (traditionally by rubbing the brush on one's hair). The leaf will attach to the electrically charged brush, but will easily disengage from the brush when touched to the size surface.
• When the surface is covered, burnish the gold leaf onto the size gently with the brush or a cotton swab. It can then be burnished further with a fingertip.
• A second layer of gold leaf may be applied over the first, by applying more size and following the same procedure. This is useful in applications where a thicker layer of gold is required.
• Gold leaf will not tarnish and therefore doesn't need any other surface treatment. (The imitation leaf does.) If you want to give it a protective coating, you can spray with a clear acrylic spray or clear lacquer (Krylon, Tremclad, urethane - matte finish or gloss). Make certain size is totally dry before applying protective coating.

Fish Skeletons

Have been working on preparing my fish skeleton the last few days but not much luck - after removing flesh and soaking in meat tenderizer, the bones ended up being very thin and fell apart. I am going to finish the process just to see the result. The next step is to soak in acetone to degrease and then to soak in bleach to whiten. I am going to have to start with a larger fish this time, maybe a salmon instead of a small perch. I also went on-line and came across a fish skeleton expert in Florida - all kinds of people out there! He charges about $300 and up for his skeletons - but he has a few skeletons that are a bit broken up that he is willing to donate for my project. As long as they are recognizible then I think they will work. Never thought I would spend so much time fooling around with dead fish!

Soap Making - Email Responses

I had mentioned earlier that I would be sending emails to nearby soap makers in Maryland. I'm excited that I received 3 responses from my original 4 that were sent out. I wanted to share one response that I felt was very helpful - maybe if you decide to make soap in the future it may come in handy. I also wanted to post this as a reminder that there are many talented crafts people out there that are very willing to help out students in any way they can - just a friendly email does the trick!

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy D. Mangione
To: anne@earthsgardensoaps.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 3:34 PM
Subject: Need Help
Hi,
I am a resident in Baltimore, have looked at your website and was wondering if you would be willing to help me -- I am a student a Towson University and I am taking a casting class this semester. My next project is casting with alternative materials instead of bronze as I have done previously. I was studying about the process of gold mining and the damaging effects it has on our environment. I decided that soap would be a good medium to work in for my project and was hoping that you could help me. I have done a bit of research on the web and think that clear glycerin soap may be my best choice. I am making a mold so that the soap will have the form of U.S. Mint Gold Bars. There will be 6 bars (3 representing the pollution of the rivers and 3 representing the destruction of the land). I was wondering if:

• you are able to add dirt, fish bones, rocks, seashells to glycerin soap?
• Can seaweed (dried or alive?) be added to glycerin soap – will it cure correctly?
• Is there a brand and color number that would give me a good ocean blue and or earth green
• Is there a favorite brand of oil that may smell of sea/salt or earth and one that may smell foul like
  Pollution?
• Is there any ingredients that I could add to final bars to show pollution – murky waters?
• Is there any ingredients that could be added to give it a gold shimmer around the edges?
• Will this have to be poured in layers to keep things from floating?
• Are there any other tips you can recommend for making glycerin soap?
  
  Any advice you are willing to give me would be greatly appreciated. Hope to hear from you soon.
  
  Sincerely,
  Tracy Mangione

Response:
Dear Tracy,

I love your project! Although I make cold-process soap the old-fashioned way, I can answer some of your questions. I make a "dirt" soap and I include coffee grounds, kaolin clay, oats, cornmeal and pumice. It looks just like dirt and feels gritty after the first use. (It is smooth when it is cut and the water from its first use exposes the grit).
Majestic Mountain Sage sells an "earth" fragrance. Hunters use it so they can mask their own scent while hunting.

The gold shimmer can be added with mica dust. I use it on my Mayan Gold soap. You just dip your gloved finger into the powder and rub it around the edge of the soap.

Dried herbs like thyme can mimic seaweed or forest leaves. I use herbs in many of my soaps and they do not float. Soap is too thick for things to float when it is poured.

You can add any of the ingredients you mentioned (shells, bones, etc.). Also, you can mix strongly brewed coffee with 1/2 a batch and swirl it into the clear half when pouring.

The Chemical Store www.chemistrystore.com sells liquid soap colors and Emerald and Brill Blue sound like they might work for you.

As for adding salt: Salt will pull the glycerin out of your soap and you will have sticky puddles. Perhaps you could add ground plastic to mimic this.

There are "ocean fragrances" available, but not any foul smelling ones. I don't know how ammonia would react with soap, but it smells really bad. If you do it, I suggest doing it outside or with really good ventilation in case it gives off fumes!

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions as your project progresses.

Best regards,
Anne Mann
Pamper yourself with Earth's Garden Soaps www.earthsgardensoaps.com

Final Project (Materials) - Gold Mining and Effect on Environment

For my last project in casting, I have decided to move forward with my idea on how gold mining effects the land and sea. I decided to use real fish bone skeletons that will be added to my soap mixture. Was not sure what you can and can not add to soap -- did not want a problem with it curing correctly. I have contacted by email some local soap makers and I am waiting on a response on how to incorporate bones, dirt, rocks, plants, etc. into the prepared soap. I hope I get some answers, if not -- I will do my own experimenting. I spent part of today calling seafood markets and pet stores in order to get a fish skeleton. I was surprised that the fish markets I contacted were unwilling or unable to help me. This would have been my best source because I could get a larger specimen and the meat would have already been removed. Instead, Pet Smart was willing to give me some dead fish - gross! Looked up ways on how to clean bones from flesh:

http://www.ipa.min-cultura.pt/cipa/zoo/pubs/articles/preparing-skeletons.pdf

On preparing animal skeletons – a simple and effective method
Takes as little as a few hours

First a few words of caution. Preparing animal skeletons does require some care where health and safety are concerned. We never prepare animals that have died of unknown causes. Rubber gloves are recommended when preparing a carcass.

• Begin by: skin, crudely deflesh, and simmer (slow bubbling just below boiling point – avoid a full rolling boil) the carcass in water so that the tendons and ligaments are softened. Since fish do not have ligaments and their bones are more delicate than those of mammals and birds, fish should not be simmered for more than about 5 minutes; smaller mammals and birds need 10 - 15 minutes, while larger mammals need an hour or so..


• The next step is enzymatic proteolysis. We use an enzyme called Neutrase (the liquid form), made by Novozymes, a large chemical company in Denmark, with agents in many parts of the world. You can find more information about where to purchase it via Novozyme’s web site: http://www.novozymes.com . If you cannot afford to buy Neutrase, you can use biological washing powders (some come in liquid form too) such as Ariel or Biotex or even meat tenderizers like papain - an extract of the papaya fruit.


• The cooked carcass, now devoid of much of its meat, is incubated in a solution of the enzyme – two or three teaspoonfuls (10-20 ml) per 20 litre bucket of warm water is usually sufficient; it is important to let the carcass cool down below 50ºC before adding the Neutrase, and not to use water that is too hot, otherwise the enzyme will be deactivated.


• After 3 - 4 hours, if there is still some residual meat left, it is desirable to change the liquid completely and add fresh warm water and enzyme. Generally the bones are completely clean of blood, muscle and tendons after two or three changes of enzyme solution


• If the carcass is left in unchanged enzyme solution for longer than a few hours, bacterial decomposition sets in which creates more smells.


• After incubation the bones will be lying at the bottom of a "soup" containing the broken down meat proteins and fat. This soup needs to be thoroughly washed away with hot water through a sieve to avoid losing small bones, and the bones usually need to be rinsed once or twice. The resulting cleaned disarticulated bones should then be left to dry thoroughly.


• Bones generally contain a lot of grease, it will be necessary to degrease. If this is not done, the bones can become unpleasant and smelly. By leaving the bones in acetone for several weeks. Fish grease being rather light, tends to dissolve out quickly, so fish skeletons de-grease rapidly.


• The degreased specimen is then dried. Some zoo-archaeologists like clean white specimens and bleach them. But chemical bleaches can damage bone and the dazzling white may obscure surface modelling and small surface details.

NY Times Multimedia – 3 part Series
By Jane Perlez

The Cost of Gold: 30-Tons an Ounce
The price of gold is at a 17 year high and the demand of gold has gone up. This demand for gold has caused many problems and a gold mining team from NY Times visited sites in U.S., Africa, and Latin America to help understand the consequences of gold mining. Gold creates huge costs: environmental damage, social upheaval, families in poor countries are forced to move off their land and make way for open mine pits. The gold companies say they do their best to make sure that poor countries are helped by their presence by helping spur economic growth, helping with schools and medical clinics for communities. Some say the environmental consequences of mining makes “today’s gold, dirty gold.”
It is often questioned what happens to a gold mine after it closes, one example is in Montana. Cyanide is used to help mine the gold and has been leaking into the ground, coming into contact with the underlying sulfite rock. The state is working on a fund to help treat polluted water coming out of the mine.
In Guatemala, a Canadian company built a mine that has caused great opposition. A town bishop is fearful that the mine will take water away from the farmers. They took some of the farmers out of town and traveled to another mine. Many came back quite upset stating that the land looked horrible. Next month, the mine is ready to start production.
Ghana in West Africa, is the newest area being mined for gold. This was the home of the Ashanti civilization that was known for their use of gold. The workers search for gold in waste, scooping it up in buckets, washing and then taking it to be treated with mercury. The World Banks is helping to finance the project. More than 8,000 people have been displaced by this new mine. The company feels they have done no wrong stating they paid compensation to farmers and built homes for those that were left. Gold mining can be done responsibly but as of yet it has not been done that way.
Facts: an ounce of gold can require the removal of more than 100 tons of rock.

The Cost of Gold: The Treasure of Yanacocha
The Yanacocha mine in Peru is the world’s most productive gold mine. The NY Times went to Peru to see how it works. The Yanacocha mine is located in the Andes, where the Spanish came more than 500 years ago and captured the Inca and took their gold. Today, a Denver based company, Newmont, has been operating the mines in Peru. They have extracted 7 billion dollars in gold by digging open pit mines. This mining blasts and excavates large quantities of land and the dirt is later moved and treated for cyanide. Five Hundred tons of earth is moved every day at this mine. By the time the mine is closed, Newmont will have moved 1 billion tons of earth to get the gold. The use of cyanide in gold mining is used to separate the gold from its ore. The biggest problem for the mining company was the people who lived around the mine, peasants and farmers. They became angry because their water source was being polluted by metals coming from the mine. The villages also considered the land sacred and thought that the mine was sacrilegious. They said that their animals would not drink the water and some died. In 2002, 2,000 fish died in a hatchery that was close to the mine, this was caused by sediment from the mine.
A village priest helped bring this to the forefront – he said mining leaves too many in poverty, mainly women and children. He also began to help them fight the mines that were too close to their property. The priest stated that the landscape was being destroyed, “we are losing our valley, the mountains are on one side one day and the next they are gone completely, the lagoons have disappeared.” Brant Hinze is the main person in charge of the Yanacocha mine, his main job is make mine run efficiently and make sure none of the gold is stolen. When N.Y. Times was there they had poured their 19th million gold bar. Brant Hinze said that they exceed industry standards when it comes to the environment. He states that 66% of employees are from the nearby town; they make good wages and are now for the first time able to send their children to universities. He said his company sees the value in the gold and the neighboring people see it as opportunity.
Last year was a huge problem for the villagers, the mining company got permission to drill onto one of the villages sacred mountain, Cerro Quillsh. The peasants began a blockade of the mine, people were arrested and injured. The mining company had finally apologized for what they had done, stating that they did not fully understand what it meant. In order to keep the peace, the mining company will spend about 7 million dollars on social programs. The priest stated that he would not be satisfied until the mining company made the mountain a natural reserve – this would show that they truly had respect for the people in the villages.
Additional Mining Info: Rock that is blasted can cause pits that are several thousand feet deep and a mile or more across. Cyanide breaks down in sunlight, and leaks and spills from mines, flow into rivers killing fish and creating pollution. Additives used during the refining process can result in the emission of nitrogen oxides, a major cause of acid rain.

Questions on the Cost of Gold
This last section of Jane Perlez’s three part series is a question and answer format in regards to gold mining. One interesting questions commented on how many children work in gold mines and under what conditions? Perlez answered that for the most part they did not see any children – the workers are mostly men, but in some places women are truck drivers. Although in some gold mines in the Congo, it has been said that children have been known to work there, but that cannot be confirmed.
One question that got my attention was in regards to how to buy jewelry in an environmentally and socially responsible way? This was answered by the fact that there are no guarantees as of now. A standard has not been agreed upon by the industry.

From these articles, it is evident that gold mining is a hazard to the environment and its surrounding people. When first researching “blood diamonds,” I was disheartened to learn the horror that went along with diamond mining, and once again I am shocked to learn that gold mining is also causing great harm to the environment and people. It has left me with a negative feeling towards diamonds and gold – making me question why do I want to make jewelry and what is my part in this damage and upheaval. It is quite sad that no standards are in place to keep land, animals and people safe – best we can do is find alternatives for these stones and metal and help spread the word.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/international/26gold-questions.html

Bibliography – Materials: Design Problem 2

Beylerian, George, and Andrew Dent. Material Connexion. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2005.

Ethical Metalsmiths, Keith Lewis. April 4, 2008. http://www.ethicalmetalsmiths.org.

Mioculture. April 16, 2008. http://www.mioculture.com.

Papcorn. April 16, 2008. http://www.papcorn.dk.

Slack, Laura. What is Product Design? Switzerland: RotoVision SA, 2006.

Wikipedia. April 14, 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. April 16, 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_design

Green Materials
What is Green Design?
Sustainable design (also referred to as "green design", "eco-design", or "design for environment.") Green Design involves using design methods, products, and processes that minimize the ecological impact of design and construction upon the earth. It uses methods and products that cause the lowest possible impact upon the ability of the natural environment to maintain its balance.

Why Does Green Design Matter?
Whether our perspective is global or local, we should care because the design choices we make affect the health, safety and welfare of those for whom we design as well as the health of the planet. We spend more than 90% of our lives indoors, therefore the indoor air we breathe, and the materials with which we have constant physical contact are fundamental parts of our lives. We need to consider the effects of indoor air and materials have on our physical health. Most design experts agree that green design is the standard by which good design will eventually be measured.

Who are some of the Designers Using Green Materials?

• Mio Culture: This companies philisophy, “all of our products use materials that can be easily recycled with existing infrastructures, fit into closed loop manufacturing systems available today or fit seamlessly with natural ecosystems”. Few of their designers:
  - Jaime Salm: designed wallpaper tiles
  - Katherine Wise: helped deisgn capsule lighting, using felt molding


• Papcorn: designs compostable dinnerware