One of the things I worry about is whether or not something will break on my jewelry once it leaves my hands. That worry has kept me from listing a necklace I blogged about a year or so ago. The drop on it was a broken piece of Tibetan "beeswax" resin that I had made a little copper wire cage around. Esthetically, I liked this very much, but I worried that if the buyer/wearer was fiddling around with it, it would loosen up and pop out. I imagined that this was bound to happen and would certainly result in the loss of a return customer.
I'm very big on having a Plan B to get me through life. Most of the time I also have a Plan C and a Plan D as well. So Plan B for this necklace was replacing the beeswax with something else. I happened to find a lovely, honey amber colored rutilated quartz drop that fit the bill quite well.
See if you agree.
 |
| with wire wrapped beeswax |
 |
| rutilated quartz drop |
 |
| plan B |
7 comments:
I don't think the necklace has suffered at all, it looks beautiful! I'm the same as you, worry all the time - not really about anything going wrong, more about if I've been organised/efficient/sensible/wise/reasonable enough about something and if not what can I do about it. Big on plans and lists. Lately though it's been shifting into some kind of apathy. Can't decide if that's better.
I love the necklace either way. I really love the idea of the beeswax though. I've never seen that before, but I can see why you would be concerned about someone fiddling with it until it loosened. It's really a lovely necklace so I'm glad you found a solution that makes you comfortable with listing it.
It may not be better - and it may not be worse - just different. And apathy, after all you've been through, may be just a middle ground before you move into a place of deeper healing. May it be so, dear Penny. May it be so.
Thank you Lisa. Since I reluctantly recognize that I am powerless to fix much of anything in anyone else's life, it gives me some small satisfaction to have one less thing to worry about. Beeswax is a translation of a material that the Tibetans have used for a long long time as a substitute for amber, which is pretty rare and valuable in the Himalayas. They mix amber and copal, which are organic resins after all, with other things and melt them into "beeswax". This piece was a fragment of something else that I got in a box of broken old beads.
I tend to love your more "rustic" pieces, pieces that show the history and mistakes, where you almost can see the hands who formed them...therfore I still love the first piece. I guess in jewlery art there is always the danger to slip into the "too pretty"...as you grow in your art making I see you moving more and more in the direction of incorporating earth, simplicity, natural materials ....love those pieces!!...I am not a jewlery artist but a 2-D artist working in encaustic here and there and always fight against the temptations of "too pretty" ......on another note my teenage daughter wants to work with wire and beads and loves the dark wire and wire with patina you are using.....are you using a patina over a copper wire or is it just steel wire you are using?
she just boiled an egg, smashed it and put it together with the necklace made with copper wire in a plastic bag.....that is supposed to give it a rustic look......I smiled and decided to go to the local craft store tomorrow...
I just don't have the patience to wait for the boiled egg patina - I need the immediate gratification liver of sulfur gives me. I use a concentrated gel form that's available on line. I gives me more control on copper and bronze. My daughter uses the egg method with her silver jewelry. When I need more than one gauge wire in a piece, I use copper, cut a number of lengths and patina them before wire wrapping. I've only found one gauge of steel wire available locally to me, but I mix metals. YouTube has some good videos on patinas, as do some of the online bead stores, like Beadaholique.
Like you, I find pretty is easy to achieve - beauty is deeper and has that emotional depth that comes from experience. I hope my work continues to grow and I'm grateful for people like you who can see it. Thank you!
Post a Comment