New Jewelry — Page 8

March Is A Flirty Tease

March 23, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I love March.

I love it when it comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion.

I love it when it coaxes the tulips and daffodils out of the dirt and then suddenly

decides to snow and blow and frost and freeze all over the buds

of sweet, darling nature.

Oh, silly nature, don’t you know by now that March is a tease?

I know that March is a tease.

Yesterday I was drifting about The Gables on cloud nine with a springy draft blowing in from the North.

I went to sleep with gardening dreams in my fluffy little head and woke up to a few inches of new snow that fell in the night and a heinous wind out of the North.

I don’t mind. March is a tease. She’s a glorious old flirt. The fresh snow in the low country means there’s a new and sassy layer of powder in the high country and I’m going to take my new skis out for a blitz sometime this week (might even coax dad to come with)!

I am, after all, a cup-half-full kind of girl!

Back to this necklace. It’s big. It features several of my favorite design elements: hollow form, long trailing pendants that drop from a focal pendant, coral, antlers and two dimensional forms. Whew. Made for a lady who isn’t afraid of false springs. Made for a lady who likes to garden but keeps a wee shard of ice in her soul because she finds all-things-Arctic particularly blissful.

Humdinger.

It’s built of sterling, 14 carat gold, coral and prehnite.

In other news, I’ve been faffing about the studio all day long waiting for my mum and dad to arrive and they seem to be taking there sweet time between Montana and here! Yeesh.

Mundane life details:

1. I’m making quinoa and steamed broccoli for dinner. That sounds meager…perhaps I’ll add an elk sausage avec moutarde!!!

2. Today I casted something. I can’t wait to show you!

3. Yesterday and most of today, I had a pinched nerve in my lower back. One hour ago, my discomfort disappeared after I did three sets of ten pull-ups out in the studio. Huh…

4. Plum gave Judith a kiss. It was quite the sight to behold.

5. Have I told you that RW gave me an ameraucana chicken last week! She’s going to lay me blue eggs after she recovers from the dismal life she had before she became mine…already, after free ranging in the yard for a week, her feathers have filled out and she seems much more confident! The Gables is officially a chicken rescue!

Here she is!
Her name is Debbie Gibson.
6. Isn’t Lionel beautiful?

He hails from the same ranch as Mister Pinkerton (the same mother as well, in fact). Next time there’s a batch of kittens out at the Gilbert Ranch, I’m going to claim a fluffy tiger kitten like this.

7. I’m wearing galoshes.

8. RW spent the entire day cleaning the house. Isn’t he wonderful? Don’t you want one like him?

9. I just checked the mail, one second ago, and there was a pink letter from Corinna.

10. Sometimes I wish we could all get together, in the summer, and camp on a beautiful lake and have campfires and splendiferous s’more making and star watching. Do you ever dream of such jamborees?

The Plume

Filed Under: cats, mister pinkerton, New Jewelry, spring, woah there are lots of made up words in this post

Boy howdy. Let me tell you all about it.

March 22, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Thank goodness!

I finally had an uninterrupted day out in the studio!

Actually, I must be frank, my work day was rough — it was downright crummy to begin with. Due to our wonderful weeks of house guests here, it’s been some time since I’ve had a solid mitful of consecutive days to sit down and pour myself into my work for hours on end. It is my opinion that creative work is habitual. This said, for every day I spend away from creative work, it takes me about three days to get back into the swing of things. For this reason, I like to do something creative, no matter how great or small, every single day.

When I sat down in the studio this morning I was filled with a smorgasbord of horrendous emotions. They ran the gamut from annoyance to miniature-rage to self pity.

I tried to work. I tried to delve right in to metal and stone but my medium wasn’t having any of it. Finally, I stormed inside, whipped up a pot of Seasons of Discontent, carried my tea out into the studio, poured a cup, and wrote pages and pages in my journal.

I wrote about everything.

I wrote about nothing.

I wrote to give my insecurities and my victories voices — to identify them and move past them.

I wrote to clear my head, to make room for thinking.

And it worked.

The rest of my studio time looked like this:

This ring is for a dear, dear friend of mine. It’s actually her wedding ring….or perhaps it might be more apt to call it her wedding wren.

Anyway, I had been stalling for months on the creation of this ring for her. When I woke up this morning, I knew it was the day for this ring, despite the storm clouds that had my soul all socked in.

I must have settled on the details of the concept during R.E.M. state because when I opened my eyes to daylight this morning, I knew I wanted to make this piece around the sweet notions of:

Something old,

something new,

something borrowed,

something blue.

I just fired her the images of her ring.

I hope she loves it.

She’s a real New Mexican/Idahoan princess of old soul and twinkly eyes…it’s for this reason I know she can handle the size of this ring!

I wanted to show it to you because it represents the love of one for another,

and it also represents my victory over what might have been a really grey day.

Here’s to pouring our minds out on paper,

to the slick slide of black ink over delicately toothed journal pages,

to the tea that warms our cores,

to the moments when we get to see straight.

I hope you had a wonderful Monday,

Jillian Sue

Filed Under: dealing with the grumps, New Jewelry, wedding wren, work it out

March Sanctuary

March 15, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

For the ladies of March:

A Sanctuary Ring* featuring aquamarine and iolite.

Oh this ring.

Oh this ring sings a song such as you haven’t yet heard.

It is ocean on rocks.

Sky on tree tops.

The music of mountain water.

Sun beam and forest dream.

May she go to a good home.

You may find her in the shop tomorrow!

*There’s some nesting going on here–

a mindlessness to my days, the constant complaint of “not enough hours in a day” falling from my lips (The cold of the heart pine floors on my feet in the morning. The quiet of the winter world. Birdsong falling lightly on thin, cold air.)

I’ve been greedy for my own space.

I’m a glutton for solitude.

I’m finding sanctuary in these 103 year old farm house walls, in the rise of the mountains outside the front door — refuge, quiet, safety.

This is my home, from here I’ll find my way.

I haven’t known what to do with myself out in the studio but that buoyant notion of sanctuary keeps drifting up to the surface of my mind and heart; the smooth width of the wings of God covering me over:

My portion.

My cup.

My refuge.

When the walls fail to hold me in,

(when this world lets me down),

no matter where I go, no matter where I stand,

I’m never without my shadow.

Likewise, I’m never without this offer of grace

that pushes me gently, one hand at the small of my back, into sanctuary.

Time and time again.

Filed Under: New Jewelry, sanctuary ring

Fluffer Flutters

March 9, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

That’s one luscious little ring!

A retired lake + wind lifted dust drifting lycaenidae = back to back fluffy pillow bliss.

(WHAT???)

Sterling & 14 carat gold.

I had so much fun in my studio today.

Sometimes I wonder why I don’t eat, sleep and dream out there…

Filed Under: butterfly, Lycaenidae Ring, New Jewelry

Bonjour! Bonjour!

March 4, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Salut, my friends!

Long time, no chat!

It’s been a crazy busy week here. Khobe is in town and we’ve been running about willy nilly! We’ve attended a handful of meetings with various Sundance branches in Salt Lake City a couple of days ago, played in the snow just up the mountain from my house, tooled about in the studio and now, in mere moments, we’re headed out to the local ski hill for a day of swooshing about!

This has been Khobe’s first extended stay in a winter season and it’s so fun to watch her exclaim about the weather.

Plus, she’s a jeweler extraordinaire and it’s so fun to share secrets with her and work alongside her in my creative space.

Is there a feeling of spring in the air where you are?

I don’t want the fresh brisk of winter to end, but I can’t help but dream of my black tulips and poppies blooming side by side, the unfurling stretch of the grapevines and the sky-shooting quick of the raspberry canes. I can feel it coming. Every breath is sunshine and the slow un-tilting of Earth axis.

Yesterday, while out in the studio with Khobe, I managed to finish these rings. For some reason I was really in a sweaty old, cuss conjugating, wrestling match with these pieces. But I won out in the end and am proud of these darlings.

I’m really very tremendously excited, right now, about huge rings that are close fitting on a finger. I’m sure I’ll return to my old style of big babies that are built like flowing platforms that bridge multiple fingers…but for the moment, these rock and roll, wide bands styles really turn my crank. They can be challenging to make (good for the mind and the motor skills) and so, so excellent to wear.

I’ll list these beauties as soon as I am able to find a spare moment!

Lastly, isn’t this a great shot of Brad’s arse? I was in the studio yesterday with Khobe and when I looked up from where I was sawing at my workbench, I could see Brad standing like this, slack-hipped, watching Plumbelina chase the chickens. I leaped up, ran out of my building, and snapped this image. I think it’s a perfect manly-mountain-man-classic-redtab-levi-jean-sporting-firefighter-capture.

Happy Friday to you all!

I’ve missed you this week.

Beat your drums and summon spring.

It’s time to sow, it’s time to grow.

Love you all to smithereenies,

Filed Under: just other stuff about life, New Jewelry