My Doves

Good morning.
It’s such a gorgeous day here. Blue sky. White mountains. Sun streams.
Can you feel the days getting longer?
My heart strings feel like brilliant green cotyledons pushing up through
the winter darkness.
I feel alive.
Life feels transitionary.
I’m rising up on alabaster wings.
Last week felt like a miry pit of distraction and emotion. I am human, you know. I can feel affected by actions, environment, weather, a pesky itch on the right side of my plume, a soul ache.

Yesterday night, after working in the studio ALL day long, I tied on my running shoes and took to the night with Farley at my left hip. We ran nearly seven miles together, through the dark, under the spangled sash of a night sky. The air was cold and colder still with a wind chill that made me slow to blink. When I stepped inside the front door again, my words were slurred from the cold: cheeks red legs spent.

I love night running. I feel half animal. When it’s cold, I move swift and steady to survive. Farley’s toenails on stone, concrete, and crunching snow are the only things to be heard for miles. I’m not even sure what I think of when I’m night cruising, but my mind falls open and my heart feels healed over. I pray a lot. It feels like there’s a dialogue sung in retroflex fricative between the velvet sky and I. Tongue tips curled over tooth tips and released up into the air in a solid white plume of sound.

I sometimes wonder why I need to run, why I need to move like a coyote through sage. As an ectomorph, I never contemplate caloric intake, I never set out to burn fat, to elevate my heart rate. I never think of the health benefits. I run because it feels good to have the wind in my face. Running is essential. To me. I’ve been doing it long enough that a day feels unfinished if I go without it. To go without it leaves an ache in my hip sockets, a frown in my knees.

I’ve been a machine lately.
One foot after another.
Tireless.
Striving for the horizon.
My feet will carry me to spring time, and beyond.
So I let them fly.

Yesterday, work was wonderful. Truly wonderful.
I was decked out in magenta, chartreuse, dove grey with silver threads, Capezios, one humpback whale belt buckle and my Rumors Necklace. I felt lovely, I loved the work of my hands and the process therein.
Here, look:

I made you a fleet of Specimen Earrings built of copper and sterling.

There are this many of them. I’ll put them in the Etsy shop in a few minutes!

There’s a new belt buckle to behold.
It’s the Hippocampus Buckle featuring a sea horse, anticlastically double layered leaves, bubbles, a banner and a raven wing pearl.
This buckle states: Swim Gracefully (front) Upon A Current Of Peace (back).
It’s extra special because it’s my portion of a collaboration between Allison and I. I’m shipping it out to her today so she can craft a leather belt that compliments the silver work, soul and message of this piece. When she has it finished, she’ll ship it back to me, en completment, and I’ll photograph it and list it for you! We’ve been so excited about this collaboration, we donned our bikinis and discussed the project while swimming in our hotel pool in Tucson, it’s going to be a finger chilling thrill when we get to share the finished product with you!

One Keeper of the Fields Necklace.
This jackrabbit has an amethyst heart — perfect for a February girl or someone who needs hope that springtime is coming. Hang on!

Isadora Earrings built of fluorite and sterling silver. Long jangly dangles in a gorgeous ocean hue. Neck smooching gifts for your illustrious lobes.

And a whopper necklace (I’ll photograph this piece on my body sometime today so you can get a grasp of the size of this stone) built of three sterling islands, one of which features this incredible desert landscape. Yeesh. Owyhee Junction Jasper is the name of this stone and it’s the only one I have. If you’re especially fond of the desert, this one is for you. I purchased this cabochon recently while in Arizona. I held it in my hands as we drove home, through the Navajo Reservation of Arizona. I wrote as we drove, recording my thoughts about the landscape, the ravens, the reservation, Navajo culture, the red mesas and their steady rising from the desert floor…this stone has soul.

I also worked on, and partially finished a crazy necklace. The design and concept was born from the idea of a cabinet of curiosities. So far, I have the focal pendant finished which is a HUGE portrait of a wood duck in a shadowbox. and parts of the chain which will be built of my sterling bones. I know. It sounds kind of strange. It only gets stranger. I’m thinking of dangling a fabricated antler from the base of the pendant along with two bezel set druzies on the chain or attached to the portrait. Whew. You’re just going to have to see it to believe it. It really will be a curious thing.
I’m hopping over to the Etsy shop now to do a smidge of listing and then I need to run out to the studio and get to work. I hope you’re having a beautiful Tuesday. I love every day of the week for a specific and magnificent reason or two but I love Tuesday for the spelling of the word. Isn’t it a lovely combination of letters? Now say it out loud: TUESDAY….SO PRETTY.
Gros bisous,
Quillian

Comments

  1. I love it when you shyly say you're making something "crazy" or "strange" …these are always next-level creative, amazing pieces of work!!!

  2. Miss Crowland says

    i hate to say it, but i'm a bit jealous of your contentedness. lately i've worried about decisions made and not made…

  3. The Noisy Plume: says

    Keep living.
    I believe in you.
    Sending peace your way today, sister.
    XO

  4. i love you because you are so wholly you in a way that no one else can be. and you aren't ashamed of it and you don't begrudge anyone else for not being like you. i think the best way to be ourselves is to know and love ourselves fiercely but also to fiercely defend and appreciate others who are unlike us. even if we don't understand them completely. reading how you feel about running so utterly foreign to me but it also fascinates me to no end. i love what you're making and i love you (those are 2 separate, though related, statements). also….JE VEUX CETTE LAPIN.

    je t'aime, mon coeur, mon soeur.

  5. thebearaffair says

    Love you Jillian and your love of life. Everyday IS a special day in its own way and when embraced, it takes us to another level in life. Hugs to you and I can't wait to check your shop….Hugs, Sal

  6. Amy Nicole/RubyMtnBeads says

    I can only imagine how gorgeous that belt complete with this buckle will be. A most excellent collaboration.

  7. ah, yes! That's how I feel about running too- my whole life I have ran only because it is so splendid to move my whole body so swiftly in that i would not be happy if I didn't. heart rate and burning calories mean nothing to me. thank you for expressing so eloquently this earthly joy!

  8. MrsLittleJeans says

    Is this bunny related to the green butted bunny? I tell you, your land has fabulous bunnies on it! I think I have to see those hills.

    I wish you a happy Tuesday even though you said you already have the best Tuesday one could have. : )

    xox

  9. indigorhino says

    Cool running. I've been out there on the trails for 25 years. Knees and back may ache, but I keep going until my body tells me to stop. Wish I had a running mate like Farley. My Corgis just don't have the legs for it. Loving that belt buckle. Can't wait to see what Alison does with it!

  10. Oh <3 – LOVE the belt buckle. Am so glad you're getting together with other local artists to make beautiful and lovely things. 🙂 Yay!

  11. XO
    You are so lovely to read and behold…
    As your creations.
    Andrea

  12. oh my oh me…what beauty to behold…now, of utmost importance to my pants (which keep falling down) is the question of how much time one deprived birdie will have, given adequate warning to fly over to the shop to swoop up the most glorious of wonderfulous of spectacularous belt buckles (with lovely leather attached)…as you well know dearest noisy plume, pickings have been thin for this slow to go gal, so this chickie really needs something to hold up me trousers…no more need be said.
    i shall watch diligently. thank you for the loveliness all around.

  13. The Noisy Plume: says

    :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
    (big old toothie grin)

  14. First off:

    Pietra Paesina!!
    I ADORE landscape stones…(actually, i'm kinda spazzing about it!) LOVE, LOVE.

    Secondly: Beautiful words, we are only human (must remind self)
    But wow…Plume, please send some of your positive and boundless energy my way!

    XOX

  15. The Noisy Plume: says

    …with pleasure. XO

  16. The Noisy Plume: says

    I'll need your shipping address though…

  17. Michaela Dawn says

    OMHeavens, I just got done watching an amazing program on our local PBS channel featuring Jean-Michel Cousteau, and I swear one of her assistants was wearing your Three Thumbelina's necklace!!!!

    Way to go woman:))))))

    http://www.oceanfutures.org

  18. dailycoyote says

    oh my ~ that last stone is the land I see out my window {as evidenced here ~
    http://www.dailycoyote.net/?p=1825 }!

    can't wait to see the whole piece!

    xo from wyo ~
    ~ S.

  19. Nancy*McKay says

    ….these are all sooo beautiful…colorful…& uniquely YOU…my fave…is the collaboration with Miss SunnyRising…so natural…so perfect…so sisterly…

    …you move swiftly…and you do so gracefully…

    i've always liked Tuesday…as a child's name…

  20. Miss JL, I am on tippytoes — so beautiful — I am smitten with your jackrabbits and breathless over the belt buckle. Your shine makes me glow. keeping a sharp eye out. Whooftie!

    MWAH!

  21. Oh my goodness, I MUST have magenta pants! Where in the world did you find them??? P.S. Messer Jackrabbit is just peachy!

  22. The Noisy Plume: says

    Thanks a gazillion for these awesome comments, chickadees!

    Cat, the pants came from Gap. And I think they're a bit more on the pink side…..

    🙂

  23. Desiree Fawn says

    what a busy, beautiful bee!!
    glorious things are coming out of your shop & your soul!

  24. Suzy ~ lorenzstudio says

    an ectomorph! someone called me that the other day and i had no idea what they were talking about!

  25. The Noisy Plume: says

    Scrawny, sickly, runt.

  26. Suzy ~ lorenzstudio says

    HEY!!!!