Oh, What A Month!

October, one of my favorite months of the year...most years, that is. My last post was on the first day of the month, and I've not had a chance to blog since. I've barely even had time to catch my breath!

Last  weekend's art festival in Brookhaven was my third in a row. And the last one was in Arizona, which meant I spent five days away for a two-day art show. Travel, set up, show, show, travel...sometimes that's how it works. And then I got sick, so I kind of lost two and a half days this week. Great timing...but I suppose not really surprising.

I'm at Chastain in two weeks, and I could use a little regrouping time...which I have a bit of this week and next, and I'm making the most of it.   :)

In the meantime, I managed to make this:

Gorgeous, no? I love it. But I didn't get to enjoy it long...it has already gone to a good home.  :)

I made a few other goodies too, that I'll show you shortly. And I had a bit of an epiphany at my last festival, in Sedona. If you've never been to Arizona, and you expect it to be all palm trees, cactus, and dry desert, you'd only be partially right. The Northern part of the state has mountains, forests, and skiing. Yep, that's right - Northern Arizona looks a lot like parts of Colorado, Montana, etc. As shown:

Anyhoo, Sedona has these gorgeous red rocks and a very southwestern flavor. It reminds me a lot of Santa Fe. There's the usual tourist-y stuff, but there's also a lot of Native American and southwestern jewelry on nearly everyone who lives there. I saw everything from fetish necklaces to squash blossom necklaces  to stunningly beautiful NA rings, belt buckles, bracelets...and the Sedona folks like their jewelry on the large side. 

Living in the southeast for so long, I'd kind of gotten used to the standard style here. Southern ladies like their jewelry dainty and feminine, as a rule. But southwestern women are quite comfortable wearing jewelry that could almost be considered unisex. I loved it! And it made ME want to design bigger, bolder jewelry. It's funny - I wear big jewelry. And many times, I feel that the jewelry I create is too small for my OWN taste...but I think that's going to be changing.  :)

Good Times

How fortunate can one girl get? Don't hate...it's been a long time coming. But I am loving, if not everything in my life, most of my career right now. It's not all smooth sailing - jewelry design is hard! - but I am really trying to squeeze the most FUN out of it all that I can.  :)

So we know (because I've told you, right? Somewhere along the line, the peeps who know me know that color makes me HAPPY). And I *know* I've told you relentlessly how much I love turquoise. So I guess it's no surprise that three of my early pieces in the mosaic line have turquoise as a focal point...

I've shown you this one, which sadly has been lost.  :(  I'm trying not to be too broken up about it, but I do not think it will return to me and so I'm working on some others. I have so many ideas for this collection! But as I've mentioned, the original designs are very labor-intenstive and there's only one of me. So they're coming out a little more slowly than I'd like.

However...I did finish this one late last week:

Hel-lo, gorgeous! This stunning stone has everything I like in a turquoise: the soft, western-sky blue, the slight brown and green matrix (a bit more iron than copper adding to its coloring), and...well, okay,  I *don't* love square / rectangular shapes all the time. But I do love this one. It was a bit of a challenge because my design preferences tend toward round and curvy shapes, but I am really thrilled with how it turned out.

I was originally going to go all out on this and surround it with mosaics like the piece above, but when I laid out more pieces it started to look a bit overwhelmed. And this is a pretty big stone, with a fair bit of sheet backing, and it would have gotten rather heavy. So I decided to just frame the opposing corners instead. I think it's *just* enough.

Plus there's a bonus:

I can't believe I spent most of the year *not* sawing out windows in the backs of my pendants. Because I'm really loving the effect. I've mentioned before that not all stones are suitable for this, but on the ones that are, I really feel like it's a little extra treat.  :)

* Don't think I've forgotten that I said "three" of my early pieces in this line...the third isn't finished yet. But I'll show it to you when it is. :)