'The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.' -The Upanishads.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Procrastination is an art form



Altoid tin love mojo - open

Is the degree of creativity inversely proportional to the neatness of the workspace?  Does dark, fecund, primeval chaos provide the ideal breeding ground for artistic expression or does it just attract bugs?  Does she really want to sell more of her stuff and avoid going back to a nine-to-five desk job designing  accounting spreadsheets, or does she just want to wear everything she's ever made and listen to people say, "Ooooooo"? What, oh what is her problem???

Stay tuned folks ...




Altoid tin love mojo - closed

In the meantime, following my classic avoidance pattern, may I present to you pictures of some past episodes of "Maggie Zee's Short Attention Span Theater":




"Root"; hand quilted, cotton hand-dyed fabric, the shaman's journeys into the three worlds






Saturday, April 21, 2012

In my hurry to get something posted last night, I left off the newest necklace. This one has Peruvian opal, Prehnite, green garnet, abalone, and mother-of-pearl.  There are two amulets attached:  a vintage one from Tibet that I think may be a bodhi seed and the little green dangle at the bottom that was carved by an Afghani refugee living in Turkey and looks like a bird or a bug to me.  Oh yes - and a copper Tibetan skull (I love these), a West African coin, and a triangular bronze bezel filled with a sequined sari fragment and topped with Ice Resin.



Time flies...

shaman's charm bracelet
Here on Long Island we waited three months for a winter that never came.  I actually like a little bit of snow to make everything look clean and pretty for a while, but  I'm not complaining.  We were far more fortunate than other places in the world.  But time has gone by really fast and I haven't managed to keep the resolution I made to post on a regular basis. (I also haven't exercised regularly, if you want to know the whole truth.)  To compound my usual procrastination, a short trip to North Carolina turned into a two week visit with my jewelry making supplies left at home.  In order to keep me from completely filling up her fridge and freezer with homemade soup and driving her insane, my daughter turned me on to Pinterest and I was an instant addict.
The thing is, every time I hit that PIN-IT button, I had the illusion that I was being creative, which was almost as satisfying as actually creating something.  I was becoming a virtual artist.  I told myself that I was doing "inspirational research" and that my Pinterest boards would look cool linked to my blog (which I just can't figure out how to do).  Fortunately my short attention span issues kicked in and some sweet little copper melon beads started crying out for a patina and before you could say "Liver of Sulfur", I was back at my work table.

http://pinterest.com/maggiezee/

Shells, I Ching coin, Tibetan copper skull, Egyptian rock crystal


I Ching coin, garden quartz, waterbuffalo tooth, Saharan bead, vintage MOP button
Amulet necklace with shed deer antler tip, ammonite, Saharan quartz bead, resin-filled bronze bezel
Close-up of bezel:  vintage brass button, sequins, artemisia vulgaris root
Close-up of dangles