Breathe Scent Box (2011)
Copper, fine silver, sterling silver
Constructed, coiled, woven, cold-joined
H: 2.0 cm x W: 2.6 cm x D: 2.96 cm

Alright… I’m back… sort of…

I got hit with a perfect storm of personal and professional chaos in May, and my weekly postings to YOJ were the casualty. *sigh*

This piece, created for the upcoming HSTA Faculty Exhibition, is the only wire my hands have touched in the last month. It’s one of those pieces that has had to lend itself to being picked up and put down frequently while I deal with other pressures.

This year’s theme is “Breathe”. Years ago, during a conversation with a friend about being overworked and looking forward to a time when we’d be able to come up for air, I deadpanned “Breathing is overrated,” and then quipped about how that would make a really good epitaph for my headstone. The comment laid us both completely flat with laughter.

She reminded me of the conversation a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about all the “stuff” going on in our lives. This time she made the observation that it just seems to be part of my nature to throw myself into lots of projects at the same time. It’s true. I thrive on deadlines. However I’ve noticed a change in the last year or so in how I’m reacting: I seem to have developed insomnia. I regularly wake up after only a few hours of sleep, unable to shut off my brain, which spins with thoughts of all the things I need to get done.

I’ve come to realize that I do, in fact, need to breathe and relax.

This insight was reinforced as I was transcribing an interview I did with Dee Fontans, who teaches in the Jewellery Metals Program at Alberta College of Art & Design. We talked about the need to find balance between work and play, about re-energizing and feeding the muse. It’s something she struggles with as much as anyone else. ¹

So, I’ve recently started making a more conscientious effort to slow down, go for bike rides, and take notice of Spring. And breathe.

With the lilac and lavender in my front yard coming into bloom, giving off a wonderful perfume, my thoughts focused on how to carry that scent with me. I continue to be obsessed with containers, so I decided I would make a little box for holding a sachet of herbs or perfumed salts. Lavender, in particular, is supposed to be good for helping with relaxation and sleep.

One thing I wanted to experiment with was patterning. Years ago when I visited the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, I was really impressed with the patterns the inhabitants carved and painted onto their pottery. Likewise, I was struck by the patterning on the First Nations baskets I saw in BC. I was able to incorporate a triangular pattern on the rim of the bottom half through a structural change in the coiling of the basket. Because I knew it was going to spin while being worn, I also added decorative elements on the base and top. So there’s lots going on.

Of course, now that this piece is done, I have ideas for a half dozen other pieces, but those will have to wait.

I still have to catch my breath.

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The Haliburton School of The Arts Faculty Exhibition 2011 will take place from July 2 to August 5, 2011 at the Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre, 23 York St., Haliburton, Ontario. Faculty will participate in a weekly meet & greet at the gallery on Tuesdays from 4:30-6:00 p.m.
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Continuing on from last week, since I made several of the Monkey’s Fist knots, I made another pair of earrings!

I’ve been doing some experimenting with photography lately, putting my pieces on a white background instead of the medium gray.  I’m looking for ways to make the images “pop” more – in my recent work I’ve been using a lot of stones that have the same value as the background, and it makes the jewellery look dull.  “Value” in colour terms refers to how light or dark it is.  (To see check the value of your stone, stare at the photo with squinted eyes – if the stone disappears it has the same value as the background.)  In order for a photo to have visual interest, it has to be either lighter or darker than the background, otherwise the eyes see what’s there, but the brain registers “ho hum”.

It’s a bit more work to deal with a white background – inevitably, and even though I have a white balance setting on my camera – the raw photo comes out slightly grey.  Photoshop can adjust the balance it easily, but then I usually still have to do some extra clean up.  It’s a bit tricky to lighten the background enough to get rid of “noise” but not so much that the jewellery bleaches out.

From a print perspective, (putting on my editor hat for a moment), getting photos with white background is a godsend for layout.  I can plunk them down anywhere on a page and build text around them.  Or I can crop and put several images close together – something that isn’t possible when the jewellery is shot on a grey or staged background.   There are no distractions – you look at the jewellery and nothing else.

While they work for print and web, white backgrounds do *not* work well for jury photos.  I had the opportunity to sit in on a jury for a show recently (something I highly recommend BTW, it’s very educational), and I noticed that the photos with white backgrounds were always very jarring.  Backgrounds with a value of medium to dark (but not black) and *absolutely no props* worked best for jury photos.  Prop shots work well for Etsy, but are distracting in jury.

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My life is all about choices:  if I choose to focus on one area of my life, another area gets sacrificed.  For the past few weeks, I’ve had to focus on some group endeavours, and so my work on YOJ projects ground to a halt.  I’m working towards finding balance, but haven’t found it just yet.

For this week’s project, my focus was on making bridal jewellery.  My thoughts were on “something blue” and “tying knots”.

The Monkey’s Fist is a classic macramé knot, usually used as a weight or ornament on the end of a rope.  Tying them in rope is relatively easy.  When I learned it as a child, it was just a matter of sticking a marble between two fingers, and wrapping the rope around the marble and fingers, then around the marble through fingers and then through the loops created by the fingers.  Then the loops were pulled tight.

In wire, the stiffness of the metal, and its tendency to kink makes tying challenging.  There is also the issue of trying to get the proportions right:  thinner gauge wire is more flexible to tie, but the knot becomes very small and fiddly.  I found it impossible to tie wire around a bead without it slipping all over the place.  Pulling the loops tight at the end was also a non-starter, so I had to make the initial wraps as close to round as possible – challenging since without a bead in the centre, the tendency is to wrap ovals.  I ended up creating an invent-a-tool to help.

It took a bit of practice to get consistent results (doesn’t everything?), but I did end up with a satisfying “knot”. To get the “blue” part of the earrings, I decided on adding some pale 2 mm iolites. I would love to try these in a larger gauge of wire, but I think that would really only be possible with fine silver.  Sterling just gets too stiff too fast.

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I was sitting at my computer on Tuesday night, minding my own business,  when inspiration struck!  It was one of those “bolt out of the blue” ideas that forced me to get up right then, get my pliers & wire and start bending.

*Contented sigh*

I love it when that happens.

This design fulfills a long-standing desire of mine to create a pair of earrings with interchangeable bits.  The pearl drops can be removed and replaced by other drops, or can be left off altogether.  The result is a very versatile earring that can be worn with everything – from dressy to casual.

The sleek styling makes this an elegant earring for a wedding:  With the pearl, it can be worn by the bride, or without, by her bridesmaids.

These earrings are available from my Etsy Shop.

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I mentioned in my Week 6 post that I was making felted beads, and now I can share the results of that effort.  Initially I was going to pair the felted beads with the crochet beads just as I’d made them, in fine silver white.  Then it occurred to me that over time, the silver is going to tarnish, and the necklace will be difficult to clean without taking it apart.

The solution was to add LOS to the silver.

Liver of sulphur stinks to high heaven, but it creates such interesting effects, especially when a bit of salt is added into the solution!  I love how the colours change, and in this case, how they became mottled in the purple-blue range.

A friend of mine asked me to produce a bunch of pieces for her to use in the fall for a fashion show, so this is going to be one of the things I send her.  It’s not my typical style, but it will work well with the clothing being shown.

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I love the quartz family of stones.  They’re durable and affordable, which makes them great for everyday jewellery. They come in a wide variety of colours, which makes them really versatile.

Since I’m still trying to catch up, I decided to go rummaging through my components box and pull together some bits to make this pair of earrings.  Earlier in the year I took apart a bunch of old jewellery that hadn’t sold.  I saved the pieces, because they were well made, and, quite frankly, if I can save a few minutes by using a recycled pair of earwires rather than making up new ones, why not?

Anyways, the celtic spiral I used here was once part of a bracelet.  Now they make a nice pair of earrings.

The other day, while commiserating with my friend Margaret about our work loads and not seeming to be able to stop to catch a breath, she quoted back to me a comment that I’d deadpanned into one of our conversations once:

“Breathing is just sooo overrated…”

This week, I told her that I think that would make a perfect epitaph for my headstone.  That laid both of us flat with laughter.

I shouldn’t complain, because it’s self-inflicted:  I’ve taken on too many projects to try to deal with at once.  As a result, I’m struggling to do anything as effectively as I’d like.  My DH is currently working a rotating shift schedule, 4 – 12 hour days then 4 – 12 nights, which is also wreaking havoc on my regular routine.

As a result, I’m off the rails on the YOJ project.  I so want to be producing quality work, but I seem to only have time for the barest minimum, and even that seems mediocre!

In an effort to catch up, I’m going to just put together a couple of very quick pieces.  I found these little crochet balls while cleaning up the studio a week or two ago.  I made them several years ago, but the project they were intended for didn’t really work out.  I applied LOS to some of the balls, and they are being used in the project that will be posted next.  These two were left over, so I put them together to make a little pendant.

Beaducation has made a bunch of its videos available for free, and last week, while I was pondering my next YOJ project, I watched the felted bead video to refresh my memory on how to do it.  I’ve now made 3 1/2 dozen beads of inconsistent size and nearly rubbed off the skin on my palms… LOL

Felted bead-making is one of those processes that allows your mind to wander, and so I was thinking about the Marquise Series and where I could go next with it.  In the video, Gail Crosman Moore talks about making a lozenge-shaped bead, and it occurred to me that I could combine those beads with marquise elements.  So I spent the next couple of hours constructing various types of marquise elements I thought could work.  Rather than string the elements from point to point, I wanted to turn them on their sides.

What I’ve ended up with initially is a step pendant.  This design needs a bit of tweaking, because the wire looks very light weight.  In its present form, this element will be overwhelmed if combined with felted lozenges.

I have an idea on how to deal with this issue, and that will be the next project.  I’m glad to have broken through the creative block I had a couple of weeks ago though…

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I’ve fallen behind with my YOJ postings due to a bout of creative block.  I keep picking up the wire and the pliers in an effort to make something, and end up with nothing but frustration and a pile of scrap.  Earlier this week I joked on Twitter that I was tempted to solve the problem by piling up my scrap, adding fire and Presto! A brooch!

One of my Job Jar jobs this week was to “Organize beads and materials in the studio”.  Translated, that means “Clean up the mess!”  So I started sorting through a drawer where I’d dumped a bunch of finished and half finished pieces.  Some went into a “for packaging” box, some into a “for salvage” box, and some went into the scrap bin.

Amongst the half finished pieces were a bunch of crochet balls I’d made two years ago.  I thought it might be interesting to set one as a bead in a ring.  Since I was just experimenting, I didn’t want to use silver, so I hauled out the copper wire to make the ring shank.

Once the bead was mounted, it occurred to me that it looked a lot like the little puff ball in “Horton Hears A Who” by Dr. Seuss.  So, I added a little garnet bead to represent the Who’s world.

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This week I decided to go back to and adapt the project I made at the beginning of this Year of Jewelry.  I wanted to explore it a bit more. The idea was to create a “string” of marquise shapes.  The result was a pendant and this pair of earrings.  They remind me a bit of palm fronds!

The most challenging part of the construction was getting each of the marquise shapes to end up on the same side, rather than having them alternate.  Made with hard wire, it had to be twisted very gently, because there was a high risk of snapping.  Getting the pattern to repeat in mirror image was also very tricky and took several tries.  (I have several pendants!  LOL)

I intended the earrings to be large and they are!  They make a very dramatic sweep from the earlobe to mid neck.

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