Saturday, October 30, 2021
Daily Meditation: Cats and FB
Daily Meditation: CATS and FB
Okay, given recent revelations, I really am having difficulties sticking with FB as a platform. I do not support their policies, but I do love looking at all of the beautiful art and photos posted here and keeping in touch with friends. Without this platform, my drawings would have no reach into the world outside of my art room. I certainly don’t draw for the purpose of sharing, but it does seem a shame to just stick them into a photo album, forgotten and lonely.
I stopped using IG long ago because I don’t like the whole IG “influencers” thing. All the selfies and trendy stuff is icky.
I like to write and share photos. So what do I use as an alternative to FB? I once had this blog, but that died years ago. I guess for the time being, I grit my teeth, hold my nose, and use their platform. I am, however, going to back up all of my art posts here on Blogger just in case.
CATS and drawing. I am trying to teach myself to draw realistic stuff. Here is my first attempt. Of course, a CAT would be the first! 🐈⬛
Daily Meditation: Trees and Clutter
Daily Meditation: Trees and Clutter
Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.
~ Munia Khan
Inspired by gorgeous fall foliage and a profound meditation on creating the life that we desire. I changed this piece countless times. At first, it was way too busy and cluttered, taking the focus away from the outline of the maple leaf. A black paint pen was all it took to blot out the undesirable busyness. At times, the same busyness clutters our lives, obscuring our view and shifting our focus from life’s most important things. In those moments, a black paint pen and bold actions are required to blot out the clutter that does not add beauty to this life.
Daily Meditations: The Sea
Four years have passed since I have updated this blog. We moved from the coast to a city inland in the valley, life plans changed completely, a pandemic stopped and then altered every aspect of life, and my creative muse took a long and weird vacation. Jewelry making, a creative outlet and passion which dominated my first five years in retirement, no longer called to me. But I soon discovered that, for me, creativity must be honored and fostered in order for my spirit to be calmed. I picked up a pen one day, and my new outlet was clear. . . meditative drawing. Here are drawings inspired by the sea. Copic markers, Micron pens, gel pens, Posca paint pens, Derwent watercolor pencils, chalk pencil, graphite
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Jewelry Gifts
Inspired by the Sea and Made in my New Studio!
On our recent, brief trip to the Oregon coast I picked up these seaside-themed gifts for a new friend (and neighbor) in Eugene. I have been invited today to a gathering of six teachers, and this is my gift to the host of the party. It should be fun drinking wine and conversing with Oregon teachers.
* Earrings are made from embossed and painted recycled tin and glass. These are my FIRST pieces of jewelry made in my new (but still very disorganized) studio in Eugene.
Our realtors, who helped us by our dream home, have become dear friends. I made this set for Renee as a thank you gift.
* Seaglass, brass, recycled glass
Spring Fling
Spring @ Sunflower Flats
Cindy Gardner, the owner of Sunflower Flats in Tillamook, Oregon, requested some new jewelry in a pink, lavender, and purple color palette for spring. Those aren't colors I usually work with, but I had great fun with these.
Vintage beads, glass, mother-of-pearl buttons, bone, silver
Trade beads, seaglass, recycled glass, blue lace agate, copper
Rose quartz and amethyst drops, glass, silver
Embossed and painted recycled tin, glass, silver
Cindy's daughter, Natalie, sent me photos of the spring jewelry display case at the shop. She and Cindy always create such pretty and clever displays throughout the store. With the sunny warm weather yesterday and again today, it seems like spring has finally arrived, making winter a distant memory.
Thank you, Cindy and Natalie Rieger! Happy Spring!
Moving and Setting Up My New Studio
On our recent trip to the beach, I packed up my entire jewelry studio from our old house. It was an overwhelming task to accomplish, but in the end we filled our car to the ceiling with 10 boxes and a zillion bead boxes. My jewelry room was seriously lacking storage, but a trip to a thrift store resulted in a $12 shelving unit and a lovely cabinet repurposed from an old Edison record player cabinet (if I didn't have all of that stuff piled on top, I'd take a photo of the Edison label inside the middle section lid). What a cool cabinet. Lots of useful, velvet-lined drawers!
My cat Missy is checking out the cheap shelves crammed with bead boxes and tools.
My work area is spacious and filled with light.
Not Just Jewelry
My friend Kirk Willis requested a keychain, so now I am making something entirely new. Life is not all about jewelry, I realize! He has opened my mind to non-jewelry applications for beads and leather . . . window hangings, napkin rings, wine glass charms, etc. I love new projects!
* Brown & cobalt blue suede, very old trade bead, recycled glass, shell, bone, wood, antiqued brass charm/chain/beads.
Anyone who knows Kirk, knows of his fondness for bears. When he specifically asked for a bear charm, I was fortunate to find one in a cool antique shop in the town of Coburg
I had some leftover black leather strap (I throw away nothing!) and these enameled number tags. All of the numbers on the tags are just random, which made me wonder if customers would buy them if the numbers had no special meaning for them. I figured that "17" could at least stand for the current year. :)
What are your thoughts about the randomness of these numbers? Do you think random numbers would appeal to customers?
* riveted leather strap, bone, shell, enameled number tag
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.
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