new stuff

Lots of new stuff to share.  I am way behind in photography and listing on Etsy and all the things I think I should be doing.  Just indulging in the pleasures of creating.

For a while now, I've just assumed that blogging was pretty much passe'.  People I was following are now using Instagram and Twitter and I have enough trouble trying to keep up on FaceBook.  But last night I checked out my blogger account and found to my great surprise that I am still getting hits.  Lots of them actually.  So for anyone who is still along for the ride with me, here is a lengthy update.

I originally had a large labyrinth pendant on this necklace, but I wasn't completely happy with it.  I had tried out something different for a bail and only realized after it had come out of the kiln and I was polishing it, that it looks just like the Trilithons of Stonehenge.  I think the shape and size work much better.  I used the second pendant with red jasper, carnelian, horn, and red tiger eye.

This one had been incomplete for ages.  It features an old silver and turquoise pendant from Tibet along with silver and turquoise, a jade cicada, old silver earring orphan, Scorched Earth spike, Thai amulet and Whitby jet beads.  Jet is a cousin to both amber and coal - very popular in Victorian times for mourning jewelry.

The weather hasn't be cooperating with my intent to photograph pieces outside - all the damp and dank has put a layer of green on my slate and whalebone props so I've had to look for some new backgrounds.  The one above is the inside covers of a book I've had since I was a child - Sir Richard Burton's translation of "The Arabian Nights".  I love the aged look of the paper.  Some of the other photos are taken on the back cover, but it's not big enough to show an entire necklace.

This piece is kind of minimalist for me.  It showcases an unusual pendant of green Prehnite.  The photos don't begin to do it justice.  I love that it's not clear and perfect.  The inclusions and irregularities and color shifts within the stone are fascinating.  Prehnite is sometimes described on New Agey crystal websites as "the stone that heals the healer".  It's supposed to help release a person's natural psychic abilities and deepen meditative states.  I just know that I am drawn to work with it on an aesthetic level if nothing else.

 Rutilated quartz.  Another favorite stone of mine.  I love the threads of golden rutile running through the beads.  Encased in time and space.

Gorgeous porcelain spikes by Petra Carpreau of Scorched Earth on Etsy.  I-Ching coins, old African cowrie shells, bone Buddhist mala beads, Kuchi coins, and Czrch glass talhakimt amulets.  A little raw.  A little wild and tribal.  Steel wire was called for here.

 Faceted chalcedony beads with my hand made bronze clay discs.  A twisted copper jump ring and vintage gold washed brass "raised dot" Yoruba beads from Africa.  

Another shield amulet with impressions of the dancing ladies inspired by North African cave paintings on both sides.  A large smokey quartz crystal, recycled amber colored glass Krobo beads from Africa and tiny ones from Indonesia.  I like to squish the clay out with my fingertips rather than rolling it out.  I want to see the marks of my hands and leave no doubt that these pieces have been a labor of the heart and soul.

Another spike from Petra Carpreau.  The colors are glorious!  A rough faceted carnelian, a Thai amulet of a Kalachakra Wheel in sandstone, a bone spike incised with an Ohmmmm, a little wooden skull from a Nepalese or Tibetan prayer mala, and one of my bronze hands - open to repel negativity and receive blessings.  Suspended from a bronze ring on a leather choker.  I had sent this one along to Belle Armoire for consideration, so it will be listed as soon as I get it back.

And these two.  I need to take some better photos so I can list them.  The first one makes me think of woodlands - of Spring shoots poking through damp autumn leaves.  Renewal and promise.  Green garnets, wooden disc beads, and seed beads in many shades of green.

The last one is golden - sun shining through dew drops.  Sparkling with faceted citrines, amber, and Peruvian opals.  It's going to be very hard to part with these two. 

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.

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.

doldrums ...

The creative side of my brain has left on its summer holiday and, as usual, has forgotten to take the rest of me with it.  So here I am, looking for inspiration once more, cleaning my cramped work space in the hope that the need to put a few different pieces together will eventually overcome the summer doldrums.

But since I have no new pieces to share with you, I would like to share that one of my favorite books, Native Funk and Flash, is back in print after many many years,

My original copy from 1974 is stained and worn but I still get inspired by the work of the San Francisco artists who light up its pages.  If you want some real hippie, boho, tribal, gypsy vibe - check it out.

Peace, man.