Although I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, I spent summers at my family’s homes in Smithtown and Peakville, New York. It was during these summer vacations that I discovered the world of the natural landscape, which has been the inspiration for my art and jewelry designs since that time. I received my MFA in painting from Pratt Institute, and have exhibited my paintings in SOHO, Midtown Manhattan and in the Berkshires, MA. My awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a New York State CAPS Fellowship, a grant from the Hillwood Art Museum, C.W. Post College, and numerous awards from juried art exhibitions. I have always considered jewelry as an extension of my painting and have been experimenting with form and media for decades. I currently teach my original jewelry design course, painting courses, and serve as art department chairperson at a major New York City university.
-Ross Barbera
I am in the process of enabling RSS on this new blog site. I should have it available very soon. Thanks for your interest.
I want to thank-you for teaching me!!!!
…online with your wonderful videos!!!
I truly enjoy your jewelry making videos. I love your explanations and detail and keeping everything in camera view
Hi Willette,
Thanks so much for your comments and support! I appreciate it very much!
-Ross
Hi Ross, firstly let me just say WOW!!!! LOL I actually stumbled onto your youtube video about making water-colour paper jewelry and was truly awed … beautiful work Ross. BUT THEN I checked out you paintings and then I was truly awed!!!!!! Your work is amazing. I LOVE the watercolors that is my favourite medium although I also work in pencil, acrylic and oil. I have just been painting for 4 years now but drawings since I could hold a pencil
I am going to have to get one of your DVD’s or books if you have them.
Maryann
I do have a question about the jewelry, you “harden them off” with your toaster oven, I don’t have a toaster oven, so could I use a regular oven? I read that microwave oven is a HUGE no-no but there was nothing about conventional ovens, Did you ever try them Ross, and if so how long did you leave them in and at what temp.?
I’m really looking forward to newsletters and stuff. I live in Alberta Canada and am now a true fan of your work. It gives me much pleasure to look at
Hi Maryann,
The toaster oven has a few things going for it over a conventional oven. It’s the perfect size for working with relatively small jewelry objects, and the temperature is easy to control.
It’s extremely important to never heat your jewelry beyond 210 degrees, and for the varnishing process, the work is heated at 150 degrees. This temperature is high enough to achieve good results in fast drying and hardening of the varnish. If you built a channel into your jewelry piece using my wax method, you will heat the jewelry object at 200 degrees to melt out the wax, during the final heating cycle.
The toaster oven is ideal because it enables easy temperature control, and it’s also possible to monitor your piece through the large glass window.
If you truly can maintain this precise temperature control in your conventional oven, there is no reason why it can’t be used. But any temperature spike might burn your work. My advice is to do a few test runs on pieces that you would not mind damaging, before using the conventional oven to heat a good piece. One final note, because the toaster oven is relatively small in size, it will require a lot less energy to run, making it more environmentally friendly to use.
Thanks for your kind comments and feedback – I really do appreciate it!
-Ross Barbera