a few more photos of this weeks' work...i think that the first one is quite apt, as i'm trying to juggle jewelry creations for the upcoming vendor sale at art and soul in portland, as well as the afore- mentioned trunk show with cynthia ashby at niche, along with class/kit preparations for portland and travel/class/kit plans for the upcoming workshop trip to italy (italy! it's finally hitting me!!!) at the first of november. i just took a peek at cynthia's website and love what this article from women's wear daily, 2001, has to say about her designs:
“Ashby herself is a bit of a time machine. She draws inspiration from the past. Flipping through old books, she soaks up images of Victorian women in petticoats or aproned workers from the 1920’s. ‘I’m interested in American History,’ she said. ‘I like anything from the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and people from the frontier.’ ... Ashby’s pieces have dropped waists, delicate rows of buttons and wire rimmed hems that ruffle and flair like a hoop skirt. But her unstructured designs also have an Asian look to them... she creates modern pieces with nostalgic origins.” The poetry of color is a key part of what makes these garments unique. The clothing is garment dyed, which creates a quality of uncommon depth and texture. As the colors fade they achieve character with wear, like a patina on a bronze sculpture. The color palette is reminiscent of an old photograph or a cracked and faded fresco. They are meant to work together and layer with past and future Cynthia Ashby collections. The garments are made from linen, cotton, silk and wool in assorted textures and weights. The raw look of the fabric is animated with fine detailing in design and construction. Cynthia Ashby speaks to the woman who does not subscribe to fashion trends. This woman is on a perpetual treasure hunt, collecting pieces to mix and layer, creating different combinations and infinite choices for her wardrobe."
make sure you visit her website and see for yourself just how her clothing is truly art in clothing/wearable form.
here is a design (click on photo for close up)that, after all was said and done (an entire afternoon's assembly of finished parts), left my poor old eyes over- strained and arthritic hands aching in places i'd never before known they ached. the copper bird, and copper seed beads are vintage - miniscule, to say the least, three strands' worth on either side, a beautiful set of micro-faceted smoky quartz that was drilled with a tiny hole through which only the smallest wire would go - meaning, i had to work and rework and work around said wire and reinforce, redesign my piece several times. you'd never know by looking, of course, that i thrice changed my course. i would almost hate resent this piece, were i not to love it. and the teardrop, wrapped in wire? that isn't so easy to do, i must admit. it isn't as easy or as "messily" done as one would think. i call this piece "active flyer".
i'm sharing this next image on the left simply for the sake of the etched words on the backside of the piece (the front side bears the image of an egg, which you can faintly see there on the back): "from the nest comes the egg, comes the bird, comes the song". the words just came to me as i was etching them into the silver. i love that serendipity, the words coming as they may. i never do plan out what words will go onto a piece on the back, actually, because i never know what will exactly fit. just so.
the next design there on the right (click for closer detail) has the loveliest blue chalcedony faceted stones that simply refused to show up truthfully in the photo- graph; the color is not 'milky' as the picture displays, but more opalescent. i am quite fond of this image, and have used it often in my work; the man seems to be very peaceful, in meditation, deep in thought. i looked long and hard at the gem and mineral show for strands of pearls shaped like clouds, and was happy when i finally found them.
sky is a favorite theme of mine, along with birds (the two do go hand in hand, or wing in wing, do they not?); this next piece is again wrongfully portrayed by my camera's penchant for getting the color off in studio light. the pearls are a lovely, lovely soft blue shade, which isn't really shown here at all; i love the very long strands, which to me signify the sky going up, and up, and up. 
finally, a simple tassel, from a custom order for my dear friend bonnie moench, who had been patiently waiting for her necklace since the end of january. we had an agreement for the piece to be shipped in september, so september it was.
the little bird and silver leaves are of my own designs, which i shaped from clay and then had cast back in 1995; the large silver chain is fashioned from precious metal clay, which is 99% pure silver.
time, now, to head back into the studio...time to focus those eyes and warm up the fingers for another day of what you see above....
the fun comes when i have filed, cleaned and polished the raw sterling bezel cups (that was yesterday, and my fingertips were ever so tender from the heat of the grinding wheel down in the storage room; not my favorite task, it was an unpleasant and tedious two hours) and i can glue the images into the various shapes i've set aside (houses, squares, rectangles, circles) and fill with resin; then, after the resin has cured, which with this rain, may be a couple of days, i can begin to match the images with the strings of pearls and gemstones i've been assembling at night from a tray in my lap. i wince when i remember the one instance when, out on the back deck of my old house, i upended said tray and pearls, tools, wire all went flying willy nilly, down through the slats in the wood to the dirt below. yes. it wasn't pretty. i can imagine that there rest random pearls in the red dirt still, cousins to the roly-polys who may find the shiny beads an elegant though silent company.
pam, i am revealing this image, cropped from part of a journal page, here for you. do you recognize that wallpaper frond?! thanks so much!!! i had too much fun pulling out the blue papers and using them in a couple of my pages. i'm hoping to see you at art and soul - not sure if you'll be there, but i'm hoping all the same.
meanwhile. the photo above can be clicked for a closer look at all its literal nitty, gritty detail (burn marks from drops of torched silver, dust from polishing and filing, god knows what else you'll see). i've often laughed at my tendency to narrow a working space down to 5" x 7" on my table top (or in this case, 4" x 6", no matter what my best intentions and plans for housekeeping/organizing are)....i had fun, oh! so much fun with this piece yesterday: the little metal branches are vintage, from an old pin that i sawed in two; i have several of them, and am thinking that i'll send one "set" off for casting in both bronze and silver. as much as i love tree/bird imagery, the design will work well with countless pieces of my jewelry (or, "jewellery", as the british so beautifully say).
when i took a good luck at my grid pattern on the cutting pad that rests there on my studio table, i was inspired to take blocks of one single photo and separate them into little sections. i do that a good bit with my jewelry designs, and try to teach my students to do the same. one large photograph - a full body image of a woman, say - can be cut up into a myriad of much smaller visual pieces (a hand, an eye, a row of buttons) and "married" with a randomly selected word or two, giving that one small image a sudden importance. example? "touch", with hand. placed in a small frame, and worn around the neck, the charm becomes quite evocative.
but i digress. here, a simple acorn of my own design. i made these pieces years ago - in 1995, to be exact - and have been using them in my work ever since (along with the little birds you saw on the finch bracelet). although my work has changed and grown, i still am able to incorporate birds and acorns with my designs in a way that seems refreshing to me, eleven years later.
the little bird is an image that i keep in my "bird" file, one that has grown substantially larger with each passing year. poor thing - his beak was compromised here, but he doesn't mind; his songs ring true for eternity.
i've worked with pearls for going on twenty years now, and have yet to tire of them; these lovely, misshapen ones have a soft, grey glow that reminds me of eggs and seemed the perfect choice.
touch and wind? merely innocent bystanders in the photograph, along with that bit of silver wire. i had at one point pulled them out to consider working the word charms into the necklace somehow, but decided not to in the end. they stayed there, to the left, while i continued to twist and drill and wrap, and there they stayed for the photograph. the words seem perfect, still, for the feeling of the necklace, which to me is a perfect piece to wear in the november bare tree days, when the branches seem to want to reach up and touch the wind. 
and, finally, the clasp. i make my own these days, and want them to be as lovely a touch if seen from behind as what would be seen from before....i think nothing is lovelier than the back of a woman's neck, hair swept up, with a simple necklace exposed. sometimes i hang a simple charm from the circular disc (a bird, a small silver egg, for example); i could oh-so-easily see the 'touch' charm hanging there, at the back of the neck. shiver.
it's been one of those quiet simple pleasures to watch the myriad of butterflies and bees hover around the fuzzy pink blossoms having their fill of nectar; and now, after the flowers have withered and dried, the little yellow birds are coming to cling to the stalks and frantically peck at the seed that is left. i'm amazed at the cycle here, and am grateful roy's weedeating (what weedeating there was done, mind you) didn't plow through that little patch just outside my window there.
ah, sunshine. in honor of the visit, i made a bracelet. this is a finch, but not a goldfinch, obviously; there are no black markings on its face. never mind. it is a bird, and it is golden. and the sun is shining today, as you can see. the driveway is still flanked by raggedy golden wildflowers, raggedy but endearing to me for their stalwart attitude and lackadaisical approach towards life. ("autumn? what's that?") the sun shines, the breeze blows, and birds sing for their thistle.
today, anyway.
i've been waiting all day for the usual early september morning fog to lift, and the cool to dissipate. not so. it's been one of those two-teapot days (my friend laughed this afternoon when i asked her to wait a moment whilst i fixed my tea; what? she scoffed. it isn't morning anymore!) oh, but these are the days of new socks and shoes with closed toes, of favorite berets and that wonderful calf-length vintage pendleton coat, thinnest wool, softest plaids in creams and brown. an incredible $5.00 score at a local thrift store years ago, it is one that did not accidentally get given away to the other thrift store when we moved a year ago last june. pulling these articles of clothing out of back drawers and armoires is like saying hello to dear old friends.
when i left the cabin this morning, it was a pleasure to see the table decorated with the glow of the beeswax lantern (inlaid with wildflowers), beside the lovely flowers i'd stepped outside the door to pluck. it is a quiet place, with no tv, no radio, and my parents are spending the week there in harmony with one another, with their dog, with me, with my uncle up from atlanta, with the birds outside the windows, with the flowers, with the cooler temperatures. happy birthday, elizabeth thompson bagley. i'm glad you chose to start the coming year by waking up here in north carolina with me. xo
i think it's no accident that the name of this month just happens to rhyme with the emotional act of looking back, of recollecting. the days are taking on a different sheen, somehow - faded, like memory, as if waiting before blooming into something brighter, a burst of more explosive brilliant color that will hold itself there, dangling, for a week, a day, and then be gone. like dreams. who was it, and how do they know, that said we don't dream in color? i've been having a series of the most detailed, twisted nighttime scenes winding through my slumbering head, and in the morning wake and remember that yes, that was a red brick car my family and i were driving down the road. heavy, uncomfortable, brick. and red. last night's dream found me standing before a customs agent with ochre tapestry and faded brown leather bags, fumbling through them (there were many) searching frantically for my passport and plane ticket for the upcoming 
so. september. the month of looking back, and of remem- bering simple things of summer, like the beautiful find of a cicada's shell clinging to a single stalk of queen anne's lace, there at the edge of the drive. captured in a photograph, it stays with me forever, long after the flower withered and failed to support the shell. such beauty! such simplicity.
i remember sitting on the steps the first day of june, sad about breaking the tip of my beloved teapot's spout, and being soothed, childlike, by the diamond-like dewdrops gathered on the waxy gladiola leaves next to the steps. i had the entire summer before me - such a gift that was. it was! three months of fresh life, of breathing and thinking and staring at the sky, the trees, of listening to the woodthrush, who no longer calls to me in the wee morning hours or the last whispers of twilight.
candles are lit, lamps turned on, books pulled out. it is a time of reflection, of turning in, of nestling into that favorite floral overstuffed chair... out come the old suitcases full of tubes of paint, the ones stuffed with vintage barkcloth, the jars of ribbon, the cigar boxes holding treasures waiting to adorn the next art surprise. 
this time last year found me up to my elbows in organza, mica, vintage beaded upholstery trim, twigs, beaded resin charms, and paper - among other things - for work to be featured in my friend 
what started as a colla- boration with a few fellow artists several years ago for something called 
here is my beautiful buddha, as i showed you just the other day. he holds a very special heart rock, purple in color, that my robin carted all the way back to me from the beaches of lima, peru last summer. no small heart it is - or light in weight, for that matter - and measures a good five or six inches in length. i remember the days when both robin and roy first brought me hearts of stone, wee little ones the size of my pinky finger's nail, in their pockets from pre-school. my throat constricts even now as i think about the fact that they would be thinking of me and searching the playground with those sharp little fledgling eyes. can't you picture it? curly mop-headed three and five year old boys with band-aids on elbows and knees, squatting over in the dirt to look through the rocks? i still have those little hearts, in a special little case. of course i do, along with the glitter-covered shells tied onto string.
of nests, and i never tire of adding to the collection; just today, in fact, i received yet another beautiful one in the mail from dear friend 
i like this rain, as long as i'm not driving; it excuses me from getting out. there are worlds of things to catch up on - art journals, jewelry, class prepara- tions for upcoming retreats (
over in a quiet corner in front of two rocking chairs, upstairs there, lays a beautiful dusty victorian door on its side. back in april i spotted it, and the note daddy had fingered to my departed brother into the dust, along with a "cross" above the note. i had wanted to post it, then had second thoughts about it - too private, too close to our grief at that time. yet, daddy asked me this time, just this week, if i had shared it on my teaching trips with students, with friends. he said he would like for me to; i believe that his love for his son, and his expression of it, is something he'd like to share. so, for those of you who remember, here is daddy's note, written in dust, perhaps four months ago. i think it's one of the most achingly beautiful photographs i've ever taken.
another lovely photograph here of my mother, setting up the altar flowers for her little 
i'm no church goer - i guess you gathered that - but there is a definite spirituality about the place, and a peace that cannot be denied. 
