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.

A fearful symmetry...

After a loooong but thankfully uneventful trip home (squished into the back seat of an aging Saab with two big hairy dogs and a small cooler for 13 hours), I'm reunited with all my stuff, even if my knees (also aging) are complaining about being in any position other than vertical.

the noble Tia

the goofball Tonka

The first order of business is to clear out the old to make room to buy more beads to make more stuff.

I used to use pretty much only silver, back before the prices went through the roof.  I have a bunch of older pieces that I'm putting up on Etsy to sell.  I couldn't afford to buy the materials at today's prices, but I only have one neck so there is a limit to how many necklaces I can wear.  The prices reflect what I paid for the wire and beads a few years ago, not what it would cost for them now, so I think they are a great bargain.  Here are a few - I was using a lot of silver from Bali and Karen Hill Tribe beads, pendants from Tibet and Afghanistan, American borosilicate beads - going for an urban, ethnic aesthetic.

Man, I was a slave to symmetry.  I still find myself falling back into that design solution pattern, but it's so much more interesting to achieve balance in other ways.  It just occurred to me that it's also a metaphor of sorts for my life the last few years.  About a year before I was laid off from my bookkeeping job, I developed a neurological disorder called Mal de Debarquement Syndrome.  Essentially, landsickness.  My brain perceives everything as being in motion and it's difficult to keep my balance.  So I guess if I can achieve balance in my artwork, that's satisfying some need.

Here's some new stuff too.  Uh-oh.  They're BOTH symmetrical.  Mostly. That blows that theory to hell.

homeward bound

Winding up my latest stay in North Carolina and getting ready to head back to my dogs, what's left of my garden, and - oh yeah - I think I may have left a husband back there in Noo Yawk.  We watched back to back episodes of Long Island Medium yesterday to prepare for my re-entry to Lawn Guyland.  It takes me about a day before I want to punch someone out in the local Stop-and-Shop.  I always miss the uber-polite Southern supermarket baggers who say,"Y'all want me to put the sacks in the buggy, ma'am??"

Sigh...I could so get used to people being nice to me.

Will try to get the latest piece listed on Etsy.

guilt tripping ...

It's Spring on the Piedmont Plateau.  It was still very much Winter when I left New York nearly a month ago and although I wouldn't miss waking up to my 13 week old granddaughter's smiling little face and spending weekends with my other grandchildren for anything, I do wish sometimes that I knew the secret of being in two places at once.  I dream at night about the roof of my house on Long Island collapsing and of huge sinkholes opening up and swallowing the laundry room.  My daughter and I try out fabulous new recipes that we find on Pinterest and my husband at home is surviving on Costco rotisserie chickens.

The trick, I think, is just to live in the moment (as I was typing this, I wrote "love" instead of "live" and that's right too I suppose).  Be here now.  And so I am.

I've managed to get some new pieces photographed, using a wonderful rusty gas grill side tray as a background and I'll try to get them listed on Etsy tomorrow.  Meanwhile, here's a preview:

immediate gratification...

"Scorpio - The work that you recently invested in yourself is almost ready to be presented to the world. Although it's not wise to stand on the sidelines and watch silently, you aren't quite ready for prime time yet." 

This was the horoscope that popped up when I went to check my e-mail this morning after spending most of the morning packing and repacking some pieces to send off to Belle Armoire Jewelry.  I'm not sure how I want to interpret the second sentence.  I've worked myself into what I can only call a tizzy.  I keep reminding myself to have no attachment to outcome.  It is was it is and whatever it will be - will be.  


I was not always so Zen about this kind of thing.  I came across a portfolio with some prints of a few of my quilts while cleaning up my very disorganized workspace tonight.  I thought I only had slides but I must have had these printed for some reason.  I was always entering shows and they all had different requirements.  I got into some and didn't get into others.  The big show that I was heavily invested in emotionally was the biennial Quilt National.  My work never made it in and it was always a crushing disappointment not to get that validation I wanted so badly.

"Motorola 68000"  pieced quilt, featured in a Japanese quilting magazine

A fancy schmancy Japanese quilting magazine did a multi-page spread on my stuff.  I never found out what they said about me, since I don't read or speak Japanese.  That might be my name on top.  Who knows?

This one and the one after it were based on computer chip circuitry designs and were representative of my tight-assed accountant mind set.  Those are called prairie points around the edge of that bottom quilt.  There are about a zillion of them, all folded into perfect points, perfectly spaced and stitched in place.  All this while working full time, raising three kids and going to school at night.  I must have been insane.  Actually, I'm really impressed that I made them.  My attention span must have been a lot longer back then.

"Monolithic Memories" , machine-pieced, hand-quilted

And here I'm starting to lose the ruler and rotary cutter and get a little less obsessed about making all the corners line up perfectly.  Hmmm.  If I didn't know better, I'd think that a progreesion like this shows some kind of mental breakdown.

"PMS 2", machine pieced, hand-quilted

"The Empress", hand painted, machine-pieced, hand-quilted

Tie-dying and hand painting.  This is what happens when bookkeepers go wild.

"Root", hand painted fabric, machine-pieced, hand-quilted

"Root" was one of my last quilts.  By this time, I had started to study shamanism with a student of Michael Harner's and I felt like I had found my path back home to my real self.  I dropped out of my accounting and finance classes and started stringing beads together.  

Immediate gratification.

spring cleaning ...

chinese bronze repro coin amulet necklace

I reworked another piece from last year that I just wasn't quite happy with.  I like it much better now.  It was a little too "cutesy" before, even if it's kinda on the heavy side now.

I've also started signing my work.  Someone bought one of my bracelets recently and is re-selling it, at a hugely inflated price, on her website.  Not like I have any control over what someone does with my stuff once it leaves my hands, but this just isn't sitting well with me.  Like it dilutes the energies I try to put into the piece.  So I bought a little battery operated engraving tool and I'm signing my pieces; "maggie zee" if there's enough room and "mz" if there isn't.

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.

balance...

In honor of the Spring Equinox, I thought I'd stay up way past my bedtime and refresh my blog's look (and then of course, I had to redo my Facebook page and Etsy shop header. Kinda like painting one room and then thinking that the fresh paint makes everything else look so shabby that you just have to keep going.)  I thought about changing my avatar, but couldn't find anyone I liked as much as the teacup lady.  Talk about magnificent bosoms!!

grey skies

Grey skies - too cold to get the peas planted but perfect for photographing my latest pieces outdoors.

I've been home from the Land of Barbeque and Hush Puppies for a week now, missing my grandchildren terribly.  I found out that airport security doesn't seem to care how much wire and beads of all persuasions you've managed to pack into your carryon, as long as you have nothing in a liquid state, they are not interested.  And also - even though you've brought everything you thought you could possibly need, there will be some essential thing that's sitting on your worktable at home.

And then of course, there was this slight distraction:

Here are my latest offerings:

green man amulet necklace

close-up of green man

earth & bone charm bracelet

amethyst peace charm bracelet

the deer shaman's necklace

close-up of deer shaman's necklace

red jasper warrior's amulet necklace

close-up