Rhythm and Flow

I have been working on a custom order Mosaix pendant for the holidays, and about halfway through I realized how much I was enjoying the rhythm of the piece. Usually when I start these (and especially because I'm not making them regularly; they're sort of sandwiched between all the other designs), I get frustrated. They're slow. The pieces seem to take forEVER to align. They drop from my tweezers on a regular basis...just then I've found the *perfect* piece...but once I slow down and concentrate, there's a great flow to adding them on to the metal backing. It reminds me of how very, very much I love what I get to do for a living. I'm a lucky girl, and very grateful.


Now....to get going on that plan to make MORE of these next year!!

The piece I'm working on is very similar to the photo above. The customer ordered it from my sold gallery and I happened to have *one* more teardrop charoite in a very close size.  :)

Blue Piranha 2.0 (or 3.0). I Know, it's Hard to Keep Up

I began my business in 2003. And now, nearly ten years later, I am beginning it again.

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I've been beginning it again now for a couple of years. It's seen more revamps and changes than...well, let's just say it's seen a *lot* of changes.  :)

Back in 2003, I was stringing beads, as I had been for most of the eight years prior (my love of jewelry design was a hobby before it was my livelihood). My first show - it did not come close to qualifying as an "art festival" - was in Woodstock, Georgia. A bit off the beaten path. It was, as you may suspect, rather sparsely attended. Hell, it was sparsely populated with artists - I think there were a total of thirty of us. We mostly sat quietly in our booths, wondering, waiting, and hoping. It was a long weekend. Oh, and it rained. My business was off to quite a start!

My first display was rented tables and cloths. Shiny satin-like cloths, in what were supposed to be a nice, neutral cream color, but turned out more like a light yellow. Do I have to tell you that it was not good? It was not. I had shells out on the tables for display stands. Why shells? I had some vague idea of piranha = fish = water = shells. The shells *did* look good...in fact, they looked so good that people kept asking to buy them. Oh, they bought a little jewelry too, but they really liked the shells.

In hindsight, maybe I started selling the wrong product?  :)

Anyhoo, one of my best sellers at these early shows was the Harmony bracelet. I'll show you the last remaining one, from my personal stash:

So now you know...I did have the humblest of humble beginnings! When I talk about "starting from where you are" I really mean it. I began with the basics. There was really nowhere to go but up.  :)

When I did research at juried art festivals, I realized just how much beaded jewelry was out there. Seeing that made me think about how I was going to differentiate, how I would compete, what I would offer that was unique and unusual. And I didn't have any happy answers. I knew I loved color; that's been a constant since I can remember (note that the bracelet above is chock-full of color), but other than that, I was so not unique.

I knew I wanted to play around with metal, so I started messing with wire. I shaped it, I bent it, I curled it...and eventually I had some designs I thought were pretty good. Around 2005-2008, I had a booth of mostly wire and bead designs. Shows were crowded, customers were happy, and I was making some decent money. I even had people occasionally say things like, "Where did you go to school for this?" and "You've really done something different!" (the ne plus ultra of design, at least for me). I was pretty pleased with myself. Pleased enough to try and ignore the nagging question of....what's next? 

 mid-Aughts bracelet design

Because I didn't know what was next. I felt like I had no ideas. I was frozen, paralyzed. I had a lot of sketches in my sketchbook but no way to make them happen. Well...no way to make them happen in the clean, modern style that is part of my design aesthetic. And so began the long, long, looooooong journey into fabrication. You may have read about it on this blog.  :)

from the bracelets above...to this...I could not be happier. Charoite pendant

Jumping ahead to 2012:  I had a bit of a design breakthrough earlier this year with the mosaic pieces. And I'm still working through what direction I'm going to take those designs. So far the direction looks like bigger, more intricate jewelry. Also maybe bigger mosaic metal pieces. Those tiny buggers are so labor-intensive and hard to handle with my hand tremors. And I just designed that B-I-G necklace and really liked the feel and size of it...I'd like to make a B-I-G mosaic necklace... bracelets...rings...there's so much more to come!

Gratification

Last weekend was a milestone for me. I exhibited at a festival in Nashville, TN....as a full-on metal girl. Though I've been fabricating / metalsmithing regularly since late 2009, I have been straddling the fence. I still brought my suede lariats, my less expensive bead-y creations, with me to festivals. But this was the first show I juried into with my new photos - all metalwork - and I felt obligated to show up with nothing less than...just my metal work.

(down and dirty cellphone shot of my booth in Nashville). I had a lot of room because the people to the right of me never showed and the people to left of me skedaddled on Saturday night.

And I learned a LOT from this:

- First, I barely had enough inventory. I have been selling through my previous cast work because I want to go in a new direction, but don't have new cast pieces yet. So I was pretty low on production stock. And because the stone-set items take longer, and I'd just been through the Virginia-Highlands show in Atlanta, and then off to Chicago to help a friend with her show..I was a bit light on my one of a kind pieces.

- Second, it was surprising and impressive to watch the customer behavior when I didn't have the lower-priced bead-y pieces...I ended up selling more of the higher priced work. At this festival I sold six cabochon items, where at previous shows this year I sold maybe one or two. It was like I'd bumped myself up in the customer's expectations and they weren't looking for lower priced items from me. And that felt very, very validating.

- Third, I'd better get my butt in gear because I want to do more of this going forward! But I think it will be impossible to do as many festivals as I do with only one of a kind pieces. The design time, the fabrication time, the finishing time all take longer. And there's only one me to get it all done (at least right now). So I need to work on new stone designs AND really get the new cast masters created and in the production process. My next show is a month away and that's not a lot of time!

Here are the pieces that sold this weekend:

The "To the Top" charoite pendant (to a gentleman who actually knew what charoite was just by looking at it) and this new piece:

of Russian lacquerwork. Both sold to the same customer and his wife. They loved the Russian connection.  :)

Also:

"Uncharted Island", a larimar pendant. To a sweet couple on Sunday.  ;)

And:

My second pair of earrings, also Peruvian opal. I think I should have bought more of these earring-sized stones!

And both of my contrast-y pieces:

Peruvian opal (top) and turquoise

What I loved is that each person really connected with the pieces...even when they didn't know the story behind the designs. I have been wanting to do this kind of work since I began jewelry design...and it was very rewarding to feel like I am (finally!) getting there. Mwah! Nashville, you made my weekend! I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

Charoite Revisited

I previously posted about some of my charoite cabs, here. I recently set one of them, and wanted to show you the result, and share the process that led to this design:

Hard-angled stones tend to pose a bigger design challenge for me than rounder ones, so I sat with this one for a while before the idea took hold. I originally was going to set it vertically, with the point facing down (sound familiar?):

and:

but that's sort of my "go to" for teardrop stones, so I wanted this to be a little different. Also the charoite triangle is a scalene (each side is a different length) rather than an isosceles, where two of the three sides are the same length, so it wouldn't really have looked right (at least not to my eye) if I'd set it vertically. 

Charoite comes from Siberia, Russia, and that made me think of rugged mountain country. So I made a mountain-ish backing for the stone. And the stone itself, set sideways, has a slope kind of like a mountain. I didn't want the mountain to be too rugged, since the stone's finish is a soft satiny look, so I added just a few sawn cutouts on the sides:

I gave the overall piece a soft satin finish to complement the stone. The back is softly textured as well:

I like for my jewelry designs to have some meaning, because jewelry is the most personal form of adornment. And I really enjoy writing the descriptions for the stone items. In this case it wasn't just the stone itself but it's host location that influenced the design. Also, charoite is considered quite ugly in its natural state. It's not until it's cut and polished that it becomes this fantastic creation. And that made me think about personal growth, how we go through changes and constant learning in life. So here's the description:

"Through life we all climb our personal mountains. The work of growing emotionally and intellectually is never done; not if we want to keep reaching and striving for our own personal goals. Sometimes it is raw strength that pushes us through and sometimes it's learning to be gentle and receptive. The journey ends when we do; before that it's about moving forward and experiencing everything that life offers us."

Sometimes I think I'm a big cheese-head, but this does reflect how I try to live my own life and so I guess if it's cheesy, I'm okay with that. There are worse things.  :)

So that's the story of this particular design journey. I'll try to post some more in the upcoming weeks as time permits. I can't wait to see where the next design will lead me!

Natural Wonders: Charoite

The lavender hues of charoite are like nothing I've ever seen. Found only in Siberia (Russia), the stone is named for the Charo river. It is a stone so clearly unlike any other known in the market that it can pretty readily be identified by sight. Even a novice, having once seen it, is unlikely to to confuse it with anything else.

The gem has what is often described as a  "pearly" luster. Its coloration is typically what I would call "soft", meaning that it's pastel-y and also a bit muted, unlike the "'hard" bold colors of chrysocolla, for example, with some swirls showing through the stone surface. Discovered in the 1940's, it was not widely known to the rest of the world until thirty years later. It's "said to be opaque and unattractive in the field, a fact that may have contributed to its late recognition" (so says Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt). I've never seen it "raw", so to speak, but I can tell you that when it is cut and polished, it is very much the opposite of ugly.  :)

Here's some photographic evidence:

and - my usual disclaimer - the photo cannot show you the real beauty of this stone. It looks a bit "flat" in the picture, but it definitely has that lustrous look in person. The colors are pretty true. ranging from lavender to a deeper purple with a tinge of brown and black mixed in.

It's a fairly soft stone, so best used in necklaces and earrings, rather than rings or bracelets. I think the stone above would make a perfect pendant, with the point hanging down as photographed.

 One more example:

Is it expensive? It's hard to say. The stones pictured above were relatively INexpensive, but I've seen some online for quite a bit...although I don't buy stones on line because I always believe I can find a better value at the gem shows. I bought my stones a few years ago so the price may have increased since then, especially as it's only found in one location worldwide.

Purple tends to be a divisive color - people either love or hate it. I personally love it! And this lavender hue is really unusual.

What do you think? Love or hate it? Indifferent? I'd love to know!