The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 34

Going To Jackson

January 11, 2020 by The Noisy Plume

I’m busy busy building inventory for the little show I am doing at my friend Christy Sing’s hatshop in Jackson, WY on February 22nd (come one and all!!!). And since this is the second show I have done in the span of a year, the other being at the Filson flagship store in Seattle last spring, I want to tell you what these shows mean to me as a working artist!

I’m not a full time, working artist living in an urban setting. I am a full time, working artist who is a jeweler, photographer and writer as well as a farm operator/manager and a smokejumper wife. I am alone here six months of the year — during the growing season, specifically — most of my best friends live a goodly distance from me in neighboring states and countries. I am alone. A lot. In short, though I do identify as an introvert and classify myself as a gregarious hermit (because I am also the life of a party), I am in danger of being too isolated. Last year I decided I wanted to try to do two shows a year wherein I get to meet and brush shoulders with faraway friends and supporters. And I hoped to be able to do those shows in shops and small businesses that belong to dear friends.

I am not planning on doing art shows on a regular basis but I do want to climb up out of my hide-y-hole a couple times a year to meet as many of you as possible, face to face.

I’d like to do a show in Santa Fe in the year to come and I would like to make my way over to the East Coast for a little show, too. Doing these shows, preparing for them, building inventory for them is tremendously energetic work. I really pour myself out. I must rigidly apply myself to a daily routine — eating healthy, exercising as much as possible, maintaining good sleep habits, while working at my bench as much as possible. I have to prevent my body from breaking down after hours and hours of hunching over my work while attempting to grow my inventory on a daily basis. I usually only have 1.5-2 months to build inventory for these shows and I build my inventory from scratch because I never have anything on hand! It’s SO MUCH FUN. I try to create batch designs so that I have some-of-a-kinds to offer as well as a fleet of one of a kind work.

Something I really like about preparing for these shows is that I allow myself to fully disappear into my work while I am creating and holding onto this much inventory. Life becomes very simple and clear.

Eat, sleep, run, create.

I know that not everyone can make it to these little shows and I can comprehend that that might frustrate some people but I am a better artist and jeweler for doing these shows as well as a better human. When I meet you face to face, it feels really good to my soul. When I get to watch you handle my work, try jewelry on and react to something you deeply connect with it’s extremely magical for me. You’re real!!! I’m real too. All of this is real!!! These shows really serve my own heart in a massive way. I am physically exhausted when they are over but deeply energized and stimulated by so much wonderful contact with amazing people. Thank you for considering coming to Jackson to see me. I can’t wait to see you.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: jewelry

Vignettes

January 11, 2020 by The Noisy Plume

In the kitchen, beside the medicine I take each and every morning, beside the jumble of elk ivories, beside the bamboo whisk, beside a tube of lip balm, beside the stray button that fell from my red moleskin shirt, beside the obsidian arrowhead I found in the garden dirt is the big question I ask myself each morning:

“What good shall I do this day?”

It snowed in the night and the world is luminous and fresh. The scent of damp sage laps at the front door like water on the edge of a high country lake and before I do anything at all, I will go outside and breathe in the damp and fog and winter and make tracks like one more animal in the snow. The hawks are hunting from the fenceposts, the cats look annoyed by their paws (which won’t stay clean), the horses are eating the sunshine we cut and baled for them in the summertime and the dogs are anxious to blow off steam. Down on the river, I know the rapids are making their thunder, scrubbing lava stone smooth, and in the eddies and pockets of flat water there are geese, ducks, and swans taking their rest in the glow of daybreak.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: winter

Mark Your Calendar

December 30, 2019 by The Noisy Plume

I’m delighted to announce I will be slinging my wares on February 22nd at Sing Hat Company in Jackson, Wyoming. It will be a great time to shop with me in person and have Christy measure your head for a custom hat! I hope you’ll join us if you are able.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: jewelry

Big Enough

December 30, 2019 by The Noisy Plume

I used to define productivity differently. My definition had everything to do with the sum of objects I was able to create in the studio and my self worth was tied directly to that sum. When life circumstances kept me from my studio I suffered from a sort of neurotic frustration that was unpleasant to my own body and soul and mind and I’m sure absolutely repugnant to friends and family. This is not to say I created from a place of anguish. On the contrary, working was my bliss, but the sort of bliss that stems from addiction and obsession. Can art be addiction? Can creative work become obsession? I think so. I think anything can turn into an addiction, a substance we use to fill a void, and all human souls are equipped with holes that need filling.

Over the 14 years I’ve spent as a fulltime silversmith, something has changed and evolved and grown and lived and died and been reclaimed and redeemed and reborn in me so that I cannot say I continue to define productivity as the sum of jewelry I am able to create in a day, a week, a month or a year. I no longer choose my studio and my work over all other things. Instead, my productivity is determined by the sum and quality of my living — by the totality of my life. I strive to practice a fully integrated life wherein my work is my play is my food is my faith and one of those things cannot be separated from the others. In practicing this lifestyle, I have found that gardening for 8 hours is productive. Spending a couple months to hunt for my food alongside my husband and bird dogs is productive. Spending five uninterrupted days in my studio is productive. Taking a morning to read and meditate and practice stillness and worship and thanksgiving is productive. Taking care of my relationships is productive. Riding my horses is productive. When I live my life in fullness with joy and conviction the jewelry I create is filled with richness and meaning and at the end of the day, at the end of all the days, I find all of this is enough.

I wonder if I have reached a point wherein I am big enough? I used to believe that if I wasn’t constantly growing the small business side of my work, if I wasn’t growing exponentially in that regard, finding ways to do things faster and cleaner with less effort, hiring agents, seeking out assistants and hiring packing and shipping minions…that I wasn’t working hard enough or that I had plateaued…and we are told so often by society that to plateau in small business is death — if we aren’t growing, we’re dying.

What if I’ve reached a point wherein my creative work sustains me and my little family comfortably and it’s simply enough? Not only is it enough, but what I am able to create in my studio is woven within the tapestry of the sum of my living. There with my food, my family, my farm, my faith, my play, my work, is a glimmer of silver and stone and the music of hammers singing and files rasping and all of it, all of it, is this beautiful life of mine. If I become bigger than this, I fear I will sacrifice all of my living for my work, and my work will lose the truth of my touch, the fingerprint of my life will fade upon the surfaces of these things I create. I’m scared to get bigger. I’m scared to sacrifice the other aspects of my life for an endless quest that has no finish line. I’m not afraid to work hard, but I often wonder if this is big enough. My life is nothing without the work and my work is nothing without my life. Maybe this is called balance or something else entirely? Grace? All I know is I feel free to linger by these flames, with a good horse, in the cold wind, in the sea of sage.