Chamomile

August 1, 2010 by

This afternoon
between thunderstorms
I picked the chamomile.
It hangs from the ceiling 
in the back porch.
Someday soon
I will drink it.

On the fence
beneath a plum tree
a spaghetti squash vine is climbing.
The plump white fruits of that vine dangle there 
a few feet off the ground
like netted beluga whales.

On the front porch
the wooden barrels that hold the yellow flowers
have turned into unofficial graveyards.
The heat has killed my pansies.

The chickens napped in my snow peas yesterday.
I’m quite miffed with them.
Despite their most pleading clucking
I will not let them out of their coop.
They were flightless to begin with but now
they’re grounded.

This morning
when I went to a friend’s house for coffee
I took her the gift of four freshly laid eggs.
Two white.
Two brown.
They made her happy.

Now the wind comes again.
The plum trees are bowing down.
I’ve opened a window to let the cool in.
The staccato of rain against the windowpane
matches the beat of my summer heart.
It’s still working fine
though it’s slightly detached.
Pizzicato.
Filed Under: garden, plume gables

Watching the Weather

July 30, 2010 by

My studio time has been a bit of a wash this week.  It’s been too hot to work by about 1:30PM every single day since my space isn’t air conditioned.  By too hot, I don’t mean I’m mildly uncomfortable, I mean I’m sweating like a sieve and feeling a bit faint.  Sparking up my torch and working with it feels a bit like melting my face off.  Right now, another thunderstorm is rolling through town.  I hope it really pours bats and bullfrogs and washes all the heat away.  Plus, my roses could really use a drink.

The storms that pass through Pocatello are always a little pathetic — keep in mind here that I grew up with the ferocious summer storms of the Great Northern Plains with hail the size of softballs, tornado warnings and all other lovely stormy things.  I have some rather large expectations when it comes to:

thunderbolt and lightening 
VERY, VERY FRIGHTENING ME!!!



(Galileo) Galileo (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro 



My storm snobbery has honest roots.  How are the storms where you are, in the summer?  Burly and frightening or cool baby delights, like they are here in Pocatello?


Happy Friday to you all!
Have a beautiful weekend and I’ll see your bright and shining faces on Monday which is when you can also expect a shop update (including, but not limited to, a glitz ring, a belt and buckle, some mondo earrings and a handful of other bits and pieces…)!

Over and out,
Plume
Filed Under: plume gables

The First Time is the Sweetest

July 29, 2010 by
I finished this at 2AM last night!
MY FIRST EVER BELT AND BUCKLE!!!
CAN I GET AN AMEN?!!!
100% handcrafted in every way!  This belt features a hand cut, carved and tooled leather belt that has been antiqued and hand painted.  The buckle was also crafted by me from sterling silver and amethyst.  I feel compelled to once again remind you that a belt buckle takes one day of my life to create and is a labor of love in many ways.  This buckle features two bison with pierced and patched hearts, one metric ton of texture as well as four amethyst cabochons.  Like my buckles of the past, and many of my other pieces, this piece features a handful of word strips that utter:
Stay wild.  Run free.

The leather portion of the belt echoes this sentiment and the entire piece is made to wear slung low around a part of a woman that measures about 37 inches.  I can punch ONE MORE hole in this leather to snug the fit up a bit but NO MORE than that.  

The belt has been equipped with two bomber snaps that allow you to remove the buckle if you wish to wear it with another belt or if you wish to wear the belt with different buckle.  Versatility!  YAY!  Seriously, I struggled with how to antique this piece.  I really wanted to use my chartreuse antique but sensibility won in the end and I selected saddle tan for the job — not everyone wears at least one piece of chartreuse green every single day like I do.  See?  I’m always looking out for your best interest (except for sometimes).
What people see when you’re going:
What people see when you’re coming:
This is my first larger scale effort in leather and I am so delighted by the outcome I think I’ll keep on with it.  What do you think?  Would you wear it?

I’m off to whip up some breakfast and a cafe au lait before heading out to the studio for the day.
I hope Thursday is treating you well, you smart little chickadees and chickadudes!
xx
P
Filed Under: belt, belt buckle, bison, leather

The Quest

July 29, 2010 by
I’ve been obsessed with the feathers of great blue herons for nearly a decade.  I’ve always been attracted to feathers, in general, but the magic of heron feathers has overtaken all other plumeage interest and I’ll do anything to get my hands on the darn things.
It all began about 8 years ago when I was on a climbing trip with my boyfriend at the time, we’ll call him Igor.  We were in Whiterock, BC for a few days and decided to canoe a small river that spit itself out into the ocean just off the coastline of the mainland.  As we were paddling along, I noticed a great blue heron standing on the edge of the riverbank, Igor mentioned the fact that their feathers were supposedly gorgeous.  It was like music to my ears, I commanded Igor to paddle harder and we made our way to the edge of the bank only to find that it was made of cattails and other, general riparian vegetation that made it impossible for me to make my way to where feathers might have been found.  I’ve been nearly driven mad by the elusive heron feathers of my life ever since.  This is all to say that besides all the OTHER reasons Igor and I didn’t work out (namely the fact that I was still madly in love with the dashing mountain man I’m now married to) we broke up because Igor failed to help me secure the plumes of the great blue heron.
HARUMPH.
Some fellows just aren’t up for the task at hand.
When RW and I lived in Arizona, at the nearby Southern tip of Lake Havasu, there was a great blue heron nesting sanctuary.  It was amazing!  Most unfortunately, humans were not allowed to trespass on the terra firma of the little island that tended to be aflutter with heron wings and squawking babeletts.  I occasionally dream about how many feathers I could have collected from that little sanctuary…I wake up in hot panics.
But.  Let me tell you, where Igor failed me (specifically in the heron feather realm in this situation I speak of), RW has conquered once again!  Over the weekend, whilst fishing a wee reservoir on the upper Portneuf River, we looked West from my little yellow canoe towards shore and spotted a great blue heron.  I whispered to RW, “Take me to shore.  Right there.  I must see if there are heron feathers to claim…”
He obliged.
And I found heron feathers;
the first of my sad little heron feather hunting life.
They truly are spectacular.  I tried to capture the color and sheen for you but I failed miserably.  MISERABLY.  They are of the palest greys and silvery blues — somewhat like the walls in my living room and bedroom.  Subtle coloring.  
As if by magic.
I’ve been turning them over in my hands all day long, thinking about what I’ll do with them, thinking about how precious they are to me.
In the grand and worldly scheme of things, they are nothing, they are without value.
To me, they’re soft and perfect beacons of hope,
RW helped me find them,
they make my heart light,
capturing them in this world has been a quest
they are, to me, the holy grail of feather collecting.  I love them so.
RW will read this and he’ll be annoyed that I even mentioned Igor in the first place — there’s a bit of bad blood there…though I can’t imagine why since the better man got the girl!  HA!  Sorry husband.  Don’t be angry.  Do a touchdown dance instead…
This is all to say, while fishing on the weekend, I didn’t catch a single fish
but I did find something I’ve been dreaming 
of for quite some time.
Do you have a quest?
Besides finding the perfect pair of jeans or comfortable, black ballet flats?
What is there, out there in the world, out there in the nest of nature, that speaks to you more than anything else?  Are you actively seeking it or are you able to find it every day?
*A patch of lady slippers.
*A perfect pussy willow branch.
*A hummingbird or kingfisher sighting.
*A whopper walleye caught at the base of a glorious set of rapids in the Canadian North.
*The perfectly braided lightning strike.
*A sunset.
*A finger crack that follows a beautiful line up the face of a granite wall — it burns your fingertips so bad but there’s so much pleasure found in clinging to it and climbing it — there’s so much joy to be felt in that moment when you defeat gravity.
What’s your quest?
Just wondering….
xx
P.
Filed Under: feathers, nature, quest

Plough winds like mustangs…

July 28, 2010 by

Occasionally I wake up in the morning and I know, perfectly well, that there aren’t going to be enough hours in the day.  Does that ever happen to you?  Where do your priorities fall?  Or do they take to the air like a deck of cards and land where they will?  The sun is starting to dip low and there’s still so much to do!  I thought I’d show you the cuff I just finished a few moments ago.  
Flowery flowery flowery in shades of green and blue.

It’s muggy here.  I wish the sky would break open and do its raining.  I’m impatient for a storm.  There’s nothing like a good old fashioned summer storm, is there?  I love to sit out in the shelter of the front porch and feel the cool descend and the plough winds rear up like mustangs.

I’m off to cut fresh rhubarb and pick peas before I head out for a jaunt in the hills.
Glad Wednesdays to all.
xx
PLUME
Filed Under: cuff, leather, New Jewelry
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