Marvelous Color

September 17, 2010 by
It’s that time of year again!  The time of year when I run my kiln in my studio every day of the week until I’m sick to death of firing pieces and my fingertips are raw from cleaning metal with pumice!  HOORAY!!!

Before:
After:
All that color is marvelous.  Simply marvelous.
I spent the better part of the day starting and finishing these beauties and I’ll be making them available to you tomorrow afternoon when I do my Etsy Shop update, around 1PM, Mountain Time.

What a great week it’s been so far!
I felt myself settling into work again the very first morning RW was home at The Gables.  The choppy living of summertime made way for the steady and smooth sailing of autumn.  It’s amazing the way I manage to let everything go as soon as RW is by my side again.  I don’t worry about finishing chores around here.  I don’t tear my hair out trying to fit life in around my creative endeavors.  I’ll give up on cleaning the house before I’ll give up on creative work (on most occasions).  

It’s as if someone snapped their fingers and my stress faded away.  
We do the dishes together, when we feel like it.  
We clean the house together, when we feel like it.  We tend the yard together, when we feel like it.  
If I don’t feel like it, I stay in my studio, at my work bench, and merrily swing my hammers.  Whew.  It’s so good to swing those hammers and to swing them, once more, like an antlered fairy woman on tiptoes. 

It’s so lovely to have my sidekick back at my side once more.
It’s so good to be a sidekick at his side once more.

I’ll see you darling, mewing kittens tomorrow afternoon!
Right now I’ve a dinner date with my fellow.
xx
Plume

:::EDIT:::
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH 
for supporting this little independent artist.
I appreciate you all so darn much and wish I was capable of making one thousand Feather Feather Merriweather Earrings….instead, I’ll start out small and try to have a few more ready for next week.  Ok?
You rock the flock.
xx

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Melancholy, Idaho and Feathers

September 15, 2010 by
A new Melancholy Mistress Necklace.  I haven’t made a version of this necklace in ages but started this specific design on Monday when I had a serious case of the blues.  The main pendant body is a hollow form (!!!HEART!!!) with a sweet flower silhouette on the surface.  Dropping down from the hollow form is a sterling spear with a bezel set handsome, teal fluorite which is flanked by a piece of coral on a silk strand and a wee ivory pearl.  The piece wears long — just like the originals did — with a 20 inch chain and a pendant drop of nearly 5 inches.  So romantic, dark, and kind of brightly forbidden.  Right?
 An Idaho Ring built of sterling and Prudent Man Agate.  I love working with this stone.  It’s incredibly unique and is mined from the Prudent Man Idaho claim making this piece 100% Idaho crafted.  Magic.  Take a look at the first shot of this ring and you’ll catch a glimpse of the depth of the landscape in this stone.  Translucent sections of agate give way to swirling dendrites in sage green and peach hues.  Amazing.  This rock lives.  Additionally, this ring is perfectly weighted, balanced and so comfortable to wear.  Perfect for a wild thing who doesn’t like her big jewelry to get in the way of the work of her paws.
Feather Feather Meriweather Earrings in sterling, pearl and divine texture.  These are simple, classic beauties with a funky and organic edge.  Perfect for wearing on your next fishing trip to an alpine lake.
It looks like we’re going to officially do our next shop update here on Friday.  I’ll announce the time tomorrow!  Thanks for all your warm welcome homes to RW yesterday.  Wheeee!!!  There’s been plenty of sassy banter around these parts this morning.
Now I’m off to discuss bathroom renovation plans with Robert…something something antique clawfoot tub…….
xx
Plume
PS Today, there were also these:
Sterling, copper and enamel!
100% hand crafted.
The enameled components were fired right here in the Plume Gables kiln.
Sterling, coral, silk, pearl, enamel, and copper!
Hollow form.
100% handcrafted including, again, the enameled component which was fired right here in my studio kiln.
Look at that chartreuse. 
Chartreuse makes me drool.
Am I the only one?

xx
Filed Under: New Jewelry

And just like that…

September 14, 2010 by
…summer ended.

Baby, it’s good to have you home.
The next six months are all ours.
Let’s squander them on something good.
xx
Plume
Filed Under: plume gables, smokejumping, summer

Monday Brings A Throat Flower

September 13, 2010 by
Good Monday to you all!
I hope your weekends were lovely and filled with long strolls, baking, frothy coffees and baby poodles.
Good grief. I have plenty of things to tell you about but some will have to be spread out over the week so as not to cause you complete and utter swoonage all at once.

First off, Monday brings a throat flower:

  I’ve made a couple of Lexical Charm Necklaces in the past and this is the newest darling in the family.  This baby is constructed of sterling silver, coral, silk, chrysoprase and pearl.  It’s a bit different from the two that went before in the way that the inner petals are actually lifted up on a pedestal of a small hollow form component giving this design even more dimension than the two that came before.  The actual pendant drop is HUGE and the movement of the piece is incredibly musical.  Love it.  Organic.  Sultry.  When I lean in, I think I maybe smell a bit of jasmine…

On the topic of hollow form, have I told you why I love working with and creating hollow form designs?  Well.  There’s no time like the present.  Allow me to explain with an excerpt from a conversation I recently had with a lovely lady:
A friend I have in California weighs molecules. She has a brilliant mind and is an amazing scientist. She told me one day, in a letter, that everything I do affects the molecules and atoms in the crystal lattices around me. When I breathe, the motion of my breath imprints on those lattices. When I stand still and simply live, the pulse of my heart pushes against those seemingly solid structures and there’s a piece of me in everything I’m surrounded by. She told me that when I create with metal, I really do impress pieces of myself, permanently in the crystal lattices of my materials — including the stones. I was so amazed by this information. I started seeing the world in a new way. I started to feel like I was leaving pieces of myself everywhere. 
I started creating hollow forms with the notion that all of the pieces of me that are pushed into the metal and the stones I use need a comfortable home, a place where they can cozily bounce around and echo and reverberate. Likewise, the girls who wear my hollow form pieces will spend a lifetime pushing pieces of their selves into the crystal lattices and molecular structuring of my designs, and I want, as often as I can, for there to be a hollow portion to the jewelry I create so that their heartbeats have a home within the piece. 





Does any of this make sense?
I’m kind of rushing this explanation a bit.
But my hollow forms are kind of conceptual. Well. They’re really conceptual besides being curious and fun to make. A lot of my work is that way. I share a description with people but usually the real root of the notion behind the design is unspoken,,,I suppose those are the parts of creating that are just for me…
Just imagine these pieces, and their hollow portions, carrying the rhythm of your heart into the next generation and that next generation impressing a heart rhythm into the same molecular structures and so on and so forth.  
That’s magic at its best.  
Its very best.


________________________________________________________________
Wowee.  I’m glad to have that off my chest.  I’ve been meaning to share why I love hollow form work for ages.  Now you know why I love the work!  And if you have one of my hollow form pieces already, I hope you find the notions behind the design meaningful and magical.

Now. This Lexical Charm Necklace will be available later this week when I do a grand shop update.  As will this fellow, isn’t he charming?

Cheval de la Mere in sterling, ocean jasper and pearl.
What a nearly-mythical little hippocampus beastling!

Pour another cup of tea.
Watch the buffalo feathers drift down from the sky.
This is September and the colors have me doe eyed.
xx
Plume


PS  Why yes.  Yes I do have a new obsession.
Filed Under: hippocampus, New Jewelry

Glass Half Full

September 10, 2010 by
My spirit felt like this today…for a little while:
Today, everything keeps getting in the way of everything.  Some days are like this.  I take one step forward and then ten steps back.  I can’t gain ground.  The duties of the day form a wide cascade and I’m sinking down deep in the froth of details, errands, rearrangements!

Additionally, I’m dog sitting a couple of dogs at the moment which is rather disruptive in the way that all animals in my household as well as the dogs of friends must be segregated for mealtimes so that Penelope doesn’t eat her self to death (she is a hound, after all).  I was unsuccessful in this yesterday.  Penelope (very sneakily) ate roughly 12 times what she is usually given for a meal portion and as a result, she became sick.  By sick, I mean I woke up to a total of 10 accidents all over the house this morning.  A heartbreaking start to the day.  Even more heartbreaking?  One dog moved my entire front porch off the front porch.  Shells and ocean detritus I so carefully collected in the Pacific Northwest a few weeks ago were reduced to pieces, shards, minute bits of memories of the sea shore.  Dirty papasan cushions crushing the columbine patches.  Broken flower vases.
Gah.
Oh well.  Stuff is stuff.  As always, I’ve forced myself to see the glass as half full — it’s good to get into the practice of always seeing the bright side in everything.  Healthy for the mind and soul — debilitating for self pity and depression.

There’s always this fellow:
My sweet, ever loving, bird dog darling who does not suffer from the eating disorder of gluttony.  I love his smoochieboofa.

There’s the mail that always comes at the perfect time when I need encouragement,
words of wisdom,
news from afar
and general gladness of divine proportions.
From this image, you know who you are.  Thank you.
There’s the expanse of my studio space — my creative space,
the falling into rhythm with a hammer,
the singing to the music,
the light,
the mountains in the distance,
the smell of the blue spruce in the front yard
and working in my favorite cowboy boots.
And then there was lunch:

A side of freshly picked cherry tomatoes and a bagel sandwich, gluten free and exploding with soft poached eggs (one from Rhonda, one from Winona), dill and Havarti.  Thank the good heavens for cheese.

There’s also the Mister who will be home soon to help me shoulder these things.  There will be his broad chest to bury my face in and him, suggesting I draw a hot bath for myself in the evenings.  I’m getting better at caring for myself, but he is the very best and very most skilled when it comes to the task.

Happy Friday to you all!
I hope yours was smooth, productive and full of grand surprises.
If not, let’s hold this half full glass together and rejoice in all the good we can see.

Indian summer, mint leaves and ripe plums,
The Plume

PS  I finished this beautiful fellow late last night!

Filed Under: craptasticness diffused, studio, the gables
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