Thursday, September 15, 2016

Art Jewelry Elements Autumn Challenge: Trees

I love how life has those serindipitous moments that touch our hearts. Caroline Dewison's post for this Art Jewelry Elements Autumn Tree-Themed Challenge arrived in my blog feed just when I needed it. 

The Inspiration

My favorite images from Caroline's post are framed in this collage:


Trees and forests have always fascinated and comforted me, but they have lately become a great source of passion for me. 

When I retired from teaching and moved to the Oregon coast, I believed that I would be living in a paradise by the sea. Those gorgeous hills of old-growth forests in a state famous for being green. We built our house so that our bedroom windows framed a beautiful, forested hill. One morning we awoke to the sound of beeping and crashing, a sound that has become far too common here . . . the sound of industrial timber turning a diverse ecosystem into another clearcut wasteland. It is impossible to travel along coastal Oregon and not be assaulted by vast swaths of clearcuts, yet another example of  resource extraction for corporate profit. Seeing our diverse old-growth forests disappear at such an alarming rate breaks my heart. For example, the Homesteader Forest. Pictures tell the story.



The photos below show our community watershed. This is right behind my neighborhood. 




This devastation has activated me to advocate for healthy forests by joining a coalition of citizen and non-profit groups that seek to educate Oregonians and push for legislative action to reform the Oregon Forest Practices Act that allows this kind of destruction. A short but powerful video shows this issue clearly: Oregon Forest Voices: Timber's Cover-Up

The Jewelry

Some of you are no doubt saying, "Enough already! Show us the jewelry."  Here is THAT story. 

Caroline Dewison of blueberribeads.co.uk randomly selected two winners to receive one of her lovely tree beads made from buff stoneware clay and decorated with underglazes and a china painted tree motif. How lucky I was to have won one of these beauties!  (Connection: my great aunt painted beautiful china).


Exciting day when the package arrived from the UK!


The best part of a challenge such as this is anticipating what other designers will create with the exact same component. I spent much time gazing at this beautiful bead and imagining the possibilities for a context in which to highlight it. The more I pondered, the more clear it became that ALL the focus needed to be on this lovely component. The shape and weight of it shouted NECKLACE PENDANT with few competing adornments. I obliged. 

Using brass wire, I created a spiral and strung an antiqued brass bead, a cap, and Caroline's pendant, and then I created a loop with a chunky wire wrap. Luckily, it was a sunny, warm day, allowing me to set up my oxidizing station on my deck. 


The weight of the pendant called for an equally weighty stringing medium, so I chose soft, black deerskin leather accented with old padre trade beads and antiqued brass large-hole beads. I always like to make necklace length adjustable, so I deferred to my usual method - threading both ends of the leather through a trade bead (tight squeeze through that hole) and pulling the brass-beaded ends to shorten it. 




Even though jewelry sets seldom sell as such for me, I couldn't resist a pair of earrings to go with this necklace. Wanting to stick with the oval shape in neutral colors, I wire wrapped an agate briolette and brass bead with dark, annealed steel wire to capture the black color of the pendant trees and trim. I embossed the brass hoops with a tree branch & leaf pattern, domed them, and oxidized them. To be honest, I put the hoops in the oxidizing solution and completely forgot about them for about an hour, which resulted in a very rustic, yet fitting, patina. They feel like they might have been lost for years in an old-growth Oregon forest. Finally, I used brass connectors in a complimentary oval shape, adorned with antiqued brass beads. The antiqued brass earwires are handmade. 



So here is the finished set, which I plan to donate as a door-prize/raffle item for an upcoming event to support responsible forestry practices. 





THANK YOU to Art Jewelry Elements for hosting these challenges and to Caroline Dewison for her giveaway of this lovely bead. Check out the links below for Caroline's shop and for the reveal of other talented designers' creations honoring the theme of trees.




17 comments:

  1. It's sad to see the devastation caused to your beautiful forests Cindy, I'm glad there are people like you out there helping to protect them!

    Your jewellery is stunning, I love what you've done with your bead, the focal looks fantastic with the bronze, and the earrings are a great accompaniment. Thanks so much for joining us in the challenge!

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    1. Thank you so much for the fabulous theme. It really spoke to me in a deep way, and I thoroughly enjoyed this project. Your lovely bead was a delight to work with, and I am so thankful to you for sending it all that way to me. You are so kind in your comments and generous in your gift of your beautiful work.

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  2. This was a good post & lovely work!

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  3. I am so sorry about the tree's (the photos are rather shocking) and I wish you all the luck in the world in your quest to educate people and your fight to save the forest. I totally love what you did with Caroline's bead, it's a beautifully thought out design that really shows off the bead and is wonderfully wearable!

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  4. Great jewelry and very interesting post!

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  5. Great designs...really love your treatment of Caroline's bead.

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  6. Wonderful job! The brass beads scrollwork complements the frame on Caroline's beads! Great choice!

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  7. I love the necklace and I think it is perfect for a fundraiser to save trees. It is really awful what happened to Homesteader. I wish you luck in your efforts.

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  8. Oh no on the homestead how devastating for the environment and you. I live really rural here in the UK and walk in ancient woodlands and orchards every day with my dogs, I would be so sad to see it all go like that. I hope you manage to save the remaining trees. I love the pendant you created with Carolines bead, so beautiful but I really REALLY like the ear rings :)

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  9. Lovely set, but I love the Pendant and the materials you chose to use with it.

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  10. Your necklace is lovely and the earrings are a nice complement. I share your sense of pain at the destruction of old growth forests and all the diversity of life they house. I wish you much luck with your activist efforts.

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  11. Ouch!! I'm so sorry about the forest!! So sad!
    Your jewelry is fantastic!! Love the earrings!

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  12. What a lovely set! And I share your anger over what is happening with our old growth forests. I am up in Washington and they are doing the same thing here.

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  13. BEAUTIFUL necklace! And I'm so sorry to see that devastation... I participated at the last minute: http://suebeads.blogspot.com/2016/09/aje-theme-challenge-trees.html

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  14. You make so many great points here that I read your article a couple of times. Your views are in accordance with my own for the most part. This is great content for your readers. pendants

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