The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 67

Leafing Out

March 6, 2017 by The Noisy Plume

I just finished the first of a new ring batch. I always love the first ring of a series or a specific motif — it’s the one that I spend the most time on, working out kinks, figuring out how I want pieces formed or arranged or layered. For that reason, I always think the first completed piece of a broader series has the most energy to it…and if you think about it, it makes sense. Often, the metal has been struck more, touched more, filed more, pushed and pulled more, heated more, cooled more — generally worked over more in every aspect. I’ve written before about how I believe and know (it’s scientific) that we imbue our very heartbeats into the molecular structures (man made and naturally occuring) that surround us every single moment we are alive so that we leave a kind of impression on an atomic level long after we are dead and gone and turning into mountains and wildflowers.

So you see, it’s always the first piece of a few that holds the most of me. There’s kind of something beautiful about that.

This specific ring is built of sterling silver, 23K gold and chrysoprase (this is one of my favorite stone and metal combos). Totally luminous, fresh and dimensional.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: jewelry

March 3, 2017 by The Noisy Plume

I place my very soul

as if coin by coin

into the land

the wind

the fire of the sun descending.

The only way I can see to grow is to

throw my roots down deep into the loam

align my fate with the fate of the deer

elk

and sage hen.

I hope I leave my own trail of treasures

a tuft of fur on barbed wire

a lost flight feather gripped by the bitterbrush

the glow of my eyes in a pair of headlights.

I left pavement years ago

preferring the meandering hare trails

the prowling habits the coyotes press (step by step) into the river bank in the early evening light

the wide open arms of this hard territory.

My song turns orchestral, a blend of

bug wings humming

dying rabbit

meadowlark

shedding snake skin

sleet on spring creek

howl

and the rock off the point at echo canyon that giggles like a baby in the river current.

I feel the basalt bite at my boot soles

I squint against the light of the bunch grass glowing

we head further in

carried like seeds

on a wind of change.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2017/03/03/12659/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: idaho

Grand Finale

February 28, 2017 by The Noisy Plume

This is the final batch of my Come Home Necklaces in sterling and lapis lazuli — they’ll be in the shop this evening at 7PM (mountain time zone). Thanks to everyone who claimed an iteration of this motif over the past two years, you made this design a wild success and I’ll retire it with gladness in my heart knowing so many of you are out there enjoying it.

As an extra thanks, I am giving away one of these necklaces over on my Instagram account if you’d like to enter your name in the drawing for it, please proceed to that space.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: jewelry

My New Little Sanctuary

February 28, 2017 by The Noisy Plume

I’ve been slowly and deliciously chewing my way through Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances (which is a splurge brand new so look for it used). It is one of the most beautiful art books I’ve ever handled, and full of snippets of wisdom and truth, and once you read her thoughts and letters and the things others wrote about her you can fully appreciate what she was trying to do with her paintings and they become unquestionably beautiful. She wrote a lot about how the artist must create a sanctuary to create in and that once in her creative sanctuary, she must not be disturbed lest she suffer murdered inspirations. She didn’t even allow herself a dog or a cat while living remotely in New Mexico. She cloistered herself away in order to create without interruptions, to keep her inspiration as pure as possible.

While I do have some hermit-y tendencies, I do not mind the occasional studio interruption (especially if it is fur bearing). And of course, there’s my trail run every day around 2:30pm, wherein I interrupt myself and which I daydream about as I work, looking forward to the wind and the sky all around me.

I am trying to keep this new studio as spare as possible. I like the texture of the room, the volcanic stone work, the quiet paint color of the upper walls and the light is amazing — the wall behind my benches in this photo is the only complete wall in the space. The room has light pouring in from two directions of windowed walls and a third wall bears big French doors that lead into the dining room. I have worked out of 8 different studios in the past 9 years and this is by far my most favorite space yet.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: studio

February 27, 2017 by The Noisy Plume

[Here comes the cavalry!]

We had friends come to dinner last night. I was so excited to see them. I feel we’ve been in renovation exile here! After they left I started thinking about our main group of Idaho friends. We first met these guys nine years ago when Rob was on a hotshot crew with them in Pocatello. I think it’s safe to say this crew of boys will always been our life and to our great delight, one by one they started getting married and we love the ladies they’ve brought into our posse, too.

When we lived in Pocatello, we were social instigators. We loved to throw big dinner parties with loads of food and delicious drinks and copious amounts of dessert and after dinner tea. We would have gladly gone bankrupt just to host our friends in our home and feed them — it was such a great time and it’s something we still love to do, whenever we can. To have two of those lifetime pals pop by for dinner last night gave our new little home such a great feeling of love and friendship. We took them for a before-dinner walk out on the land and laughed aloud as all the dogs careened through the sagebrush, up and down the riverbank. We’re now entering into recruitment mode wherein we try our best to convince all of these beloved pals of ours to buy property near to where the farm is located. We need them all close by once more, just a telephone call away from joining us for a dinner party. Wish us luck.

With that said, before our friends arrived with their dogs, Rob spent most of yesterday working on a batch of ossobuco with elk*** and some of my freezer-fresh garden tomatoes from last summer. We took the recipe from Rohan’s cookbook Whole Larder Love — a cookbook after my own heart. It’s so beautiful to read through and since it was created by a kindred, I can’t help but to respond to the imagery and the ideas captured on the pages. Actually, if I were to create my own grow/gather/hunt cookbook it would be a lot like this one, except there would be more working dog photos. By the way, if you haven’t heard of Rohan, I do recommend his blog as well as his Instagram feed. He’s talks about important stuff. All the time. And I admire his photography very much.

Anyway, Rob whipped up this amazing elk ossobuco bedded on polenta and a chocolate cake to go with and we all ate ourselves silly and then sat and talked with tea and a bottle of lovely, extra dry riesling until Laura and Jeff forced themselves to leave for home. I wish they could have stayed the night but I shouldn’t get greedy about these things.

To our delight, what we had imagined this home could be when friends and family come to visit became an apparent and beautiful reality last night. We had a cozy fire in the living room fireplace, both kitchen bar tops were handy food prep spaces, no matter where we were working in the kitchen we had a solid view of our guests and a comfortable conversation distances, our dining room table was a pleasure to linger at, our sofas fat and plush. In short, we are so glad we made this home what we imagined it could be. I have absolutely no regrets regarding how long our renovations took or the struggles that came with doing those renovations during what has been a hard, hard winter for this part of Idaho — even now, as I type, it’s snowing steadily outside and I’ll probably need to shovel the walkway to get out to the truck when I drive to the post office at noon.

I have the studio warming up and am looking forward to creating for most of the day. Have a lovely Monday. Make it beautiful.

***Rob had a successful (hail mary) elk hunt this year. He shot a cow over in the Hell’s Canyon region of Idaho in late November and packed it out in -22F weather. I am so deeply grateful to have this meat in our freezer this year. I thought it was going to be a skinny year for us, and we were so short on time for hunting and food getting and the snows have been so deep and treacherous for upland hunting — it’s been a difficult winter, a true winter, for all the critters, including us. I prayed hard for this elk of ours and even had middle of the night anxiety about our food stores and empty freezer (!!!) for a few weeks leading up to Rob’s success in the field. When Rob phoned me to tell me he had a cow down and was coming home I truly rejoiced.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2017/02/27/12629/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: feeding the soul, the farm