The Life and Times of the Plume

I debuted this lariat design at my Jackson show back in February and my fingers have been itching to make more! I love how this necklace wears. I have always favorited lariat and drop choker style necklaces, ever since I was a little girl. There’s something kind of old world about them, something mysterious about the way the trailing portion of the pendant slides down through a lady’s personal topographies. Just beautiful. These six necklaces are set with turquoise and chrysoprase. I photographed them in the wind and sunshine and sage yesterday so they have all the glorious spirit of HERE and some meadowlark song and pheasant cackle attached to them. I can’t wait to list them in my shop for you on Thursday around noon. Swing on by and see if one calls your name!

I finished this bench bead necklace a couple of weeks ago and it was extremely satisfying and a lot of work! A lot goes into the fabrication of a single bead, let alone 70 beads. What can I tell you about this necklace? It’s beautiful. It’s heavy. Our Southwest Indians tend to make their bench beads out of as light a gauge of sterling as possible. Some of their beads actually will rip if polished on a buffing machine. I fabricated these beads out of 22gauge sterling silver sheet which is much heavier than a traditional bead necklace but it gives this piece a really gorgeous weight. I’m glad I didn’t skimp on metal. It measures just over 30 inches in length and features six different sizes of beads. I finished it with sterling cones and a heavy duty clasp.

As I said, I’ve always loved bench bead necklaces. I think they are heirloom in nature (though not all are created equal) and they transcend trends — there is a timelessness to these pieces. Now that I’ve made one from start to finish I have a new appreciation for all the bench bead necklaces I have looked at, handled and coveted over the years. What TREASURE!!! I am delighted to have joined in the ranks of silversmiths who have undertaken such a project and I can’t wait to make another. In fact, here’s to many more! What I appreciated most about this project is how ancient bead making is in the history of jewelry — beads are how adornment began! Some cave dweller found an object they thought was beautiful or they pulled a tooth or tusk off an animal they hunted and killed to eat and they said, “This is so pretty, I am going to tie it to this strip of leather or drill a hole in it and suspend it from a strand of hide, and hang it around my neck.” Et voila! Jewelry was born. As I made this piece I felt I was channeling all the silversmiths who came before me, but also something older and more ancient than that and maybe that something electric and pure and primal was in my fingertips as I worked. It all began with a single bead. This did, too.

My passion project in the studio today was this quick effort at a wearable, sterling amphora — for the times when you need to anoint a robin chick, a little garter snake, or a pronghorn fawn. Blessings, little ones! Blessings!

This pendant is indeed hollow so it also functions as a place to tuck feathers (shown here holding a Hungarian partridge tail feather) or you can fill it with water and put a sprig of sage or a flower in it. It’s lovely as a simple, empty vessel, too.

What inspired this necklace? I’ve seen some of my ceramic artist friends throwing or hand building amphora forms or using amphora imagery when they go to decorate ceramic pieces. Since I don’t work with clay, I whacked and soldered a metal version into existence…sometimes it’s fun to simply take a shape or technique from another medium and apply it to metal. I never know how things will turn out!

+OF THE WEST+