seed series

I’m giving this necklace away.

Absolutely free.

As a sign of my appreciation for you.

No strings attached.

To be entered in the drawing for this necklace,

simply leave a comment on this post. Say hi or tell me about how excited you are to watch your springtime garden grow or let me know about the most beautiful thing you’ve been able to witness lately. I’m interested in everything you have to tell me about life, springtime, beauty, growth, maturity, strength, children, pets and nature.

Please leave only one comment and please

include your email address so I can fire you a note if you win!

Know that I love your support and this community more than

I could ever express.

Believe me when I say,

I wish I had 2000 of these necklaces to give away.

Contest closes on May 7 at midnight.

Love you so,

The Noisy Plume

And also from the seed series,

a bird seed!

[100% sterling construction, 14 karat gold, enameled seed constructed by me and fired by me in my kiln:::i love being able to say that something is 100% handcrafted by me]

This little enameled seed managed to grow a delicate vine and then a patchwork bird with a golden wingtip.

Today I set out to continue work on the seed series and a magnificent whim or two carried me in beautiful new directions. One result is this necklace. The other results are half finished on my studio workbench.

One of the best things about my job is for the most part, I always feel free to follow those whims. They can be trusted in and they nearly always lead me into delightful new territory where the sun shines just so and the dapples on the forest floor light up the shadowed spaces with a kind of persuasion that falls outside the wavy boundaries of my naturalist vocabulary. Of course, I add the knew knowledge to the fecund foundations of my right lobe, I sketch a quick mental picture in my bulging hippocampus and if I’m especially moved, I translate the experience into metal.

I suppose that’s the point of all of this.

Translating.

I want to break those experiences down and share the vocabulary I’ve collected.

If I do the job well, there will be an organic verve to the finished product. You’ll be able to tell I gleaned the concept from the cheat grasses, the underside of rocks, the sound of birds on the wing. And then, if the translation pricks something in your heart and mind and soul, you’ll claim it as your own and carry that translation around on your body. You’ll interact with me in this way. You’ll take something that is mine and adopt it as your own. And some day when you give that piece of us to a daughter or niece or sister or friend, she’ll carry us both and the translation and definition of a design inspired by the natural world.

Piece of me.

You.

The world around us.

Emotions, lessons, frail beauty, strong winds: tethered tight to constructions of metal and stone.

Art is tremendously interesting, in this way.

In fact, I’m fascinated by the thought of how connected I am to you because of what parts of me you carry with you. Do you ever think of that? I do. When I’m swinging a hammer I can’t help but wonder who will carry the newest piece of me and how the experience will translate when carried by someone new.

This is a seed.

These are all seeds.

I’m glad to watch them grow.

Sometimes I give things away:

Bird Seed