This week the second maker profile for Makerspace May is Lenore Ramm. She is one of the founding members of Splat Space as well as one of the first people from Splat Space that I ever talked to. She is an incredibly multi-talented person, with a pretty wicked sense of humor (plus, like me, she loves purple). I’ve always enjoyed hearing about all the stuff that she is getting up to, so of course I wanted to share!

1. Who are you?

I’m Lenore!

2. Are you an artist/geek/maker/hacker or mixture of all of those descriptions?

All of the above. I grew up aspiring to be a full-time artist and then decided to get my bachelor’s in computer science instead. I work in IT at one of the local universities so by day I’m programming and maintaining systems for the Identity Management team and after work I’m usually at least thinking about something more artistic. I primarily make (and sell) jewelry, draw/paint, sew and crochet. In my spare time, I’m also involved with other technical organizations, such as Triangle Linux Users Group, and last night I was elected to their steering committee.

3. How are you involved with Splat Space?

I became involved with Splat Space at the very first interest meeting in the summer of 2010 and became one of the founding members that paid a little extra at the beginning so we had enough money. I was the PR officer for one year and the secretary for another. I haven’t been as active in the last couple of years, but that varies depending on how busy I am.

4. What’s on your worktable/bench/desk right now? What’s holding your interest?

I think my entire house is my workbench at the moment (and I need to do something about that!). I have one whole room that’s a dedicated art studio, but every room contains art supplies, yarn and fabric of some sort. I have tables designated specifically for making jewelry, painting and sewing and a desk covered with decorative paper.

My interests are always really scattered. I’m hoping to finish a baby quilt for a co-worker’s infant son before he graduates from college, I want to finally try out some water soluble oil paints, I want to get some jewelry ready to take to a store in Durham, I’d like to design some greeting cards and I’d like to play with some modular origami. In addition, ideas for fabrics designs to upload to Spoonflower are always swimming in my head. I recently took a course in clay hand-building at the Carrboro Arts Center, so I’d like to do more of that soon, too. What I would love to do is learn to solder sterling silver with a torch.

 

5. Any favorite projects for favorite epic failures you’d be willing to share?

None of my failures have been truly epic, but I encourage everyone when clipping off soldered electronic component leads to not leave them under your work surface when you are testing out your completed projects. As far as favorite projects, I’m tickled pink with the dragon that I carved out a block of clay during the class at the Arts Center. A little over a year ago, I was very happy with a “postage stamp” quilt that I made for my parents during a class at Spoonflower. Years later, I still love many of the botanical illustrations that I did when I was in my late teens and early 20s.

Thank you so much Lenore! If you’d like to check out Lenore’s Etsy shop with her lovely jewelry, her shop is called Eronel Designs.  If you want to check out some of her fabric designs,  visit her profile page on Spoonflower!