This is not your grandmother’s fruitcake. It’s not dense. It’s not darkish. It isn’t your typical toss-it-as-quickly-as-you-get-it fruitcake or turn round and give it to someone else. No. It is not that fruitcake.

I used to be anxious to ramp up my learning curve as rapidly as possible and joined the Yahoo! Metal Clay Gallery , the world’s largest and most educated metallic clay dialogue group. The members had been international metal clay artists who participated actively, discussing ideas and generously shared their work, their experiences, and their evolving techniques as the collective group explored the seemingly limitless artistic opportunities presented by this exciting new form of steel. I requested lots of questions and was thrilled and grateful when I acquired incredibly helpful solutions from some of the world’s high metallic clay artists.

If you find yourself avoiding issues like cleaning, organizing, getting out and doing new things or find …