krobo beads

A dear friend gave me a strand of glass Krobo beads from Ghana for my birthday a few years ago.  They are "Mue ne Angma" or "Writing Beads",  made from finely ground glass with glass slurry decorations that are "written" on and fused in a second firing.  They are brighter than most of the beads I tend to favor and they only found their way into a couple of pieces.  I like an aged, more elegant look and these are - well - kind of crude and brash.  But I know that if I find myself resistant to something, it means I have to suspend my judgement and find its own unique beauty.  It works the same way with people too, but that's a little more problematic.



Grouping the them into color affinities was my solution to the problem of what to do with the Krobo beads, adding other bright resin and ceramic beads and some rustic bone Tibetan Buddhist mala beads.

In a short-lived burst of creativity, I made a batch of bracelets strung on leather and embellished with charms.  

do-over

DO-OVER!

Were do-overs a common practice in your childhood as they were in mine?  How liberating it was to be able to own your mistake and then claim a second chance to get it right.  And if you had the power to go back in your life and invoke the rule of do-over, how many things would be changed?  I'm thinking "Back to the Future" here. How would the course of your personal history be altered?  For me, it's just as well that's not a possibility; maybe we're here to learn certain lessons and missteps create opportunities for growth that are an important part of that journey.

In art, however, unless the piece has left your possession for good, you can claim the Right of the Do-Over.  I like the way this piece looks in the photo on the left.  The steel wire wrap bothered me though, and the one time I tried to wear it, it clanked and made a racket.  I thought it needed some softness and a little spark of turquoise to wake it up. So I got rid of the wire - even though I really liked the joints - and strung (stringed? strang?) the beads and pendants on waxed linen.  This way they still maintain the ability to move the way I want, but in a more organic way.  I changed the dangle on the far left completely.  I think it's more harmonious now.

 I looked at a lot of shaman's costumes and old amulets on Pinterest, as well as contemporary interpretations (check out Stephanie Brouwers amazing work) and it seemed like my shaman's amulet needed more STUFF hanging off it.  The ends of the linen were begging to be beaded.  I replaced the leather thong with a finger-woven cord of the same waxed linen and grunged it up with a little Guilders Paste.

Actually, it could probably handle lots more stuff.  I think I'll just let it evolve.

fusion

I work in a very small space and it had gotten rather disheveled while I jumped from one project to another.  I was having trouble finding things.  There were piles on the floor I was tripping over. Beads everywhere.  Time to clean.  You've gotta have good feng shui to keep the energy flowing and clutter and dust are enemies of that flow.

When a cleaning gets to be needed that desperately, it becomes something like an archaeological dig: There are various strata you have to work your way through to let the work surface see the light of day.  With my short memory and even shorter attention span, there were a lot of things turning up that I had forgotten all about.

When I began to make amulet jewelry, I was in love with Tibetan "beeswax" beads.  I made quite a few pieces using them and I wear several of those pieces regularly.  In organizing my stuff, I came across a box with pieces I had begun and gotten stuck with.  I mean stuck in a design context.  There was a collection of Tibetan beads and they seemed so sad to be relegated to a zip-lock bag in a Valentine candy box.  Like World Music combines rhythms and instruments from cultures all over the planet and fusion cooking combines flavors, this necklace brings together crusty glass beads from the Czech Republic, amber colored horn beads from the U.S., silvery beads from Turkey, coins from the Middle East and those fabulous Tibetan amber "beeswax" beads.  I think they're all happy to be together.

no worries ...

My husband never worries.  It's just not part of his vocabulary.  At night, he sleeps the "sleep of the just" and snores away while I'm awake trying to figure out how we'll manage to pay the property taxes next December and if I've trusted in the abundance of the Universe enough not to wind up in the street.  Maybe it can be chalked up to lack of imagination.  On his part, that is.  I certainly have enough to spare.

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

lucky duck ...

Does everyone who makes things keep the best bits for themselves?  I can't be the only one.  I don't actually trust that I'll find the older, more unusual pieces that I used to be able to find on E-Bay, at least at prices I can afford, so I tend to hoard them.  The necklace below is evidence of that dilemma.

I used of some older Tibetan beads that I bought in a grab bag of broken stuff a few years back.  I would love to know what the pendant on the right side was originally used for.  I stuck a quartz crystal point into the  cavity and  I was going to wrap it with a blessing and some silk, but now I can't get it out.  A couple of the other beads look very well used too.  The silver skin is peeling off one of the metal beads and the carnelians are cracked and broken.  The amber "beeswax"  bead was missing one of its silver caps and I found that one of the repousse' caps fit perfectly on it.  I put a new bail on the Kwan Yin shrine and glued Her back in where She had just been rattling around inside.

I wish I had the psychic ability to know all about a thing simply by touching it, to be able to read whatever vibrational memories an object might have acquired.  Jewelry in particular, worn close to the skin.  I wish I knew who owned these beads and if it was hard to part with them or if they were just broken jewelry parts and they were glad to sell them.

Maybe I'll put This neckace up on Etsy with an outrageous price tag.  I've had two complaints recently from people who actually took the time to write and tell me that my stuff is "way too expensive".  My other listings will look like bargains by comparison.  Hmmm.....

Here's another new dangly piece that I'll be listing as soon as I figure out how to describe it:

And a silver necklace that's been just sitting around waiting for a clasp:

And another older piece that I lsted on Etsy recently:

The lapis beads in this necklace really are this deep blue.  With the gold flecks in them, they look like the night sky.

You know, I've realized that this has become my job.  A job I can do in my pajamas.  I am very very lucky.

decisions, decisions ...

It's a good thing I don't feel about my children the way I do about my work.  I usually think that the piece I've just finished is my best work ever and I don't see how I'm going to be able to part with it.  Sometimes that feeling forces me to go back and rework an older piece, like I did last night with the necklace I wrote about months ago on the post, shell beads ..

shell amulet necklace, quartz crystal, bone, shell, coyote tooth, citrine, pearls, moonstone

I added some more dangles, some vintage bone beads I "won" on E-Bay, a coyote tooth, and I used waxed linen cord instead of the hemp that wouldn't behave itself.  (What did I expect from hemp?  Now really.)

detail, shell amulet necklace

Much, much better.  I had to lose some of the more delicate mother-of-pearl beads that had holes too small to accomodate the waxed linen.  I think it looks more primitive now - more like something a shaman would wear.  It was a little too "bridal" in its previous incarnation.

The other way I cope with the "last is best" problem is to work in series.  Short series because of my short attention span issue.  Do two pieces qualify as a series?  I may be pushing that a little.

wearing of the green, equinox amulet necklace, prehnite, green garnet, amber

close-up, Wearing of the Green Equinox necklace

So here's my dilemma: I had an e-mail from the editor of Belle Armoire Jewelry about a month ago saying that she had been following my Etsy shop and inviting me to submit work for possible publication.  She suggested four pieces that are still listed.  Do I send off the latest stuff, taking it off the market for six months or so, but getting it great exposure if it's selected?  Do I send the older stuff that doesn't compare to the latest (and greatest)?

Good thing my kids don't read my blog.