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.

still august

Once in a while, a piece just kind of makes itself.  That doesn't mean this was just the way I needed it to be the first time.  I had to restring the smokey quartz crystal because it didn't hang right and the Tibetan mala bead that connects the coin to the leather cord originally had turquoise chips in it that were way too blue to go harmoniously with the other turquoise beads and had to be changed out with another that had only a brass inlay.  But overall, the process is just joyful when it comes together so smoothly.  (It also sold within a couple of hours of being listed on Etsy.)  Now, if I could just do this whenever I wanted to ...

february

The picnic table where I usually take my jewelry photos has about a foot of snow on it.  The temperature hasn't gotten above freezing in ages and I've had to resort to using a set up near a north window.  We cope.  It's not ideal, but it'll have to do for now.

Shoulder duster earrings with bone flowers, wooden skull beads and beautiful amber colored horn beads.  I wish I didn't have such a short fat neck and I could wear them myself.

Leather, copper, abalone shell and a bronze Thai Buddhist amulet.  Great casual piece.

Milagros earrings.  Praying for true love.

Another variation on the abalone and leather theme - this time with a fossilized ammonite shell, a fancy copper wire bead and a recycled glass bead that makes me think of a root beer bottle.

And oh - this one. 

 This one I may have to keep.  I love the brown and the green together.  The fossilized ammonite shell with its slight iridescence, the carved horn spike.  Oh yeah. I may need to keep this.

 

of whales and fairytales

A lot of the time when I'm working on a piece, I reach a point when I need something I don't already have, I run out of patinated wire, or I just don't know for sure which direction it wants to take.  I don't want to force it.  I want to midwife it gently - no forceps deliveries on my worktable.  Taking a break from the work usually means pulling up some weeds, loading the dishwasher, having a little lie-down ... but I especially like to read other people's blogs.  My favorites are on the left.  I'm so impressed when artists can coherently describe their processes.  It really makes me feel inadequate.  I love the blogs where an entire tutorial is presented. Words and photos.  How do they do it?  How would I ever become organized enough?  Would a photo showing the state of my cuticles make readers gag?

Here's the finished piece - Labradorite, bone, black garnet.  The Czech glass tube beads that make up the rosary chain are an iridescent grey that almost looks like the Labradorite.  There's the whale bone again in photo three.  Every time I move it, it leaves a little pile of calcium behind.  I wonder what kind of whale it was.  A humpback was sighted off the South Shore here this past week.  Every once in while one beaches and dies out on the East End of the Island.  When my kids were small, a young whale managed to find its way into the Inlet and then couldn't find its way back out into the Atlantic again.  We went down to the Bay to try to see him.  I think I remember that he was lured out by some fishing boats and my kids believed the story had a happy ending, but what happened to him in the wide Atlantic, I just don't know.  Was his mama able to find him?  I dearly would love to believe so.  I'm a sucker for happy endings.

April

Some new pieces for April:  turquoise, amber, lava and bone.  Copper and bronze.  All my favorites.  I'll just keep quiet and let the pictures speak for themselves.

And if I managed to do it right, there's a video of a little egg hunter if you make it to the very end.  Maybe not as funny as kittens being tickled, but pretty damned cute, I'd say.

nature ...

I have a big butterfly bush in my garden.  In the summertime, I love to sit out there and watch the monarchs balancing on the delicate purple flowers.  I am not the only one watching; birds line up on the fence opposite the bush and find the nectar satiated butterflies a sweet snack. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" right here in my own backyard.  The wings are left discarded on the ground beneath the bush, in perfect pairs. One of those wings is encased in Ice Resin, along with watch gears, sequins, and a fragment of an artemesia vulgaris root, in a bronze bezel at the heart of this necklace.

I hung an assortment of beads and amulets from the bezel: a tiny copper pinecone; a mother-of-pearl spirit bear fetish; a vintage carved bone bead on a copper chain; a honey-colored lampwork bead, a carved bone bead and a little copper charm with a spiral set in clear resin.  There's a pen knife that is functional and opens, a brass protective hand hanging from an old Nigerian raised-dot bead, and a faceted citrine. My intent was to call in air energy - inspired by the butterfly wing and the pen knife (a stand-in for an athame), but it's all about balance after all, and it felt too ungrounded to me, so I added a deer antler tip that I drilled and lightly polished to anchor the East/Air energy.  The photos really don't do the colors justice.  Maybe I'll reshoot it on a white background.  Maybe not.  It was pretty cold out there yesterday.

And another necklace of vintage bone, carnelian, lava, black garnet and copper.  Very earthy. Another shed deer antler tip.  I really am obsessed with them.  My husband made me drill them outside because he said the bedroom was smelling like a dentist's office.

And a very light, almost ethereal piece by contrast - white jade, citrine, mother-of-pearl and rhinestones, hanging from an Dutch East Indies copper coin.

One more - a piece that I made early on from a broken necklace that belonged to my grandmother. I frequently wear it but had never photographed it before.

corn dogs and racing pigs

Izzy

I just got home from four weeks in North Carolina and am still in adjustment mode.  "How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all???" (Firesign Theater, if you're old enough to remember them.)

This time of year, there are fairs and festivals on the Piedmont Plateau every weekend.  Succulent (just writing the word makes my mouth water) apple dumplings at the Bethabara AppleFest, corn dogs at the Dixie Classic Fair, pig races at both - PIG RACES - can you believe it?  Racing around a little track for Cheez Doodles and Oreos in the Fall - served up as barbeque in the Spring.  A fleeting season of glory.  What more can anyone hope for?  And wonderful music everywhere.  I'm such a sucker for Appalachian fiddlers.  Two notes into "Shady Grove" and my eyes are brimming with tears.

During the time I was gone though, I did not make one single solitary thing.  Not an earring.  I crawled around on the floor after an eight month old speed demon.  I crocheted her a serape in the softest, silkiest purple yarn.  I did some tie-dying with my two older grandchildren and I bought some lovely old keys at a country flea market that will be appearing in some future creations.  I was not what I would consider to be productive, but there were times when I succeeded in being fully present in the moment and for me, that alone was quite an achievement.

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.

back sides ...

Kim from Numinosity Beads, who makes fabulous glass beads, headpins and other artifacts for jewelry makers -    (www.etsy.com/shop/NuminosityBeads)

requested a look at the back of a wire wrapped element in the previous post, so here are a few examples.  I'm no expert at doing this, but I'm willing to make dumb mistakes and redo a piece until I get it to my satisfaction.  That means basically that I want it to look interesting and fairly neat and I want everyone to think that I meant it to come out exactly that way.  Fortunately, I do get better the more experience I get.   Using precious silver wire, I never would have attempted this kind of thing, but with cheap steel wire - I am utterly fearless.

And here's an "Air" piece I just finished as a counterpoint to the "Earth" necklace I posted last time:

A Prayer for the East - Air amulet necklace

grounding ...

I picked up a few goodies a couple of weeks ago at a local gem and mineral society show. I remembered to bring my reading glasses - the prescription pair, not the drug store ones - which is always a good thing. Fewer regrets. My budget was very limited, but there were a few things I felt compelled to pounce on and worry about paying for later: some little drilled quartz crystal points (I use 'em all the time); some very pretty faceted turquoise that I haven't used yet; some yellow opal rondelles that I just love ( I had used up the last of my stash and had despaired of finding more); some gorgeous blue kyanite; faceted amethyst beads; and (be still my heart) some raw black garnet crystals (dodecahedrons, in fact). I could swear they called me from across the room. One second I was looking at some leather cord and the next I was in front of this tall young dreadlocked hippie guy with these amazing beads in my hand.

That's the black garnet on the top

Turns out, black garnet, also known as Andradite or Melanite is a pretty intense stone. This is what I read on the Internet: "Metaphysical Properties: Black Andradite Garnet is a powerful grounding stone, which can also be used to ... evoke the mysteries of the Earth. It can help one attune to elemental forces and engage their aid. "

http://www.crystalvaults.com/crystal-encyclopedia/andradite

Grounding is one of the first practices you learn when doing magical and shamanic work. Putting your roots down deep deep into Mother Earth; looking for balance and tapping into that primordial energy.  Some people really need help to stay grounded, so the black garnet, if nothing else, is a reminder.

That's a black garnet all the way on the left...

A Prayer for the North, Earth Amulet Necklace

This piece is really all about Earth energy.  Stone, bone, clay, copper.  Very grounding.

And here's another necklace using some beautiful hand-dyed silk sari fabric I just got from Flea's Fibers on Etsy -
www.etsy.com/shop/FleasFibers
I'm in love with the colors in this piece - they remind me of that beautiful color that old newspapers become.

I've avoided taking a shower and getting dressed long enough.  It's overcast here on the South Shore of Long Island - perfect for getting more photos taken.  I've gotten a little too grounded to this computer chair.