Springtime Sighing All Along The Creek

March 19, 2010 by 


Some weeks are good weeks.
Some weeks are great weeks.
This was a great week.
It must be spring.

Bald eagle's back in the cottonwood tree
The old brown hills are just about bare
Springtime sighing all along the creek
Magpies ganging up everywhere...
[Ian Tyson]

I don't think I've ever appreciated daylight savings quite so much!  
The extra daylight in the late
afternoon has been a joyful shot in the arm for me.  
I'm finding the time to do everything I want to do.
Winter tends to feel like a constant crush for time and daylight.  Do you feel that way?
I'm glad for the new season, it's almost upon us, you know.  
When Saturday clicks over into Sunday
our hearts are going to perform a vernal stampede.  
The magpies will drop 
their gold and fly over to our outstretched hands as we stroll 
about commenting on how everything is 
coming up tulippy.

Even the naked lilacs will grin
in the breeze, thinking about the purple and white poofs to come.
Springtime really is sighing all along the creek.

You know, spring really is a mild mannered seductress.  
She makes you forget all about the things
that need doing -- taxes, chores, running a small business.
She makes you go climbing with Sue in the afternoons.
She makes you run four extra miles just because the sun feels so burly.
She makes you whip up pots of iced tea.
She's oblivious and makes you oblivious 
to your responsibilities.
But I say, after a long, dark winter, we're all allowed to lose 
our sensibilities for a stint.
It's only fair.
It's only balanced.

Back to the stuff.  I was highly distracted, all week long, 
but I managed to finish up a handful of projects
yesterday afternoon before I closed my studio up and took to the hills:

I made a new Saddle Ring. Well, two of them actually. One is mine, one is yours. There’s something so sweet and strong about this piece. It’s incredibly organic to the touch and to the sight. The main body of the ring is actually anticlastically raised making it beautifully tactile and very appealing to the sight. It catches the light in all the right places. Feminine details detract from the bulk of this piece — a fresh water pearl and the faint face of a poppy on the surface of the silver make this ring so delicate for the wearing. This ring is a larger size. I believe it’s around a US ring size 9.75 or 10. Perfect for a pointer finger which is where I have been wearing and loving my Saddle Ring.

A new set of Isadora Earrings for a woman who is cuckoo for teal. I haven’t anything but the very best adjectives in mind when describing these earrings. They are romantic, dark, light, a force of nature, tarnationally organic (NO. TARNATIONALLY IS NOT A REAL WORD.), musical in their movement and somewhat bold. They are quite long and the shank that the stone is connected to is beautifully bound up in sterling ribbon which is so romantic and Swan Lake and ballerinas.

I finally made a Rumors of the Sea Ring. I’ve talked at length about this series in the past so I won’t bore you here but I will make mention of the fact that this piece DOES have a freshwater pearl set inside the enameled dome. Also, all of my enameled pieces are fired multiple times and counter enameled for strength and durability. Gosh. I love this ring and this series. I may never grow tired of it.


Lastly I made a Raven Necklace. I know. You thought I made it through, free and clear of my raven obsession. Nope. Here’s another one! This beauty is built of sterling, 14 karat gold, fresh water pearl and ocean jasper. The pendant actually drops off an incredibly long, hand fabricated sterling bone that I’ve wrapped with sterling ribbon. I’ve balanced the asymmetrical nature of this piece using ocean jasper and leaf which makes for a lovely amount of independent movement within the structure of the pendant. There are so many details to this piece that I’m not sure what else to share with you. Look at the photos! I wanted this pendant to look like a specimen box, of sorts.
On the backside of the pendant is the Latin name for the common raven: CORVUS CORAX
And I’d consider this piece to be part of my Cabinet of Curiosities Series. It’s a bit creepy, a little bit dark, a little bit E.A. Poe (nevermore nevermore) and soooo unique. I really love this design. It feels great on. Musical and heavy.
I’m not sure how many of these pieces I will get listed in the Etsy shop today.
RW and I have a shocking amount of packing and shipping to do which will probably carry
over into Saturday. If you don’t see them for sale today you’ll be able to find this new work up for claiming on Monday!
I hope you are all having a beautiful, Turkishly Delightful
Friday. I want to hop in Talulah and drive up the side of a mountain
with a cup of mint tea and a book about the American Buffalo
but I’m going to work instead.
Because I kind of need to.
Love to you all!
xxxxxxxxx
THE NOISY PLUME
Filed Under: fluorite, New Jewelry, ocean jasper, pearls, raven, rumors of the sea

The Hippocampus Belt and Buckle

March 18, 2010 by
Well! Let me refresh your memory!
Allison and I set out to do a collaboration project with a belt (she) and buckle (me).
This was my contribution to the waist hugging team:

A large sterling buckle with a seahorse form, barnacles, bubbbbbbbbbles, double layered leaves, a sterling banner and a raven wing pearl.

My buckle design was inspired by my trip to Hawaii and the jaunt we took, while there, to the only seahorse breeding farm in the world. I was able to watch the little critters for hours and I was the keen recipient of a chance to hold one (I’ll never forget how it felt to have a seahorse tail wrapped round my finger). Anyway. I felt so much, on that trip to Hawaii. I can still feel the sensory experiences pouring out of my head and heart and into sterling. But specifically, I decided that I wanted to swim like a seahorse, gracefully, upon a current of peace. Always.
Allison and I have been discussing a belt and buckle collaboration for some time now. I think the idea first came up when she stayed the night at Plume Gables last summer while on tour with her new album. Recently, while together in Arizona, we decided that the Hippocampus Buckle and Belt was going to be our first attempt.
When I had the buckle finished, I shipped it down to California so Allison could hold it and create a suitable piece of tooled leather, inspired and crafted from the same spirit and mood I was in while making the buckle.

This is what SHE came up with! Oh my gosh. Peeps!
The tooling on this baby is beautiful (as usual). It has depth and is wonderfully nuanced. When I run my fingers over it the texture in the relief is tangible. It’s really quite the design and the perfect partner for the Hippocampus. I mean really. Look at the face of the buckle. There’s a seahorse surrounded by bits and pieces of a coral reef garden that extends onto leather and all around the waist. It’s just a perfect pairing of leather and metal! PERFECT!


The leather belt is specifically sized to fit a 35-37 inch waist OR BELTED BODY REGION. Allison has told me that she can add ONE hole to the design if you’re a bit smaller than these measurements. The buckle can be removed from the belt and attached to other belts that have snaps instead of a riveted closure. Also, I wanted you to know that while photographing this belt around my hips and I had to pinch the back of it to have it snug for these images. More of the coral garden will show when someone who fits this belt is wearing it.

Anyway. Allison and I really really excited about this piece and everything it symbolizes. Most importantly, we feel like it’s emblematic of where we have arrived in our relationship as fellow artists, soul sisters and two individuals who 100% understand the creative process of the other. I love being with her, talking with her and being comforted by her when I’m having a rough day. I loving knowing someone who shares so strongly with me a taste for color, texture and pattern. There’s a shared aesthetic between us. I am inspired by her work and by who she is. It’s my complete delight to call her friend and sister and it’s my joy to support her in her work and life and it makes me gladder still to find myself in partnership with her in this creative work we do, full time.
Allison, thanks for doing this with me! Here’s to many more collaborations in the future and to our friendship, in general. I love you.
We’ll be listing this collaboration in my Etsy shop
on Monday at 9PM MST.
Thank you for considering it
and to the wonderful woman who claims
it as her own:
You’re going to love it, babe!
This piece is a powerful combination of
Allison and I.
When the right woman wears this belt, the foundations of the
earth shall surely shake! HA!!!!! WHEEEEE!!!!!
Have a beautiful BEAUTIFUL day, everybody!
XXXXXXXXX
PLUME (and Allison in spirit)
Filed Under: allison, belt buckle, collaboration

There’s a hen shaped hole in my heart.

March 15, 2010 by
Oh please God, give me a laying hen.
There’s a house, a few streets over, equipped with a rooster. I’m not sure if there are hens also, but I hear that proud and cocky little rooster singing his song from time to time and it’s enough to drive me berserkers. I’ve been begging RW to build me a little chicken coop so I can keep two laying hens alongside the studio, in the raspberry patch. He has yet to acquiesce to my (annoying) demands.
Can someone write him a letter and explain, in full, what fresh eggs would mean to me and how I could dress up even niftier, from day to day, as a wee and bedraggled country orphan who has nothing to her name but a mangy set of barnyard foul. Just imagine! I could walk those ladies down the country lanes on a set of patent red leather leashes…I could put one in my basket on my bike and tour around town! If I only had a few skinny chickens to tend, my world would be a better place. I’m sure of it.
On other farmy topics, I made bread yesterday. It rose robustly whilst RW and I clipped perennials in the garden and trimmed the lilacs.
THE LILACS ARE BEGINNING TO BUD! THE IRIS PATCHES ARE SENDING UP STEADY GREEN SPEARS! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
On a related topic, there’s a wonderful lady
I do not know who lives down the street
and is the keeper and arranger of the
Gypsy Garden. I think she is actually
a titled landscape artist. Her gardens are amazing.
She inspired my lilac trimming this spring for
hers are trimmed like topiaries and rather resemble
Truffula Trees when they are
in bloom — tall, willowy stalks with a puff of
purple blossoms on top. I love the way they look
and mine will follow suit this year though I think
the look may be achieved after a few years of
dedicated trimming…I’m patient. Kind of.
GIVE ME TRUFFULA NOW.
Alright. Back to the bread.
I always think about how I want all of YOU to bake your own bread, while I’m kneading a lump of dough on the counter top here at The Gables. I think about sharing my recipe with you but I don’t really follow a recipe. I’m not even sure how much flour I use — I mix my dough by touch.

This is all to say, you should bake your own bread.
That sounds bossy, but if I explain to you why I bake MY own bread, perhaps it will inspire you to do so as well!
1. I bake bread because I like the feel of dough. When I flip a lump of the stuff out of my mixing bowl and onto the counter and begin to knead, it feels incredible under my hands. It’s warm and extremely flexible beneath my fingertips. The surface is elastic feeling. Dough is puffy. Dough is soft but firm. Simultaneously. I like the way it flows, somewhat. If the consistency is perfect, I can mold it into a roundish lump but if I leave it for a few seconds, it gently puddles. It’s fleshy. This is all to say that working dough with my bare hands is a very sensory experience.
2. My mother baked bread when I was growing up. She’d whip up HUGE batches of bread and buns. Somedays I’d walk home from school for lunch and find fresh bread and fantastic homemade soup for lunch (My mother is the queen of soup from scratch. I don’t care what you say. Yours is NOT as good.) We’d eat some of that bread hot and fresh and she would freeze the rest in one of our huge freezers. Her mother before her knew how to bake bread. And her mother’s mother baked bread. I feel connected to those women, my matriarchal lineage, when I bake bread. I’m not feeding farm hands. I’m not taking meals out to the men in the fields or feeing a handful of kids around a small kitchen table but I feel like I’m keeping my heritage alive. The only thing that could make me feel more connected to the women who came before me is if the flour I use for baking originated in the wheat fields of the Thoen homestead in Saskatchewan. It’s probably best that my flour doesn’t come from The Farm, I’d be crying into my mixing bowl from the sentimental nature of the situation. All the time.
Bottom line: I think baking bread, from scratch, is a rite of passage for a gal. It’s ok if you don’t, but life is more full if you do!
3. I like to take the time.
Mixing dough takes me mere minutes.
But waiting on two rises takes a couple of hours.
I like having to commit two and a half hours of my life
to warming up my home with an oven,
using my hands and my heart,
physically mixing dough on a counter top,
setting a bowl in the sunlight on the kitchen table
and wandering off to garden or read a book while I
wait,
punch it down,
roll it out,
fold it down,
wait for a second rise,
and bake.
I like to take the time.
I like to slow things down.

4. Have you tasted hot bread, fresh out of the oven?
Have you been in a house when bread is baking?
The scent that fills the air is utterly mouth watering.
Hot fresh bread is like mana from heaven, but made with mortal human hands.
Bless it.
And bless the work of a bread maker’s hands.
Now go find yourself a recipe.
Do not fear the yeast.
Knead.
Feel the dough.
Set a timer.
Oven at 420F. Twenty two minutes.
Smell that baking bread!
And eat it with butter and plum jam (if you have some).
Happy Monday to you all!
Didn’t it take FOREVER for the sun to rise this morning?
xxxxxxxx
Jillian Susan
PS I finished this on Friday:

The Heart of Gold Belt Buckle.

For a beautiful woman on the hunt for a heart of gold…

…in the Etsy Shop tomorrow!
PPS It would be so wonderful if I woke up tomorrow with a chicken under my pillow…
Filed Under: baking, belt buckle, bread, hens

Loving on Idaho

March 14, 2010 by
Good Saturday to you all!
It’s been a perfectly snarly winter day in Pocatello and beyond. In point of fact, I had a dark chill seep into the marrow of my bones early this afternoon, which resulted in a hot shower, buckets of hot tea and a gorgeous potato, dill and buttermilk soup for dinner.
But this morning…well…I’ll let you see for yourself!
RW and I headed out to the Gilbert Ranch to play cowboy and cowgirl
for a stint. This is what it looked like:

[THANKS FOR THIS PHOTO, MURPHY]

The Gilberts run about 120 head of beef, free range, on the backside of the mountains they live on. Around Christmas time, this year, the family lost a father and husband (you are missed, Todd) Since then, the girls, their spouses and the current or former Snake River Hotshot boys, among others, have stepped up to run and help out at the ranch in the wake of Mister Gilbert’s death.
It’s a heartbreaking thing, to be out there on horseback, sorting heifers in the snowfall.
It’s a heartbreaking thing, to be part of an iconic American heritage that is slowly dying out all across the Rocky Mountains and the great plains.
It’s a heartbreaking thing to sit a cowhorse and feel it coil and collect beneath you as your legs wrap tight around a barrel and your heels hang deep off the edge of a pair of stirrups. One hand on the reins. One hand on your hip. SQUINT INTO THE SUN NOW.
It’s crushing to listen to a girl talk about her father and the kind of man he was, one of the last true cowboys, while perched on a fence rail with her.
It’s a heartbreaking thing to walk on that horse through a pasture where newborn calves, coats like crushed soft velvet, walk with their mothers, or sleep, curled up on the ground with their noses tucked up against their hind legs.
There’s a boy ain’t this life damn romantic kind of feeling that takes over in a girl.
And-when-you-walk-inside-for-a-sausage-potato-and-egg-scramble-with-salsa-you-feel-glad-for-the-hot-food-and-you-watch-Blake-oil-his-new-saddle-and-think-about-how-much-you-want-a-horse-again…it was that kind of day.
I love the Gilberts.
I love their cowhorses.
I love ranch life.
And I hope the Gilbert Ranch is a living legacy for generations to come,
not only for the sake of this beautiful BEAUTIFUL family, but for the sake of the
story of the American West. This is one gorgeous gingham patch
in a brilliant, far reaching quilt.
For the Gilbert Women who were left behind in December:
You’re strong and beautiful and when you’re weak, we’ll help hold you up.
You make Carhartts look fine and you make crap covered boots look fashion forward.
But more importantly, you are strong of spirit and you have God on your side.
Take heart.
Who can be against you?
Blake, you’re one of the best men we know.
We believe in all of you.
Always,
Jillian & Robert
Filed Under: gilberts, idaho, ranch life

Eight Things

March 12, 2010 by
8. Yep. Pretty much the cutest and fluffiest little fluffybuns in all of Idaho:

Ok. Now. A few weeks ago or perhaps even months ago, the lovely Mona (who happens to have a brilliant and beautiful mind) gave me some homework and I’m just getting to it now! Sorry Mona! I’m supposed to let you know seven things about myself that you don’t know. There are a lot of you who have varying degrees of relationship with me so I came up with the seven things I thought very few of you would know about.
1. I used to have a thing for booby traps. Just writing this down is causing a resurgence of obsession. I like the sort where you dig a moderately sized pit and cover the surface lightly with grasses, twigs and hand collected brambles. When someone strolls down the path the trap is located on, they tumble right into it and then you can keep them there until they promise to purchase you a bag of twizzlers or wash your Vespa. I also like the sort where you tie fishing line between two trees directly outside your sister’s tent whilst camping…nothing really happens with this sort of booby trap but it’s fun to act like a malevolent individual or a spy, from time to time.
2. I have a thing about feet. I don’t really like it when folks touch mine or look at mine for too long. I can tolerate it but I don’t like to encourage it. That’s the main reason why I don’t paint my toenails. It draws too much attention to my chicken feet. This said, I really like being barefoot. All the time.
3. I really adore the scent of eucalyptus. It’s so fresh. When I smell it, it feels like my lungs are blooming open, soft and pink which would be a horrendous thing to see but a nice thing to feel. I like how I feel when I think about things unfolding (does that even make sense?). On the flip side, I loathe the smell of geraniums.
4. I eat macaroni and cheese almost daily but not usually the boxed sort (unless I’ve had Dakota mac and cheese sent to me by Caroline, the Queen of the Prairies). I like to cook up a cup of multicolored, twisty noodles, add some freshly grated extra sharp cheddar cheese and fresh ground pepper. Yum. I’m a gourmet’s worst nightmare. But it’s so quick…ish.
5. I love my name. But living in the USA has been tough on me. For some reason, no one in Arizona or Idaho has ever heard the name Jillian before. When I introduce myself, more often than not people get a funny look on their faces and think I’m saying Julien. Once, I was feeling especially name sensitive while acquiring a latte. The barrista wrote the name JULIEN on my cup. I snapped and informed her that “Julien” is considered a male, Hispanic name. Robert told me I was being snarky. Sorry, coffee girl. Lately, upon introducing myself, I’ve been getting a lot of, “Oh! Like Jillian Michaels???”
Um. Yes. Kind of. Name education comes in many forms.
My middle name is Susan. I’m named for my mother. Jillian Susan means youthful lily. I think that’s pretty. RW’s name means bright flame protector. What a man! Back in the day when our only correspondence for 2.5 years was letter writing, we used to address our international mail to each other using the meanings of our names. It’s so romantic it makes you ill. I know.
6. I take about 9 different vitamins, daily. I’m going to have to stop taking my Vitamin B Complex because it’s been giving me really strange dreams. I had a nightmare about a small but vicious orange spider, two nights ago, and I barely slept a stitch. A few weeks ago, in a dream, someone RW used to work with gave me neon green pistol tattoos for my birthday. That dream was so funny that each time I fell asleep again I tried to consciously return to it which made me very frustrated; I woke up once or twice biting the bed frame.
Vitamin B is botching up my REM state.
7. I don’t consciously collect anything but because I’m obsessively drawn to some stuff, I have noticed lately that I have a few collections. I have a vintage hat collection, a skeleton key collection, a coat collection, a scarf collection, a teacup collection and I’m thinking of collecting old doors, the sort with lead glass windows in them (something something mumble mumble garden landscaping…). I have a vintage brooch collection and a pretty extensive jam and jelly collection, though it’s at zenith in October. I have a small escarpment of shoes but above all, I prize my skirt collection. Its extensive, chromalicious and quite practical. Wheee!
So there you have it.
Seven or eight things.
Ain’t life beautiful?
Please take a second or an hour to give me seven in the comment section, if you feel like it and if you can take a moment away from internet shopping or changing diapers or baking…
GIMMIE SEVEN!
Which is sort of like give me five
but interwebular.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
xxxxxxxxx
PLUME
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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