The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 229

Round Two

November 4, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

This is round two of the Host Series.

These necklaces are composed of sterling, copper and enamel.

The design series has evolved to a new place. Now the lichen-ous pendants are actually built of two enameled components that come together as a toggle closure. Nifty.

I over fired two sets in robin’s egg blue and tallow pink and the third piece is in solid, over fired white.

Beautiful.

They look like this on:

That texture makes me crazy — makes me totally nuts.

These pieces are:

Totally weird.

Totally organic.

Totally titillating, for those who operate on a cellular level.

For the original whatnow on this series, please go here and here.

Protoplasmically and licheniferoussly yours truly,

The Plume

Filed Under: enamel, New Jewelry

Arpeggios

November 2, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Some times I wake up in the morning and feel a smidge creaky. On those days, I’m not sure what to do with myself out in the studio. I hum and haw.

I make copious cups of tea.

The very best thing for me to work on, on days such as these, is my technical skills.

I’m a classically trained pianist.

I cannot count or convey how many hours I have spent, in the past, diving up and down a keyboard, pushing ivory and ebony in rapid fire succession, playing scales, dominant and diminished 7th chords, cadences on the end of all keys (1-4-5-1), arpeggios and now arpeggios in all of their related minor keys. Double time. Now in three different rhythms. And thirds up and down ten times (set the metronome) to speed up that new Chopin Study you’ve taken on for your Examination in June.

Oh yes. I have labored over the technical skills a piano requires. Oh yes. I have. And now, some days, I find myself practicing metal in the same manner.

On the days when I don’t know what to make in the studio, I simply create pieces that help me study, hone my techniques, sterling arpeggios and diminished 7th broken chords of stone. I go out and I just make pieces of jewelry that help me stay in good practice.

Some days are like that.

[Left to right: imperial jasper, willow creek jasper, Madagascar dendritic agate, Madagascar dendritic agate, imperial jasper]

I woke up early this morning, jumped in the studio and finished these rings a few moments ago. Each one features a beautiful cut of stone — simply set; to let the rock sing. Look for settings that are loaded up with delicate texture, my asymmetrical, wide and tapered band, a dark patina and hand applied satin finish as well as my maker’s mark.

Simply set incredible stones.

Arpeggios made of metal and rock.

In the shop later today.

Plume

:::EDIT:::
Thank you, one and all, for your incredible support
today. Love you to the moon and back again.
x

Filed Under: New Jewelry

I was a late bloomer.

October 31, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

:::Personal Journal Entry:::

October 30, 2010

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I’ve been a late bloomer most of my life. I suppose it’s better than being wildly precocious as so many girls are these days. When I remember awkward late bloomer moments from my younger years I often cringe, shiver in embarrassment and wish I could take moments back; draw them in as though they’re attached to thin silver lines. I want to draw them across the water of my memories, pull them from the lake of the past and lay them down as fragments of fuel on the fire I’m camped beside.

The only consolation is that we all have pasts riddled with some sort of “late bloomership” — if you can call the personal development of any one person late, early or right on track. The even greater consolation is that there are people out there who will give me second chances. For some reason, my strange and appalling awkwardness isn’t as fresh in their memories and they haven’t tethered me to the pillar of who I used to be. As I said recently, I’m not who I was. Things have changed me. Relationships have changed me.

Just like anyone else, I know and have known people who are nice and people who are not so nice. I’m leaving space in those relationships — room for others to appear as they truly are now. Time has passed. Do I even know them anymore? Aren’t we mere acquaintances, more often than not – constantly realizing who the other is and is not — if we allow our opinions to reform? That is, if we allow each other such graces and such spaces to discover, constantly, our developing identities.

Of course, we occasionally run into situations where others are not developing. They’re the same as they were ten years ago. They haven’t changed a bit. They’re tied in place by their past, weighed down with emotional baggage, content to lay about listlessly in stagnant and stinking waters. There’s not much we can do in situations like these except hope that some impetus wakes those individuals from their shadowy lives and begins to move them out of those old selves and into the new.

I suppose this is all to say that I want to give people space; room to grow. I don’t want to be guilty of holding others in a places they used to be. And I want others to give me this same space, room to grow, room to develop further still into who I am to be. I want them to know who I am now, not who I was when I threw that truly awkward tea party for my 21st birthday (Mum made me, please believe me.).

I want to move out of the shadows and into the light. I want to help others to do the same. It requires wiping slates clean. Continuously. Forgiveness. Being met halfway by others who are willing to reveal and build new bridges to new places. Bridges that suit exactly who we are, as individuals. Bridges that suit our contact and the level of vulnerability we share with each other.

The relationships I don’t tolerate very well any more (like they’re a sort of food that upsets my stomach, sets my system off, throws a wrench in the ecology of my life) are the relationships where others have me tied tight to who I used to be. They can’t see who I am now, despite all the light here. They won’t give me the space to show them who I am. Now. In this space and time.

I don’t want to be an individual who galumphs through life hardly dipping my toes past the surfaces of others. I don’t want to be afraid. To be in relationships that are experiencing growth, to promote healthy development in others, requires walking into unknown waters — intentional movement away from the safety of the shoreline. We need to feel that weightlessness of immersion. We need to feel the power and sometimes the terror of the waves. We need to feel the calm of the mornings and the quietude of grace offered to us and the descent of it on our souls.

Our feet need to leave terra firma; we need to learn that our wings are wide.

It takes trust. It can be frightening! And it takes courage. Always courage. But those amazing relationships that rise up out of such courage and allow for evolution are the relationships that last lifetimes.

People change.

They really do.

I want to meet them where they are.

I want to be met where I am.

If you go to where I used to be, you won’t find me.

This is who I’m becoming.

I’m very different from who I was ten years ago.

If you knew me then, if you know me know, I want you to know that I’m giving you space to become who you truly are; the you of now. I want to be able to say, you were like THIS, but now you’re THIS! My how you’ve grown! I love who you’re becoming. I’m proud of who you’re becoming.

I have a small clutch of best girlfriends who I am watching grow. Who I am anticipating the future with. Who I am proud of. We spend all of our time in the deep water together; weathering storms, floating on our backs when the weather is calm. We drift around together, out there, discovering the great unknowns. Experimenting with our lives, because our lives depend on it. We coach each other. We encourage each other. We allow each other space to grow, space to grow into new people, space to move out of people we used to be.

And I love it.

They don’t mind that I used to be a late bloomer.

They don’t mind at all.

They don’t mind because in their eyes, I’m blooming fine and right on time.

Filed Under: journal entry

There Are These:

October 29, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Attention

[captured this summer on the backside of our local ski hill while driving with a best friend]

Almost A Birthday Suit

[captured a few days before my birthday in the low desert of Arizona, besides these boots, I really was in my birthday suit]

I Said Come Hither And He Hithered

[captured in Pocatello, ID on a rainy spring morning — a friend in Wyoming had JUST sent me that sassy little skirt]

Leaving Trails

[captured this fall on a trail up on Scout Mountain, the tallest peak in Pocatello at 9000+feet]

Another postcard pack is in the shop.

As always, I’ll throw in a bonus card of my choice to go with this selection!

Who loves the postal services of the world???

We do.

Plume

Filed Under: postcards

Pour Vous!

October 29, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Looking for good homes with women who have wild, tenacious souls;

for women who honor The Holy and wear wings on their hearts:

Alabaster Bones Necklace

Artichoke Heart Ring

Artichoke Heart Necklace

And this, which already has a good home:

I wanted to show you this piece. I finished it late last night and it is a fulfilled custom order — this one, actually. I know. I know. It sold AGES ago!!! Custom work takes me a really long time. This piece follows my Lexical Charm format but I set a small cup on a post in the center of the flower instead of the regular pearl centerpiece. This piece features rose petals that were collected in Jerusalem — full of meaning, symbolism, and a dash of The Holy. I hope she loves it.

I’m going to update the Etsy shop later this afternoon, around 3PM.

Right now RW and I are off to breakfast with a troop of lumberjacks, a selkie and one small baby grizzly bear.

Happy Friday!

Plume

:::EDIT:::

I create for myself.

I create to give the things of my heart and soul a voice.

To have you support my voice like this, like you did today, means more than I could ever say.

Thank you.

I love you.

I love your support.

Thank you.

Filed Under: New Jewelry