[sterling, 23 karat gold, lapis lazuli]
[sterling, 23 karat gold, aquamarine]
[sterling, 23 karat gold, aquamarine]
You know, all of this crazy lichen business began when I found a flippery and floppery, arm sized chunk of the stuff at Feather Beach on Diablo Lake here in the North Cascades of Washington. By the way, Feather Beach is what I call that beach, so don’t look for it on a map. Regardless, we’d all be bored to death like a handful of blasé, simmering and simpering dumplings if this series was repetitive and going nowhere but I’m glad to say it’s going somewhere and I don’t feel I’ve reached the end of the line yet! Each new design grows in trembling leaps and bounds every time I sit down to create and I like that growth very much. It’s exciting to experience the snowballing of an idea, repeatedly, and I’m so thankful that I have enough time in the studio to really explore lichen forms as much as I want to. You know, this entire series really began with the enameled Host Necklaces I worked on a couple of winters ago. That series (and this one, continuing) was all about human symbiosis — choosing what we host in our life with regards to where and what we pour our energy into, and what we receive energy from. I think all the lichen work I’m doing is still attached to that very same personal delving I was doing and am doing now, regarding how I spend my energy and what/who I allow to attach to myself and feed off my energy. There you have it. I don’t always give you the roots of the reasons behind my work but energy expenditure is really on my mind lately and so, I find it trickling into my work.
In other news, I found a partial fawn skeleton while running the mountains and have been boiling an entire spine segment all day long in the kitchen. It reeks something awful and Robert is not surprised with my kitchen activity or amused, to say the least. Good wives make dinner (or some such thing). I boil bones — they are not good for eating. It seems like such a morbid, gross activity, to have scraped the last of the tendons and sinew from vertebrae and pelvic bones with a paring knife in the kitchen, but it’s what I’ve been doing. I’d like to make a vertebrae mobile. They’re so white and delicate when they’re stripped down to their barest. I like to find bits of animal while out in nature — it reminds me how I was fearfully and lovingly designed and knit together in my mother’s womb. We all have the same things, you know, beating hearts, warm flesh, kidneys, brains, fluttering lungs, and thin, wavering strands of DNA that tie everything together like ribbons on Christmas packages.
It’s Friday! What the heck do you have planned for the weekend? I’m planning on working and spending the hottest parts of the afternoons at a lake in my sea foam green bikini, perhaps with a cold beer nearby and some guacamole and chips on hand. It was so hot here today, I thought I might perish. This body was meant for winter.
Have a beautiful and restful weekend, wee birds. I’ll see you in the week to come.
xx
:::POST SCRIPTUS:::
This is for waggling about. Turn it up.
Love… Love….Oh and more Love!!!
LOVE BACK AT YOU! x
Only the best wives boil bones!
True!
GORGEOUS!!!
xx
V: xx
Your work makes me smile – and your words fill my heart.
That sound sentimental – but it’s true!
(also glad someone is having some sun – we in Wales are NOT!)
xx
I don’t mind sentimentality. I think it’s a sign of a talented little heart that is good at embracing.
LOTS of sun here. We’re supposed to hit 97F this weekend. I’m going to wilt. Then I’m going to eat popsicles.
Good wives, vertabrae mobiles, sea foam green “outfit”. It just just doesn’t get any better than that! Thanks for the happy post. It’s going to be a good day! Have a brewski for me. 🙂 PS love th lichen alot
I’m glad you approve! Robbie was hungry like a bear last night, we didn’t eat until 10PM. I felt like a failure. 🙂
Looooooovvvee these!!! You’re killing me with your ingenuity and beauty. LOOK AT THOSE BAILS!!! You are incredible.
You’re killing me with your kindness. 🙂
I love your love.
xx
A million times yes!! I am also enjoying this amazing Washington summer blessing of sun, so happy to get to share the amazing beauty of the PNW with the ones I love. I literally started crying in the car driving through Seattle yesterday,seeing the beautiful mountains that my eyes have been missing. I hope you don’t melt out there today, Popsicles all around!!!!
HEY NEIGHBOR!!!
Wish I could have been on the Westside sipping an iced tea with you yesterday! Put your toes out the car window and wiggle them in the wind.
xx
I love your newest lichen necklace – looking like a tree. Cool!
I was meant for winter, as well. I don’t think my blood has adjusted to this heat, yet – my veins feel thick. Yuck. Hate it.
Enjoy your day!
Thick veins!
Exactly.
Every time I look at my arms and hands I see thick, ropey veins poking out. Feels so unladylike…
What wonderful work of your hands and heart!
Trying to stay cool here as well, we’ve had a week or so of 100+ degree weather, today it’s 87, a full 20 degrees cooler than it has been! It actually feels good in comparison. This weekend holds baking, building, kayaking, swimming, and hopefully horseback riding on the beach (at least before the nudists show up!) I don’t want to have to dodge nudies on horseback, and my hair is too short to go Lady Godiva style.
Love to you, eat a lime popsicle for me!
HA HA!
Dodging nudies!
You’re hilarious.
A horse ride on a beach sounds beautiful. Do your ponies like to get in the water? I love swimming while on a horse — it feels like a funny sort of ship. I was just telling Robert the other day that I am wishing for a kayak. Just a wee boat I can toss in the back of the truck and take over to a lake when I feel like being on the water instead of in the water…
yes: the matter of energy. how to give. how to receive. what to keep for myself.
i’m studying it this weekend.
i love that you boil bones in the kitchen, simply for the harvesting of the skeleton.
plainly put: it’s so YOU to do that.
xx
p.s. angelo caught a red poll and its wings are now on the pinboard. mister pencilfox is lucky that the meat is in ange’s belly and not in a wee skillet for dinner.
p.p.s. love that ragtag bunch of instruments, complete with duct tape on the banjo, bell on the washboard. that gal needs a LICHEN necklace around her neck, don’t’cha’ think??
OH! Bet those wings are BEAUTIFUL.
I’d love to make that gal a lichen necklace!!! x
So in love with the lichen.
“This body was meant for winter.”
Ditto.
HA HA!
Glad I’m not alone.
you look tan. and happy.
I’m both of these things.
I’m ‘lichen’ this post!!
Bahahahahahaha!!! I had to do it!!! Am I the first one to make a lichen punn??
Nope!!!
But it always makes me smile:)
Hoooray!!
You always offer up the best things to think about and I’m so appreciative of your sharing. I’m tucking this post in my pocket.
Oh Amy…to sit down with you over a mug of tea would be my delight. Go gently this week. xx
I love my bloom linchen earrings — they are awesome. wonderful pieces/series-thanks so much
Teresa! Thank you for saying so! 🙂 xx