The Art of Egg

April 10, 2011 by
I just collected eggs. Judith’s offering was gloriously imperfect, perhaps even mildly abstracted.  Her approach to creating is fantastically organic.  Don’t you think?  

Yesterday, out in the studio, I was pushing myself so hard to bring something “novel” to my work that my efforts fell flat, trembled with some caustic and synthetic overtone instead of the deep, crushing, textured velvet of organic emanation…on days like that, I wish I was like Judith pushing out wonky little mildly abstracted eggs, not thinking of anything in particular while doing my work, perhaps even working involuntarily, like a heart beat or the tickled twitch of withers on a horse fending off flies in summertime sunshine…

There’s something so satisfying about the accidental and the serendipitous.  The surprise turns in creative work might be my favorite part.  The stumbled upon.  The ideas gone so wrong that turn out to be so righteous and genuine.
My hands want to speak honestly, always, and I suppose, even when I force them into foreign motions, there is good that comes from that too.
I always keep in mind that everything leads somewhere, even if it falls down, flat on its face, from time to time.


An egg can be lumpy.
An egg can be perfect.
But in the end, an egg is still an egg.


…whatever that means.


:::EDIT:::
Believe it or not, this egg was NOT a double yolker!
Shocking!
Filed Under: chickens, eggs, hens, musings, vesper and judith

Get Carried Away

April 9, 2011 by
Filed Under: german shorthair pointer, german shorthaired pointers, Plumbelina, plume gables
April 8, 2011 by
Good evening, dear meadow larks.
I’m just in from the studio and have a few baubles to show you before I whip up a mean dinner with RW and fluff the nest for a lovely evening at home.
 I cast this pendant from a eucalyptus seed pod I found on a rugged beach in Mendocino County, Northern California last summer.  It’s solid and has a rich, forget-me-not-weight as it hangs around a neck.
 
 A Lycanidae Necklace built of sterling, 14 carat gold, chalcedony, iolite, garnet and silk worm cocoons.  This piece is quirky and elegant.


 The wheat stalk in this necklace was cast from wheat I gleaned last summer in the Idaho valley between here and City of Rocks.  This necklace also features a bezel set aqua, a HUGE aqua briolette, ruby and labradorite beads.  It’s a drop choker and wears weighty and beautifully as it trails down through the lady topographies.

In a few scant hours my wee sister, Toby Beth Georgia, will arrive at The Gables.
I’m going to kiss her face and RW will tease her mercilessly.  It’s going to be grand!
Have a beautiful night, one and all!

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/04/08/958/

Filed Under: New Jewelry

Color Therapy

April 7, 2011 by

It’s a dreary spring day here.  
In the past hour we’ve had offerings of snow, rain and sleet from a dark sky.
I found myself craving color for a soul lift and heart drift.
It felt so good, my color therapy, I thought I’d give you a brief but thorough clinic on 
how to approach a sullen spring day:
1.  Surround yourself with color.
2. Without restraint, liberally soak in the charismatic chromamatic saturates.
3.  Breath deep.
4.  Feel bright.
5.  Repeat as often as necessary.
Filed Under: color therapy

Catch You Up

April 5, 2011 by
Let me catch you up on some of the ditties I’ve been working on out in the studio.  I finished both neck pieces last week.  I didn’t have plans for them when I sat down at my work bench but I had some life details that needed expressing, an urge in my metacarpals to push and pull metal and there was a voice rising up in my throat like steam from a winter river.
Born Unlucky Neck Piece
[sterling, rough apatite, pink coral, red coral, 14 carat gold, sari silk, silk]

I just wanted to work, to flow, to not adhere myself to the notion of a project, the lines of a design or any materials selected and carefully laid out on a table top.  I detached my mind from my work while making this piece.  I thought about everything but a design plan.  I suppose this is stream of consciousness work, on my part.  I expect this neck piece was destined to flow out of me on the day I sat down to form it.  The general form of the metal work here suggests a horseshoe.
Luck.
I don’t really believe in luck.
I suppose that means I was born unlucky.
How about you?
Cocoon Neck Piece No.2
[sterling, copper, enamel, pink coral, silk, sari silk]

This is the second installment in the Cocoon Series.  I’ve been spending hours on these neck pieces, humming and hawing over where to connect tear panels, where to hang other components from, how I want the tear cages to sit on the breast bone…I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time.  I don’t rush myself.  I slowly work through a piece, not finishing quickly, not quitting before the design feels finished…sometimes I simply sit and turn components over and over in my hands.  I wanted this cocoon to hang from brambles, as the first did, but this time,  I wanted a three dimensional bramble form.  I made the three tear panels you see here, forged and formed them into curves and then connected them into the quasi-sphere that hangs the cocoon.  The actual tear panels suggest, to me, wing bones — if butterflies actually had a bone structure to their wings instead of overlapping layers of chitin.  

It rides high and light on the chest,
like a good secret,
like a second set of lungs in tune with all the rising and falling of the body that wears it.
There is only absence of the hatched butterfly in this piece, the hole in the cocoon where one might imagine the butterfly crawled out, the suggestion of existence reflected in the airy structure the cocoon hangs from.  
Suggestions.  
Suggestions.  
Suggestions of freedom, flight and a second life stage.

It’s currently displayed on one of the walls in the house.  It makes gorgeous small sculpture wall art.

I also made these for you:
Glitz Ring
[imperial jasper & sterling]
Glitz Ring
[Queensland agate & sterling]

 I never tire of this design….not ever.
I mentioned on Flickr, the other day, that I’ve been making Glitz Rings since February 16, 2010
and I still love this design and feel like these rings are such apt reflections of my life lived and my life loved.
I’m going to keep making them until the sun permanently sets.
They’ll be in the shop at 12 noon today, MST time.

Good Tuesday (woah, I had to research what day it is) to you all!
Strong wings today, my sisters and brothers.  
Catch the updrafts.
Let the wind do the work.
x
Filed Under: cocoon series, New Jewelry
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