A Little Jewelry Education

When I'm exhibiing my jewelry at festivals, I tend to get a lot of questions about how the jewelry is made. So though I usually don't share Works In Progress, I snapped some quick iPhone photos while I was working on one of  my most recent designs.

Essentially, what I do is take raw metal materials - sheet, wire, and tubing - and "fabricate" them into jewelry:

Sheet:

source

Wire:

It comes in square shape already, but I hammer in every line of that texture.

Tubing:

source

The tubing, as you can see, comes in various diameters. I buy 12" tubes and then hand-cut the smaller tube sizes I need from that. 

So that's the raw materials. But how do they become a finished piece of jewelry? 

For me, since I design primarly with gems, the sort of "prequel" to beginning to make a piece of jewelry is pulling stones from my stash, comparing colors and shapes until I'm happy with what's in my hands.

After choosing gems, what happens first is a sketch. Well...sometimes. My sketches are mostly rough ideas to build upon, not detailed jewelry renderings. I've found that I'm more comfortable working in the metal itself, rather than making a sketch and transferring that idea to metal. But for more complex designs, like the one I'm using to illustrate today's post, sketching does help to gauge "what's going to go where", and "Do I really want a 3 inch doodad which might not be structurally sound, or would it work better at 1.5 inches?". It's helpful to answer these questions sooner, rather than later. :)

Once (if) the sketching is done, it's time to make bezels and back plates for the gems. I can't solder anything together until the gems have their metal homes first. I detailed the process of bezeling and back plate-ing here if you want to read more about that. Once that part is done, I start shaping and refining the embellisments.*

*Anything that's additional to the basic metal fabrication is commonly called embellishments. I could simply set the gems in a bezel and add a bail, and that would be an un-embellished pendant. Most metalsmiths, however, like to play. So we add all manner of layers and doodads and geegaws and granules...those are the embellishments.  :)

In the above photo, there are no backs to the bezels around the gems, and the embellishments have not been soldered in place. This is the beginning of desiging. I cut and shape the wire embellishements and start laying them out on the tape until they look right. 

I shape freehand, working along a somewhat meandering path to what appeals to my eye. I like what I call balanced asymmetry. For this design, that means that the two triangular bezels in the upper corners of the necklace are close, but not quite the same distance from the center bezel, and that the triangles are not both facing the same direction (one is point up; the other, point down). 

Now the wires are soldered, and two of the hinges are done. The necklace is taped to a neckform for me to check how it will lay on the body. 

Above (in this terribly blurry phone shot) are the small tubes I have cut from the 12" length to make the hinge joins. And the jump rings (which I also make by hand): 

that join the hinges together, as seen below:

In the above photo, you can see one of the "arms" of the handmade chain on this design. 

These are some of the arms. They're soldered together, and the tiny tubing is attached, but they're not added to the body of the design yet. But they're going to go up the neck, on the sides of the centerpiece, and lead to some additional handmade chain in the back. 

And *that* extra chain is all hand fabbed too. I take a slightly thinner wire and make ovals out of it, by first coiling it on a mandrel. With round wire you can just coil to your heart's content, but square wire can very easily get "off the square" and twist where you don't want it to. So it's a little slower process to carefully coil square wire:

Then the rings get sawn off, one by one, I've sawn a bunch loose already:

Loose rings sawn from the coil:

Next the open ends will be soldered, and then they'll be textured:

The one on the left has been textured; the ones on the right are soldered but not yet textured.

They then get soldered together, with another jump ring, to form this:

at the back of the necklace. 

Here's a process shot of those loose arms, all soldered together and getting their tiny ball embellishments:

Painter's tape, as you can see, is an invaluable tool in the jewelry studio. I use it constantly to temporarly keep things in place before they're physically joined. 

And now the whole neckpiece is done. Well... done with the fabrication and soldering, that is. Which doesn't mean that it's *finished*. There's a whole lot of clean up to do, which will remove any excess solder that went where I didn't want it to go, and then several steps of polishing the metal to get that soul-satisfying, deep shine. And then the gems need to be set. Probably at least a day's work (if not more) still...so no full-on shots yet...but I promise to show you once it's ready for viewing. :) 

Ev-Uh-Loo-Shuh-N

Several months since I've shared here...several tumultuous, roller-coaster-of-emotions, crazy-train-riding months.

And I don't even want to discuss them...the details still hurt. I will tell you that there's been a big, and unexpected, betrayal of sorts (emotionally at least). Promises made and not kept. Professionally, my skills and abilities derided. A dismissal. Heartbreak.

It sounds so dramatic...and some of it has been. I try to live a very no-drama life, striving to enjoy the moments, both large and small, that life presents: sunshine stealing across the bed in the mornings, the absolute silence of the neighborhood and house in the middle of the night, the temperature dropping several degrees as fall approaches (or rising a good bit as summer arrives). A new pair of shoes for my birthday. Unexpected moments of bliss.

The disruption of the life I strive to create, the atmosphere in my home, the surroundings in which I design, has been difficult. Interestingly though, I think it has fostered a bit of growth, an evolution (or at least expansion) of what I'm creating. Which didn't happen all in the last few months, of course. Often it's only by looking back in the distance that we can see the changes more clearly.

In April 2013, I started with this:

A simple design, born of my desire for three things:

1. to allow the beautiful, colorful gems I love to be the focal point of my designs.

2. to practice my side-by-side soldering skills, which sorely needed work

3. to Keep It Simple, both a design and a life mantra for me

The pendants above sold immediately, as did several others in the same style.

It could have been the turquoises. I'm well aware that some of my customers buy these creations because of the gems. Which is totally fine - that's part of my own love, and what I enjoy buying and using in my designs. But since I started this collection, I've had comments and compliments on the metal work, too...which as you can see by the photos above, wasn't exactly complex. That doesn't mean it's easy, because it's not. But it wasn't crazy, bold, or grand.

What I wanted, originally, and what my skills could accommodate at the time, was gem-focused items with some metal detail. I didn't want to just have plain cabs with a bezel around them. I wanted more. This was my solution.

But always, while I am designing, I am thinking about, "What else? What's next? How would I...? and What if?" It's a striving, a curiosity that never ceases.

The next step in the evolution was to make the metalwork more complex:

From last fall. More joins, more wires to shape, more playing with asymmetry and balance...

and then to this summer:

Pure Heart Necklace  and Waterways Necklace

Adding more gems, still playing with balance (I'm always playing with balance. My love of asymmetry can get carried away if I let it). :)

and then, to this:

Dare to Imagine

Oh yeah. Taking a big ol' hunka hunka gem and embellishing all the way around it...and then adding embellishments as stand-alone design flourishes, to build a handmade chain. NOW we're talking.

Also, I think I may be moving out of the "keep it simple" realm. ~wry smile~  It's still a part of how I approach design, but sometimes it's apparently good to kick it up a notch. Or three. :)

I can't tell you how happy the above neckpiece(s) make me. It feels GOOD. And despite all the other turmoil that's been in my life, every day I can't wait to get to the studio and see what's going to happen next...I think next year is going to be an earth-shattering year...

Be well, all y'all. Enjoy the change(s) in seasons. Stretch, strive, be as drama-free as you possibly can. And when you can't, be good to yourself. Work on healing...work on happy.

- Jill 

Breathe. Breathe...BREATHE!!

The last "breathe" is more like, "Breathe, dammit!" which sort of ruins the ohm-ness of the mantra. Breathing (and meditating, and being all Zen) is NOT part of the routine lately. I'm leaving tomorrow for a big drive to Indianapolis, for the Broad Ripple Art Fair. It's a two day show but I'll be gone for five (drive day, setup day, show days, drive day) and then just a few days later I'll be at the Decatur Arts Festival here in Georgia. Not a lot of downtime lurking in my near future...

HOWEVER. And yes, that's in all caps because I'm quite pleased that today, the day before I leave for my next festival, I am making *no* jewelry whatsoever. Oh, I'm photographing, writing listings, posting new items on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest as fast as I can...but I'm not making. And that in itself is a huge accomplishment. Especially when - in the midst of building up inventory of my current designs, I took a two-day window to work on some new designs:

Like these turquoises...

You may want to sit back now (or alternatively *come* back, as I'm going to tell a story...) because here's how the magic sometimes works:

I had these circles. From...2008-ish? Anyway. I was learning fabrication. And I'd made a bunch of these circles, in various sizes. And I - God knows why - decided I wanted to cast them. Well, I do know why. Making these circles was HARD. (now is the point at which the seasoned metall-ers will bust a gut laughing, because making circles is pretty much one of the EASIEST things to do). But I was a remedial fabricator, and it wasn't easy then. So I had them cast. And I used them in a bunch of designs. I oxidized them, hung them on leather, added beads to them, soldered some of them together...you name it, I did it with these. And they sold moderately well....but I had a fair amount left over from the caster once I'd moved on with newer designs.

So they have sat around the studio for a while, and last week I got a wild hair and fabricated gem settings for them. I'd been thinking about doing *something*with them for some time, but the what was eluding me. I'd ALSO bought all these organic, funky-shaped cabs...(also a while ago) which I wasn't using, because I tend to like more symmetrically cut gems. So I started pulling out cabs from my stash, but the symmetrical cuts didn't look right with these circles...but oh, the funky ones DID. I laid out about twenty pieces and started making the back plates and bezels. Then I realized that I wouldn't get twenty done - and still get all the other work done I needed to before heading to Indy - and I stopped at ten. Just enough to make a nice showing in the festival booth.

Peruvian opals.

I wanted to keep these designs simple and very modern, using asymmetry and negative space for impact, heightening the contrast of the gems' smooth texture against the rustic circles. They came together quickly and were great fun to work on, almost like a breath (see what I did there) of fresh air. I've been trying for so long to learn to do more, and more, and more, make the jewelry more complex, more difficult to make...and these were just easy to play with. Sometimes you don't even know that you have what you need, but when you find it, and you put it all together...magic.

Now, of course, I want to make more...and I'm starting to feel like my whole creative mojo (which was kind of dormant for most of this spring) is coming back in a BIG way. Yahoooo!

But first...back to pricing, uploading, and packing up the jewelry. And packing up the truck for the drive. And packing up me and all my show needs....and maybe having a moment to BREATHE. I guess that's what I'll be doing on the eight hour drive tomorrow.  :)

Work Hard...Work Hard

I think somewhere along the way I've forgotten the "Play hard" part of that phrase. I have been working hard this week...but my energy is low and my body is fighting me. No surprise, really, after the hell-bent-for-leather show prep and then the load car / drive seven hours / unload car / set up booth / stand on asphalt for two fourteen-hour days / break down booth / load car / drive seven hours / unload car that was my schedule from Friday through Monday. I can't imagine why my body would be a little worn out!

And I was looking forward to a little break, but after coming home and looking at the inventory I have left, there's not enough to give to either of my galleries right now. And there's not a good cohesiveness to give to either one of my galleries right now. So, I am working as fast as I can to make new inventory and have it all ready by the November 14th and THEN maybe I can work at something less than hurricane pace. Although I have several custom orders to do to...for which I'm very grateful, no doubt about it, but WHERE is the downtime??

Here are the stones I'm making settings for this week:

From top to bottom: turquoise, larimar, kingman turquoise, larimar, peruvian opal (2 pairs)

And these:

From top to bottom: Royston turquoise, laguna lace agate, labradorite, larimar, labradorite x2, kingman turquiose, eudyialite, dendritic opal.

Whew!

The bezels are all made and I have to do the embellishments...which I'm about to get started on. I'm not feeling like it at the moment, but usually once I've gotten two pieces done I'll be in the groove. I don't think they'll all get done today but I'm hoping to have half today and half Monday, then I can clean up and set the gems...and hopefully by the end of the week I will have a decent amount of items to give to both galleries for the holiday season. THEN I can work on my next looming deadline...

What happened to Friday, you ask? I'm actually taking  a much-needed day off with my husband. Even the "work hard, work hard" girl needs a break once in a while.  :)

Fabrication Details

I have had some questions about how I make the embellished gemstone designs, and I thought I'd share a little more about that process. I've shown you the steps to making a rimless bezel setting, here, but now I'll show you what happens once the bezel and back plate are soldered together.

Mostly I sketch a rough idea first, though a select few of these pieces actually come together all at once at the work table. The rough idea may or may not end up being part (or no part) of the final piece. I am a bit of a "punter" with this kind of work; I use estimates and guesses and fiddle around until things look good to my eye. I hate to measure, so unless I'm making earrings I don't measure anything.  :)

I start out with the bezel on a piece of painter's tape, and then I add in the pre-shaped pieces until I have a design I like:

The design laid out the way I want it. Nothing is soldered in place yet, they're all just loosely resting on the tape. At this point I will often snap a photo with my cell phone so I can reference the placement of the embellishments if necessary.

Sorry for the blurry-ness of these quick snaps. But you get the gist, I hope. Anyhoo, the only thing different above is that I've marked up several areas with a Sharpie. Kind of hard to see but the blue spots (including the blue areas inside the bezel itself - mostly running down along the left side of the pendant (your left as you look at the photo) are guidelines for where I"ll place the solder. Otherwise once I remove the separate pieces I will have no clue where exactly the solder should go.

Wire embellishments have been soldered in place. If you look closely at the lower level "wing" on the right side of the photo, you'll see that some solder ended up on top of my texture. That will have to be removed in the cleanup process.

Balls are now also soldered in place. This is typically a pretty happy moment so I put in a smiley face. The only thing left is to solder the bail, and then I can move on to the clean up process.

I actually got excited about making this design and forgot to do a stone check once I'd soldered down the bezel, so I did it after the extras have been added. Fortunately it still fits! The dental floss is there to remove the stone, otherwise I'd have no easy way to get it back out and it's nowhere near ready to be set yet.

Bail's on! I cut a piece of tubing and soldered it on to the pendant. The chain will run through the bail and out the other side so the pendant slides freely.

Next is the cleanup process and then finally the stone can be set:

Voila! Now you know a little more about how the magic happens.  :)

Whirlwind Summer

It's the middle (actually a bit past that) of August and my summer is nearly over...and I don't have much to show for it. I was trying to figure out why I'm feeling behind on both work and personal things, and when I look back at the last three months, I actually had a total of 22 days that I worked (or partially worked) in the studio. 22 days out of a potential 55 (looking at June, July, and August).

Um...that's not a lot. It's also not enough.

Why so few working days? Here's a brief synopsis of what took up the rest of my time:

Festival, Festival/travel, Travel, Family Visit, Travel, Festival/Travel, Travel, Family Visit.

The in-between days were working days (I try to not work weekends, but with a schedule like that, I did work part of some), but not all in between days were work-able. Even a local festival usually requires a recovery day. Travel festivals require (sometimes, like my big drive to NM and back) a bit more than that. I had two travel festivals in that time frame (NM was a huge time suck), plus two family visits. My sister- and brother-in-law stayed with us for seven days. My mother was just here for six. Do you know how difficult it is to work FROM HOME when people are staying in your home?? Trust me on this. Visits are nice, but they're not...productive.

And then there was some personal travel thrown in too - four days in Arizona, for my father's memorial service / family time. Five days in San Francisco with my husband  (gotta get a vacation in somewhere!). A long weekend to Charleston for a bachelorette party.

What it all adds up to is my being behind...again. Or maybe I never really caught up. Fabricating designs from scratch requires a pretty long lead time. Design time can't really be rushed; it's like the customers *know* which designs you didn't put your heart and soul into...and they won't buy those.

Once the fabrication work is done, cleanup also takes a lot of time. Stone setting takes time. And it's all very physical labor, so I can't just hit it hard for three days in a row or my body will rebel. So there needs to be time, and kind of spaced out time, to create. Not to mention the whole rhythm of creating, which takes a little bit to get into and out of...every bit of travel or family visits disrupts that, and sometimes it's very hard to get back in the mindset.

So I am going to have to restructure for next year. I'm hoping to restructure for THIS year, but I'm already behind and suspect that it won't change too much in the last four months of 2013...I *am* looking at a potentially slower October and November, but things always come up - especially later into the holiday season. Last minute orders, short-window custom orders, weird things that happen...it's not typically a good quiet time for a retail jewelry business.

So next year is going to involve more planning. Some of that I won't be able to control, because of the show deadlines, the potential for acceptance / rejection, the physical ability I'm only in charge of part of the planning...and I have to account for the Fibromyalgia, which takes a wicked delight in being consistently inconsistent.

And yeah, I said "I can't hit it hard for three days in a row" but that's what I've been doing. And that means pain. Fibromyalgia flare ups. More delays because I push and push my body and it eventually pushes back...hard. However, necessity is the mother of...ah, screw that. Necessity is the mother of overworking. ~wry smile~

So here's what I did with my last two days of "hittin' it hard" before leaving town again:

Mmm-hmm. Bezels. And backs (which are all hammer textured, then the bezels are soldered to the backing, then the excess backing is filed away...*then* I get to start working on the embellishments. So for this week (two days of work!) I have 40 stones bezeled, and 21 of those have soldered backs, ready for the next step. It's all I could manage, and I suspect my left arm (hell, left side) is going to be complaining for the next two days or so...but the work has to get done sometime!

It's quite gratifying that the colorful stone pieces are steadily selling. Which is nice. I love to "have" to buy replacement stones.  :)  But I have to watch myself - I tend to get lost in making these and over-achieve, as it were. I'm actually supposed to be working on some new mosaic pieces. And there IS one in progress, and several sketches waiting, but I wasn't ready to tackle soldering on mosaics this week. They're finicky. They take a lot of patience to get them lined up right. And they drop on the floor - usually just when I've found the mostexactlyright piece - and are never found again. So I did bezels and backs instead.  :)

Next week I have a WHOLE week in the studio...can't wait!! And it will include working on some other artist-y pieces. Deadlines are quickly approaching and fall is on its way! Stay tuned...

I'm Like a Greyhound

...okay, not exactly. I'm not that lean, and I don't have the big, soulful eyes. And I am (hopefully!) slightly less neurotic. But it seems like all I do is run, run, run...I get why those dogs are tired.

Brett and I arrived home late Monday (later than expected, due to equipment problems on the plane), only to find that the air conditioning was out AGAIN. I'll spare you the details, but it pretty much goes out several times every summer. Long story short, we got it fixed yesterday around 5 p.m. Guess who works from home? Guess who spent two full days with no air?? It was a little uncomfortable, to say the least. I like working with a HOT TORCH much better in the winter.  :)

But I did manage to get several pieces to the clean up stage this week, and I'm pretty happy about that. Of the big grouping I started two weeks ago, I have fully finished four (plus one designer piece), I have seven partially done, and eight more to go.

It's going a little slower now because I'm doing earrings. And for every sale-able pair, I need to double the work of  making one pendant. Less efficient, but so much fun when they are finished.  :)

The above quick-n-dirty bench photo is of two pendants and a pair of earrings. I LOVE how the pendant in the upper right corner came out! You can't quite see the top details, but it went together exactly how I'd imagined. Which doesn't happen as often as you'd expect (or as I'd like).

The middle two are going to be biiiiiiiig earrings. Those bezels are built for these babies:

Mmmm...hiya, big guys. I can't wait to get them set and cleaned up.  :)


Then there's these:

Two more pendants, one for a Kingman (upper right) turquoise, small oval with cute little streamer-like embellishments, and one for a Morenci (lower left) turquoise with a sort of Asian feel to the top embellishments. And the two pairs of earrings are both chrysocolla. They're fairly small stones, so I wanted to do something a little more exciting than what I used to do last year:

All I did for every pair of earrings last year was add a jump ring. Woo! I was a beginner...and just adding that friggin' ring at the top was hard.  I file a flat spot on my jump ring attachments, so that they join better (more surface contact means a stronger join) and it took me so long to be able to file straight / flat. I swear, sometimes I think I must be the MOST remedial of learners when it comes to jewelry fabrication. But I've done it so often now that I don't even have to think about it.  :)

So my earring designs are advancing...thank goodness. I feel very comfortable with pendants for the most part, but getting creative with earrings (and not adding too much weight with the sterling or making them too oversized to wear) has been a challenge.

Next up...rings. It's a whole other scenario, with shanks and all that, but I think it's almost time to start playing with gemstone rings. I've been waiting to get my skills competent enough but I think rings are moving to the top of my 1,587,652,213 things on my list of "design and create".   :)

Knowing When to Quit

I'ts the end of a long week, in what has thus far been a long month, in a series of long months. I've been jumping around from festival to work bench like a crazy woman since early April. And I'm really starting to feel it.

I had yesterday "off", which meant that I spent 5 hours (!!) at the studio of another metalsmith, absorbing everything she was willing to show me / share with me. I didn't plan on staying that long, but it was utterly worthwhile. I still have so much to learn and am always grateful when other choose to take the time to help me grow.

Then I went to a gallery exhibit with friends...looked at art, looked at jewelry, went to dinner, got home around 11 p.m. That was my off day. As days off go, it wasn't bad...it just wasn't relaxing.

Today I got started kind of late at the work table; my energy was really gone. I cut five more back sheets, soldered bezels to them, got them filed, cleaned up, and ready for the embellishments to be added. I'm also working on a big designer neckpiece from nearly two weeks ago, a design that's given me nothing but fits since I started it. I'm trying to get it finished and cleaned up (and the stone set!) today because I am hoping to do a photo shoot this weekend (yes, also time "off")...but that may not happen. My "work hard, play hard" lifestyle is wearing me out. Either working too hard or playing too hard is going to be death of me!

So in what really turned out to be 2.5 days of actual fabrication time, I got 22 pieces started. That includes remaking one from two weeks ago that the top embellishment just fell off (!) after I set the stone, so I had to re-do it (this does happen; it's not just me), as well as remaking three bezels that I made earlier this week, because they ended up with some funny chip in the bezel, and all were un-fix-able (I tried). So I scrapped them and started over. So really, 25 bezel pieces.

I wonder why I'm tired.  :)

Here's a quick snap of everything but the big pain-in-the-ass necklace:

When I make this many, I mark them so I know who's who. I've got tons of turquoise, some jasper, chrysocolla, and...well, maybe that's it. But I want to keep in mind what stone goes in what bezel as I'm designing the embellishments for the piece.

I sat with my sketchbook for a while and drew out some preliminary embellishment ideas, but I think I just don't have it in me to make them up and solder them today. I'm too tired, and the embellishments need a lot of concentration or I'll just get frustrated / melt something / solder something in the wrong place and have to start over. So I'm making myself take a break and the plan is to tackle these Monday morning. Apparently one cannot be a high-functioning creative diva ALL the time.  :)

I'm leaving next Wednesday for Arizona (yep, traveling again), this time for my father's memorial service, and that's been on my mind a lot this week. I'm both looking forward to and dreading it. It will be good closure but it's not going to be fun...so I'm feeling kind of stressed about that this week too. Plus it means only a two-day workweek next week...I can see why I never seem to have enough time to accomplish everything I want to do!

So that's it for this week...I'm at home this weekend but it's a busy one and before it even gets started I've got a workout to do and a grocery store visit...haven't been to the store since mid-May, nearly a month ago. It's long past time to get some real food in this house.

Happy weekend! Hopefully I can show you some new goodies next week!

Loving Life

Which I shouldn't be...loving life, I mean. Money's tight. Art festivals are a tough (even tougher) job these days. I'm working hard and can't seem to get caught up on housework, paperwork, staying in touch with loved ones and friends...and yet. I am loving life.

It's been a long journey. How many times have I said that?? Especially here on the blog. But it has...it's been more work (and yet more rewarding) than I ever imagined. A good friend told me years ago, "You have to know the rules in order to know which ones you can break" and it's so true. I really wanted to skip ahead, stick my tongue out at the rules, and be a diva from the get-go. And it wasn't going to happen. Metal Diva...what I said to my husband when my first piece of many solder joins didn't fall apart...it was a joke then, and it's still a joke now. Only less so...metalworking is getting easier.  :)

I cam home Monday from a show in Michigan which didn't meet expectations. And normally I would have a few days' pity party. Long drive (11 hours each way), tough show, low ego. And usually I'd be hurting a lot (which I am, my Fibromyalgia doesn't like travel much). But I have so many plans and so many design ideas in my head that I don't want to wallow. I'd rather work through it. So I selected a bunch of stones for my next bezel-ing blitz:

The lighting is poor - it's a quick snap from the work table. But you can see all the turquoise...especially those Roystons, and the tiny chrysocollas, and a little bit of red creek jasper too. I think there are nearly 20 turquoise stones in the mix. And I haven't even gotten started on the Larimar...but one thing at a time.

I've learned that with fabrication and stone setting, my reach far exceeds my grasp. Every time I set a new goal for show inventory, I never get it all finished. So I think I have to cut my expectations in half because there's just too much labor involved and not enough time before the next festival...only this time I've got a bit of a gap. I don't have anything on the horizon except a possible wholesale show in August...and that I'm still debating doing. But if I DO exhibit, I'm looking to wholesale one of a kind pieces. Which means having sample inventory ready and similar pieces that I can remake.

I'm not sure I'm ready - I'm really not sure I have enough stone supplies for that. It's a lot of outlay with no guarantee of income. BUT it might be possible...so I'm focusing on that instead of wallowing. And I'm full of ideas. Some may be great, some not so great...but I'm willing to try them all right now. The journey isn't easy but the work is worth it. I'm loving life.  :)

Working Through It

Last week I posted about the sudden death of my friend, Kathleen. It's still incomprehensible to me that she's gone...I keep thinking of the times we shared and the talks we had. And there's a "Friends and Family of" Facebook page that's full of photos and memories of her. I only knew her for a few years, but some of her older / closer friends have shared such wonderful remembrances and photos.

Kathleen lived a very full life, living in NYC, London, Los Angeles, Atlanta...and traveled all over the world. This last trip to Mexico was just one vacation in a long, long list.

Sometimes (okay, often) I get stuck in a rut here in the studio. I love working on jewelry designs. And working from home means that I don't have to get out of the house and interact with the rest of the world. For an introvert like me, it's great. But too much solo time can be detrimental, and for several reasons, I feel like I've pulled even more inward this year. While it's helping me create more designs, it's not necessarily best to live like a recluse most of the time.

Kathleen's death made me realize how great her reach was...so many people touched by knowing her, grieving her loss, remembering her through shared words and photos. It makes me want to reach out to all my friends and make sure I spend a little more time with them. And it reminded me of how short life can be, and that's part of what propelled me out of the grief and depression last week to pushing hard in the studio.

In addition to hearing the news about Kathleen last Sunday, my festival was rained out that day, which meant significantly fewer sales, and I got three other show rejections last week. I was a mopey girl, feeling bad about myself and my work, sad about my friend, and generally low. But toward the end of the week, I was online, perusing some other jewelers' creations, looking at the people who *didn't* get rejected from those art shows, and I thought to myself, "Well, you can be the girl who mopes about it, or you can get cracking and be the girl who can compete with them!" So...I got cracking.  :)

Here's what I did yesterday:

I bezeled 26 red creek jaspers. This is just a sampling of them...there are more...and then I soldered seven of them to the back plates and finished the decorative details on three. Whew!

You can't really see the detail work at the top, and they're all white from being in the pickle. And they still need bails. But they're 99 percent done. On to the rest of them today.


Last week was pretty much the worst week of the year so far. Which I guess means that there's nowhere to go but UP!  :)

Stepping Forward

 2013 is my year of new adventures. So I'm starting off with one thing that is scary to me:  I've signed up for an "intermediate-advanced" jewelry fabrication course.

Here's the description:

"Jewelry and Metalsmithing students who have already learned the basics and work independently will learn the tips only a professional can teach how to get gallery quality results in less time. With a small class size, students receive personalized attention for their specific needs in design, advanced fabrication, clasps, stone setting, touches of gold, production techniques, rolling mill, tool maintenance, soldering tips and tricks, wax carving for casting, metalsmithing techniques and other demos that students request. Most students work on their own designs with an emphasis on one or more of the demos shown during class."

Sounds good, no? Then why am I nervous about it? Because it's pushing me out of my comfort zone. Right now I have a small stock of things I can do (almost) without thinking about them. I did say "almost".  :)  Over the past year, I've gotten comfortable with quite a few techniques. Now I want to start learning SO many more, but it means beginning at the bottom of the skill set again.

I also want to understand design better, and add my own "voice" or style more into what I create. So I'm a bit anxious, but looking forward to creative challenges!

Circle of Love Necklace

This pendant was definitely a challenge for me. I don't often design in concentric ways, or in symmetrical shapes. But I was intrigued by the idea of taking the jagged mosaic bits and keeping them within the boundaries of a circular shape. This pendant required a LOT of finagling to make sure the pieces were equidistant from the center of the circle, and from each other, and also that they formed a rounded shape on the outer ring. 

I also set the garnet so that the bottom overlaps into the inner circle, but I didn't solder it to the back plate fully:

it's hard to see against the dark stone, but the bottom of the garnet is supported only by the outer bezel and has no back plate inside the circle. A bit challenging to set as I raised the stone, but it wanted to "tip" over toward that open bottom when I set it. I'm not sure I'll do it again, but it was a satisfying challenge.  :)

Anyhoo, I went to class tonight and it was better than I imagined. Better than I could have imagined. I suspect it will be most beneficial and I will be counting the hours until next week when I get to go "be a sponge" (as my husband says) once again. I'm so ready for all this learning and I think it will be a career-defining - or at least very career-enhancing - choice.  :)

One last photo, because you can't see that yummy red garnet color in the first two!

Rolling With It

This week has been SO up and down for me. I had some great productive days, and some craziness just recently. Yesterday I went to jewelry fabrication class at the Spruill Center, and soldered some gallery wire and a bezel cup to a wide band ring. It went well...so well, in fact, that I left class early as that was our whole session: demo by the teacher and then we got the ring to the step of having all the bits soldered together. Cleanup and stone setting aren't until next Friday. So I left early...which I've kind of been doing in classes for a while.

I feel a bit bad, but the instructor knows me well and says she doesn't mind. And it was good that I left, because I had a long day of errands on my plate anyway: trip to the jewelry supply to spend a small fortune on supplies, trip to the Merchandise Mart to spend *more* money on *more* supplies, and a trip to get the oil changed on the car (which ended up being over $100 because it needed additional services...and I didn't even get all the services done because I am waiting to do the more expensive services next month after the big Michigan festival). Also the car needs tires badly...money's starting to feel quite tight again.

So I got home around 4 pm yesterday and did some work. But it's a bad idea (for me, at least) to start work late in the day when I'm tired, hot, and stressing about finances. Work did not go well. So I went outside to read and it was just too, too hot. How can anyone enjoy the summer when it's so freakin' hot outside? You can't DO anything...so my husband and I went to dinner and a movie. And I got food poisoning.

Apparently yesterday the Universe just was not on my side. ~wry smile~

However, today's a new day (though I slept in after the food poisoning issues and now the day feels late)...so I'll show you some good fun from earlier in the week.  :)

The Dare Boldness necklace. So named because it's got a VERY green chrysoprase as its center stone Not a shade for the color-sensitive.  :)

Also:

The Underbrush earrings. Sweet ocean jaspers with unusual coloring, making me think of the cool summer morning underbrush, damp earth, and some sort of respite from the summer heat.

Both are currently listed on my web site  and on Etsy if you'd like further details.  :)

Busily Building

I'm trying to update the blog more often. I don't keep a journal, and the blog is slowly becoming more journal-like for me. I'm on Facebook, of course, but it seems really odd to post some of my more mundane life stuff there. So I'm sort of journaling here instead. :)

I slept straight through my alarm this morning - I had a horrible dream. It comes in variations over the years, but it's always the same theme. I have to get somewhere and I can't, for various reasons (depending on the dream). Once it was that I had to be at a festival to set up and it was a nearly impossible drive through the mountains and I had to set up on the edge of a cliff. Once it was the same thing - show set up - and I ended up in a warehouse all by myself...I was in the wrong location. This time I was in New York City and I missed my flight home. My luggage went, but I had to catch a MARTA bus to the airport (funny, there's no MARTA in NYC). And a bunch of situations kept me from doing so...first I hadn't packed up my jewelry inventory (though I was not in NYC for a festival) and I missed the bus. Then someone wanted  to buy a piece of jewelry and there were all sorts of issues around that. Then I caught the next bus but they wanted to charge me $10 and somehow I'd packed my purse in my luggage...

This has gone on in different variations for years. The dreams are incredibly stressful and I'm not sure what drives them. I have stresses in my life like everyone, but I aim to minimize them when possible and I didn't feel stressed when I went to bed last night. I actually felt good about the productive day I'd had.

So anyhoo, I started off late this morning. Which really, really doesn't matter because I set my own schedule, y'know? But I really don't like starting my day late, it seems to throw my productivity off. But I got myself on the (hot, so, so hot) skate path and worked out. I pushed my legs as hard as I could (and they're tired, this is the third day in a row on the path) and got a good workout, though my time doesn't indicate it. I think that has to do with those tired legs. But tired in a good way. I am trying to get myself up to regularly exercising four to five times a week instead of my previous three-day-a-week schedule. And it hasn't been easy. My fortyish body is tired. But I'm a stubborn old girl, so I keep on keepin' on.

And now I'll show you new goodies:

The Storm Cloud necklace. The labradorite in the pendant looks to me like a big storm cloud lingering over the land and I designed this pendant around that idea, sawing a cloud shape and adding a dark patina. The back has a raindrop texture.

Change means growing pains, turmoil, and sometimes heartbreak. No one ever wants it, but the restless soul always strives for growth, and growth cannot occur without change. When the clouds gather and the days are dark, know that the low points will give way to peace as the new and reborn self emerges into a place of respite after weathering the storms that mark it. Evolution and wisdom are worth the darkest days it takes to get there.

This is such a glorious labradorite and I am enjoying working with "labs" in my designs. When I used mostly beads, it was a struggle to find several beads on a strand that had enough of that beautiful flash. Mostly they were dull gray. I love these cabs and can (and do!) spend hours at gem shows picking out just the right stones.  :)

Here's the back:

The pendant hangs from a hidden bail so the top of it lifts off the skin slightly and slides freely on a rolo chain. When I first started designing I used the tube bail a lot and then went away from it for a while. But I love the look and now it's back.

Wishing you a happy and productive Tuesday! Tomorrow's the Fourth...are you getting ready to celebrate?   :)