still making lots of soup and delicious jewelry

Soon it will be too hot for soup-making, but never too hot for playing with beads and charms and stuff.

another turn of the wheel ...

The wheel of the seasons turns again into the dark and the cold in this Hemisphere.  I wish you all radiant health, happiness, balance, and above all - peace in the New Year.  I am grateful for the ongoing interest in my work and for your support.

time traveler

Time traveler.

Way back in the 1970's, I used to watch Dr.Who.  I was a fan of the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, with his unruly scarf and unrulier hair.  (I watch it on BBC America now too and am very impressed with the last three doctors, but I may just be watching so that my grandchildren think I'm hip.)  The idea of time travel has always intrigued me.  If I had access to a Tardis, the first thing I'd do is visit Broadway in the 1920's and catch the Marx Brothers live on stage.  The second thing is attend a ritual at Stonehenge when that culture was at its height.  When I hold one of these beautiful Russian fossilized ammonites in my hand, I am transported 60 million years (give or take a few million) back in time.  It's incomprehensible.  The quartz crystal bead above it is from Mali and I am told that children sift these beads from the sands of the Sahara, string them, and sell them to tourists.  Since there is no way of dating them, they may be anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand years old or more.

Here's another necklace that I wasn't satisfied with and decided to rework.  I added some more quartz crystal to the Labradorite and one of my copper wire DNA charms.  Now it makes me happy.  Just wish I could get the colors in the Labradorite to photograph better.  I have a cool new photo prop though - a nice little piece of driftwood with an interesting shape.

And one more new piece - this one feels so earthy - like the way that the woods smell in Spring.

new york state of mind

I finally got around to listing this piece on Etsy.  I don't know what was holding me back.  The beautiful borosilicate bead is the last one that I had of the set; maybe the thought of parting with it was too daunting.  You really can't see how magical it is in the photos.  The green is like shards of Peruvian opal and there are so many shades of brown.  The little faceted rondelles of petrified wood echo the browns in the bead.  It really turned out to be a special necklace.  I believe that's a Herkimer Diamond wired across the horseshoe.  They're supposed to have tons of positive energy, despite their small size.

I bought of couple of these Endless Knot carved shell pendants a while back, intending to use them in summer necklaces.  I collaged the back with Chinese script, skeletonized leaves, silk fabric and bits of Godiva chocolate wrapper, protected by layers and layers of ModPodge and Renaissance Wax. The cord is braided and finger-woven.

I would wear it with the collage side up, but it's reversible.  Also very very long, so it can be tied at any length the wearer desires.  Very versatile and perfect for Summer.

Happy Mango Beads is having a contest to win some of its fabulous beads, so I made a new charm bracelet to enter.  They are a great company with a social conscience to boot.  I highly recommend checking them out.

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.

and so it goes ...

It seems that for me, earrings are the solution to staying creative while suffering from the summertime blues - short-term commitment plus gratification as immediate as it gets in jewelry making.

Another pendant with a finger-woven cord.  I wanted this one to look like that liminal area where the beach and the ocean meet.

The eastbound lanes of Ocean Parkway on Long Island were flooded during SuperStorm Sandy last year when the dunes were breached.  Now for part of its length, you can see the ocean.  Although I love driving on it, a parkway should never have been built on a fragile barrier beach and someday the Atlantic will reclaim it.

august just goes on forever ...

I am not a patient person.  I'm always ready to move on to the next thing.  OK, we've had summer. Enough already - let's get some leaf action going here.   In my ongoing efforts to "Be Here Now", I've been experimenting with finger weaving cords for necklaces.  Rhythmic repetition with the goal of reaching some kind of meditative state.   The local craft store had some bamboo fiber that was cheap enough to toss if the results were really awful and I found a long-running, multi-episodic British mystery series on NetFlix (this is MY version of meditating.  There are many paths up the mountain, after all) and got my fingers busy.  I tea-dyed the cord and I really like the softness and the texture of it.

A Prayer for Ausangate

a look at the prong-diddy from the back

It's a necklace for grounding, with a black garnet (from a previous post) a jade cicada, a little faceted citrine, and a beautiful stone that a friend picked up on Mt. Ausangate in the Peruvian Andes.  Ausangate is one of the apus, the high glacial mountains that the ancient Peruvians believed were the homes of gods.  The glaciers on the high peaks are melting and within a couple of generations, there will be no more sacred glacial water for the people to bless their crops with.

Then I figured I'd better have some lower price point items in the shop, so I made a few pairs of earrings.  The top pair has lapis lazuli beads with Turkish evil eye beads, lucky horseshoes, bone mala beads and little deer antler tips that my brilliant and beautiful friend Janet brought me back from her summer travels (you remember Janet).

The second pair have quartz crystal points, lampwork, recycled African glass beads, blue kyanite, and lovely little silver medals of the BVM.  I've never been a Catholic (in this life anyway), but I've always loved the Blessed Mother as one of the few representatives of the Divine Feminine that we have in the Western world.  I used to stop off at a church that I passed on my way to school to light candles to Her on test days, so She and I go back a long long way.  These particular medals are from Corsica (also courtesy of the aforementioned brilliant and beautiful Janet), so that makes them extra special.  I have a couple more goodies that she found for me that I'm saving for a special piece.

I also submitted another article proposal to Belle Armoire Jewelry with pictures of the charm bracelets that I made to keep for myself.

Do other people make jewelry for themselves (primarily)?  I only sell the pieces that I can bear to part with.  Which kind of segues into the current bloggers discussions begun by Sparrow Salvage and continued on Fanciful Devices :  how do you price your work so that you get a fair return on your time, unique materials and creativity, but still manage to keep customers?

This is such an important discussion to have and I'm grateful to Sparrow and Fanci for being brave and honest enough to address it. I think that as women, we are accustomed to undervaluing ourselves, and by extrapolation, our efforts.  You don't see Keith Lo Bue worrying about whether or not he's pricing his work reasonably enough, I'll bet.  After September 1, when the Belle Armoire Jewelry Fall issue comes out and I become incredibly famous and sought after, I will be raising my prices.  Fair warning.  So if you managed to read this far and want to buy something dirt cheap, I'll also give you 10% off if you pay before September 1.  Just use the coupon code AMULET2013.

So act quickly before I wake up and realize my own value.