Sometimes, as a Canadian in the USA, I’m not sure what to do with myself on Canada Day. So I put on my red bird mask, jump around a bit and pretend like the Queen is watching.
Joyeux anniversaire Canada!
Tu me manque.
Love,
Plumester
Just One From the Herd
July 1, 2010 by
Tatonka.
American Bison.
I love them.
You should see my wide open heart when I travel to Jackson and watch them mill about at the base of the Tetons. I love this animal, this beast, this hunk of woolly flesh. I was born in Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada when my parents were stationed there. My father worked with wood bison and we even had an orphaned bison calf named Georgina who lived in our yard for a stint. I consider this animal to be one of my totems (my older sister does as well). I’m amazed by their size which is proportionate to the legends that surround them. They practically became a mythical beast and were brought back, slowly, from the brink of extinction and are now raised behind bars, for the most part, in North America. I think they represent the vastness of the great plains as well as the majesty of the boreal forests of Northern Canada. They’re a symbol of the wild West (and it’s still wild, to a certain degree). A symbol of final frontiers. They were killed by the thousands by the native tribes of North America as well as the white man for their meat, bones, hide and horns. They’re victims of poor stewardship by men of every color and they used to kill themselves by the hundreds while crossing riverbeds.
Their story, their natural history, is colorful and complex.
Their hooves make thunder.
Their breath is wind.
I refer to the buffalo constantly in my every day speech.
I say things like, “thick as a bison hide” and “Robbie, quit acting like a wild buffalo…”
There’s something about this animal that belongs to me, some unspoken understanding.
And while I’m small I be mighty.
And while they be mighty, they be small.
I craft them out of sterling, fairly often. I cut, with my jewelers saw, their careful shape. Humped, bearded, with that skanky little tail rising of of sturdy haunches. I set them with amethyst in their hearts, or pearls. They remind me to stay wild and run free. No matter how many other sterling ideas I come up with, I always return to the bison. I can’t help it. They call to me.
This ring is meant for a woman who feels the same way about buffalo. If it’s one of your totems, it’s meant to be yours. I’ve taken an concave sheet of sterling, textured it, and applied a bison form to its surface. This fellow wears a heart of pearl and a slash of gold across his back. The back of this ring face features more textural detail and patterning as well as one of my sterling bones. It’s rich with soul and something bigger than that as well — perhaps ghosts.
This ring is sizable.
It’s big and wide, just like the spirit of The West.
May it go to the perfect home.
xx
Sterling, Pearls and Getting Pentecostal
June 30, 2010 by
I just finished this ring and I am excited to show it to you!
It’s built of sterling, 14 karat gold, chrysoprase and pearl. It’s a simple design (as in it didn’t take me HOURS to create) but it’s loaded with various textures and a quirky pearl setting. The face of this ring is concave so it catches a beautiful amount of quality light that manages to lift the texture up and out of the metal work. I’ve set a delicious little oval cut of chrysoprase off to the side with a brightly polished stream of gold on one flank. I love that little smear of gold. It warms the sterling up so beautifully. On the backside of this ring I’ve bezel set a pearl which makes for a gorgeous ivory glimpse each time you turn your hand. Clever. This piece wears gorgeously on a pointer finger so that the pearl is completely exposed when the hand is turned or upside down as in this last image. Whoever takes it home is going to knock the socks off of people every time she reaches out to shake a hand.
A note about pearls:
I love working pearls into sterling designs. I think they add a refined and classic spirit to most pieces and the contrast between an oxidized and satin finished slab of sterling and a pearl offers this kazZZZzowwa-pow-pow of glimmering and soul lifting virtuosity and ruggedness. I liken it to sitting on the back of a horse on a rocky mountainside while listening to Chopin. There’s a complexity in the pairing. A pearl is a high note! It’s perfume for the eyes. Add a smudge of gold to the picture as well and you’ll see me swooning all over the church floor like an overwhelmed Pentecostal. I get it. Sometimes the beauty in things really is too grand to stay on your feet.
While I’m currently pressing out a handful of folksy designs (think buffalo with me now and feel the thunder of their hooves)out in the studio, it was really lovely to have something moderately modern pour out of me today. Oh boy oh boy.
This morning, something fell out of my pen tip on the topic of fire and fish and Robert — it’s going to romance your socks off — so I have to take myself fishing this evening on the upper Portneuf on the backside of Pebble
just to connect with the spirit of my man
and the story of the moment I first fell in love with him so I can better write it and explore the root of the tale.
Man oh man, it’s going to make you weep.
I wonder what he’s doing right now.
I wonder if the smoke is getting in his eyes
up there on the tundra of Alaska?
Sometimes I think the reason I’m able to fly this summer is because he and I are so darn connected that I can’t help but feel the force of the wind and be lifted up each time he jumps out of a plane…
Sometimes I think the reason I’m able to fly this summer is because he and I are so darn connected that I can’t help but feel the force of the wind and be lifted up each time he jumps out of a plane…
A most blessed afternoon to you all,
The Plume
x
Little Grey Yellow Lays A Large Red Egg
June 29, 2010 by
In Pocatello, it feels like summertime in the city of Chicago at the moment. It’s hot and muggy. So hot and muggy that I plopped my torch down in the studio and came in for a glass of lemonade and my sewing machine instead. I have a few sewing projects on the go, one is the perfect picnic blanket and the other has been more of an embroidery project that I’ve been meaning to attach to an aspen branch I picked earlier in the spring.
I wanted to do some colorful machine stitching around the little grey bird so I sewed a little in turquoise blue and then a little in red and then a little in mustard yellow and then I stitched little grey yellow bird who lays the large red egg to the aspen branch. I wanted the entire thing to look somewhat deconstructed…or at least as wild and tidy as bird nests tend to look so I didn’t use any interfacing on the back of the cotton cloth I used and I made sure to pull a few strings to cause a few rumples here and there.
Et voila:
He’s cute.
…and those are some of my books.
I hope you’ve had a lovely day!
x
A Handful of Beauteous Things:
June 28, 2010 by
:::EDIT:::
Thank you all, every single one of you, for attending my shop update yesterday — whether you claimed something for yourself or not — I appreciated you being there. You never cease to amaze me with your support.
One gorgeous little buffalo!
[sterling & gold]
Two little bangles that feature yellow opal and a sterling bone.
Yellowed Bones.
Three pairs of sweet, sweet earrings. Two for you. One for me. All sterling.
Isadora Earrings!
I can never really say enough about these earrings. The color of the teal fluorite cabochons, the weight, the length, the movement…..simply a perfect design.
A Seed Necklace built of sterling and enamel. Just. So. Pretty. Airy. Ethereal. Summery. This piece is so good for the soul.
A Love Cuff built of sterling, prehnite and resisted and antiqued leather. WILD COLORS, huh? You’re going to attract hummingbirds and bees with this baby. It’s perfect for summer celebration, it will beat away the winter blues and it will assuage the appetite of any chromaphile.
One more Love Cuff in sterling, banded fluorite in yellows and green as well as resisted and antiqued leather. Bzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It’s going to make your honey sweeter than any other.
I’m off to list these baubles in the Etsy shop! I’ll see you there!
And, for the record, let me say I am feeling so good today. My energy levels are high, I’m without the painful symptoms I’ve been experiencing lately and besides REALLY missing RW’s kisses I feel without brain fog and rather whole. There’s peace flowing through my property, like a river. It’s such a relief to not be sick today and it’s been the delight of my heart to create again. Sending you all Love today.
xx
PLUME
PS Please do pardon those crazy veins that are popping out of my wrists and arms! It’s so hot here today! I feel like I’m melting. On days like today, I wonder how I survived 130F in Arizona when we were located there…I’m going to go get a lime popsicle out of the freezer…pant pant pant.