I hope you all had a really beautiful Thanksgiving with friends and family, celebrating the end of the harvest season here in the USA! That’s what Thanksgiving means to my little family and we spent the day up in McCall sharing a feast with friends (we supplied the home grown heritage turkey).

I’m back in the studio this week and will be working hard up until December 20th for you whereupon I will shut things down here until the new year as I celebrate the heart of the advent season with my family.

I am stocking my shop shelves on December 2 @ 4PM MST for anyone interested in my most recent batch of work AND I will be pushing hard to keep my nose on the grindstone in order to do one more shop update for you in mid-December.

My December 2nd shop update will have a handful of my sagebrush necklaces, three versions of fern earrings and a batch of Silvery Doe earrings. You can get an idea of what these pieces look like in these images. This is all work that has been inspired by my time out on the steppe this fall, bird hunting, hiking, running, strolling my dogs in the sagebrush, soaking my boots while crossing spring creeks. Everything you see here is what I have been seeing while I’ve been afield. It’s a quiet collection imbued with a little bit of steppe country mystery, crafted with a lot of joy and love.

At long last! I captured my muse in sterling silver in a way that does it justice and I am so pleased with the results. I was going to wait to share this new series with the world because I find I like to spend some time alone with a manifested idea. I’ve been working on this series all summer and now that I have a few pieces completed I have wanted them to be a quiet little secret I keep to myself in order to enjoy the purity of the originality and creative power of this series before it goes out into the world. As soon as I show and share a new idea or a new series, it ceases to be my own somehow, which seems to be the nature of the art world and design world in this day and age. I have lots of thoughts on this topic lately but I’m going to save it for a different post!

These sagebrush necklaces are headed into my shop on October 11th @ 11AM MST with the rest of my current inventory.

I also have a huge batch of beaded necklaces for this shop update and among them are these bear claw necklaces which are loosely inspired by a bear claw necklace a Chippewyan woman made for my older sister when my family was stationed in Fort Chippewyan, up North in Canada. It wasn’t a dazzling piece of art. The woman simply drilled the bear claws and strung them intermittently with red wooden beads on fishing line. I don’t remember my sister ever actually wearing the necklace but I thought it was beautiful and I always coveted it. This is my version of that necklace featuring a big, growly sow flanked by claws that are actually cast hawk talons but they are size appropriate for this design. This is such a fun piece to wear. I’m really into bears this year. I want to see bears every time I go somewhere, and sometimes I do! They’re a beautiful reminder that something is still wild and existing (somewhat) outside of human control in this crazy world we’re living in. Long live the bears.

[Alpha Necklaces: Prudent Man Agate, Dendritic Agate, Deschutes Jasper, Rocky Butte Jasper in all sterling settings — this will be the last of the wolf pack for a while though I’m sure they’ll circle back around!]

Howdy darlin’s! 

I am stocking my shop shelves on October 11th @ 11AM MST — I was hoping to do this update on the 7th but I am having to bump it back by a few days due to a rickety rural wifi issue I’m having here.  I’m also supposed to be on my October sabbatical but I’m having to bump that back by a few days too. Maybe I’ll get to have it in January.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This shop update will include a heavenly host of necklaces (I think I’m sitting at 40 necklaces at the moment) and some earrings.  I have a batch of rings I’m working on but I’m not going to be able to finish them in time.  I’m also working on a beautiful new series that I’m not quite ready to debut…but almost.

Please make note of the shop update day and time.  I hope to see you there!

+OF THE WEST+

Luminous ametrine and sterling silver bound for my shop shelves within the hour!

[Someone recently emailed me and signed off by saying, “Love and bumblebees!” I liked that so much. So…]

LOVE AND BUMBLEBEES

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2021/08/24/16157/

I have forty necklaces bound for my shop shelves July 29 @ 10AM MST.

I love everything I’ve been making lately. It all feels so good on, which is a sign that I’m right on track with my work. I hate to part with any of it. But there are chickens to feed, irrigation water bills to pay, thirsty truck tanks and chili pepper flakes to import from New Mexico for Robbie. That said, I am keeping that ruby wolf necklace with the carved flower aquamarine for myself. Eee! It’s more beautiful than I deserve!

I hope to see you tomorrow morning.

Thank you so much for considering my work.

+OF THE WEST+