Ornamental

heart strings

  i'm always surprised at the variation in colors of the very same thing - jewelry, in this case - that i struggle to capture with waning light.  i wait until the end of the day, usually, because no. 1, that's usually when i finish a piece, and no. 2, the light is kinder towards the early side of dusk.  roy calls it the magic hour - roy, who as i write this is working a television camera for the tv station that employs him in wilmington, north carolina.  there is a hurricane barreling straight towards that city, as if any of you weren't aware.  the mother in me worries - does he have plenty of water?  batteries?  but he brushes the worries off with his young adult cool.  i'll be fine, mom.  i love you.  so, i busy myself taking photo after photo of the same piece of jewelry, this angle and that, a brighter exposure than the last, a different place in the house.  nothing matters; the colors shift with every change.  and i worry.  i worry.  i worry.
  it didn't even occur to me until just now that the piece i'd been working on all day speaks of matters of the heart.  no surprise there - most of my jewelry does.  but heart strings?  today?  makes total sense to me. damn it.  blurry, and at this point, the light's too far gone.  you get the idea:  antique embroidered sari fabric behind antique optical glass, peruvian opals strung with luscious garnet, the color of love.  at least for today, it is.  and on the back of the focal piece, something i fashioned all the way back in march when i was weathering an entirely different storm (it's not over, folks, but i've developed a stronger stamina), i engraved these words:  and something that tugs at my heart tonight:  my older son robin, instigator of the entire colorado adventure coming up, is out distributing flyers that announce my visit to The Tin Shop.  this was his idea, entirely (this, from the little third grader who asked me to come speak to his class, who jumped up to stand beside me as i spoke, who told the entire class "my mom's famous", seventeen years ago).  he seems to think that i'm worth all that, and i'm so touched by his enthusiasm that i don't even know what more to write.  so, i'll just say this:  i love you, robin.  i love you, roy.  and that is all that matters, in the end.  xo

golden

  i am still here, and scrambling to stay abreast of everything.  and i am remembering this:  which took me down a path to conjure this: which was really begun in my mind when i recalled hiking old mining trails last year with robin   and finding colorado miners' porcelain buttons and rusty old nails from a time long past...

   i am amazed at the similarity of colors that flow all the way from australia to colorado; they are coming out in my work that is a blend of there and there and here, just so.  i look at this, taken in australia, taken on the side of the road when jacky and i were coming back from a monastery at the end of the day,   and this, a bit of 
dried gum tree resin that jacky gathered in the bush in the heart of dwellingup  which has that same other worldly glow, in the late afternoon, as this old rust-red painted water tower for a steam engine of long ago.   the yellow of the trees, too - those aspens, all lit up in the late afternoon light,    these are the very color of the basket of kumquats glowing in the rainy afternoon light of my australian pal robyn's lovely kitchen in stoneville, in the hills above beautiful perth.  the other day i pulled out a brilliant yellow ginko leaf that had clung to the wet road in new zealand where my friends and i crossed to visit an auckland shop - a natural memento of a place, and its people, that i hold so dear in my heart.    i've been remembering with great fondness the middle of winter there in southwestern australia, which is a great deal like the novembers of my own autumn - wet, chilly, but full of lingering rich color.  and in thinking of the vistas that wait for me in the highest mountains of colorado, i've begun working in colors that had not surfaced in my jewelry at all this year, until now.  i see a lot of things, when i look at the light through these pieces of the earth; i see most of all that everything comes around full circle, when and as it should.  xo

interlude

  i've been home from australia and new zealand for over three weeks, yet still am feeling the sensation of having just arrived at my own front door after a very long time away.  this has been a tumultuous year, to say the least - a lot of coming home, a lot more time of going away, and a great deal of attempts to let go, to release, to say goodbye.  i realized with a start the other day that the sadness which has permeated so much of the past months of this year has finally subsided enough that i hadn't realized - like a persistent headache, after taking medication - that it had begun to wane.  i'm still sad, believe me i am, but it is no longer the overwhelming emotion that washes through me with my days.  and that, my friends, is what i recognize as Grace with a capital G.  i have the sweetest neighbors, with eva and dave:  they call to see if i am okay, they call when they spot an unknown vehicle in my drive when i am away, they bring an icy cold drink from the back of their car and a tea-towel-lined box filled to overflowing with vegetables from their garden, a red ball for walter, a single riotous hibiscus blossom in a glass bud vase.  i've watched that blossom pass from tender new flower to withered sunset, with petals tissue paper thin and crinkled like oldest skin.  i do not have the heart right now to throw it away.

  many, many thanks to those of you who purchased the latest pendant charms i've offered!  the simple act of hammering those words has brought great peace and clarity, and it is rewarding as well to see your response.  time in the studio has been extremely limited this year to the early weeks of the january, when snow covered the ground, two and 1/2 weeks in march leading up to artfest, and a small bit of time when i worked on the heart pendant with daddy's words back in june, just after he had passed.  the rest of my time has been spent on the road, driving or being driven or flying here and there, closing the door behind me, opening it again with a deep sigh of relief each time i walk in and see that nothing has been stolen in my absence.  the house is beginning to smell like my own familiar place again, as strange as that sounds; the musty smell of dusty, damp neglect is gone with the windows flung wide open to summer, and i've been diffusing lovely essential oils (thank you precious wendy and joshna!) called "bountiful", "letting go", and "tranquil sleep" to restore things to balance once more. 

now, i'm facing another trip - this time, out to the wilds of the colorado high mountains, where i'll be spending ten days as a resident artist in the little breckenridge Tin Shop studio.  my older son robin urged me, this time last year, to apply for the position; only at his insistance, mind you, did i apply.  this is far, far beyond my comfort zone, this business of sitting in a studio where the general public can wander in for four hours a day; folks won't know me, they won't have a clue who this woman is from the deep south who sits at a table and taps away at silver, who knots gemstones onto silk, who pours emotion and stories into every little piece of work she creates.  i had expressed hesitation over the phone to robin last week (my mother was still in the throes of hospital tests - and she is okay, thank goodness, after all, as far as the doctors can tell); but when i heard the disappointment in his voice, when he insisted that i come, i knew i should.  and so, i am.  and again, anxiety over leaving home sets in.  but as one of my reader friends said to me, and as i've told myself over and over since the final decision was made, who knows what bright new possibilities will then present themselves to me?  four different folks have written me in the last few days to request custom orders for onward charms - enough to make me realize that i ought to offer the rest of you the chance to order one (or more) as well.  here is what i'll do:  i'll take orders over in my etsy shop (click here)for a few days for any word choice you wish (within reason, that is - i do have my ethical and aesthetic standards ;)) as long as the word is limited to eight letters or less; if two lines of words are requested, there will be an additional $10.00 charge per piece.  so, $95.00 for one word or line (and if there are two short words, like "new path", for instance, they will qualify as one eight-letter line, at $95), and $105.00 for something like "ongoing journey".  all pendants will have the compass in brass, unless of course you desire something simpler like a single gemstone dangling from the bottom.  be sure to state your word choice in the "notes" section there in your etsy cart's listing.  i will only take orders through monday, august 22, as i'll need to be making jewelry for colorado by that poiint.

take a look at the photograph above, with the seashells to the left; those shells were found at the edge of the indian ocean, where my beloved jacky and i walked and dipped our bare winter feet into the cold, blue water.  jacky picked up a shell and handed it to me; and upon closer inspection,  i see that it has my name on it, as well as the letters W and A (for western australia, see?).  
i love the other shell as much as this one, for a lot of reasons - i found it while walking the beach my last day in australia with jacky, it resembles what we imagine as the wing of angel, and because it has half of a circle in a line of dashes, placed there at some point by an artistic, unassuming sea creature.  the line has not come full circle, which is as it should be.  jacky declared that she had to find one as well before we left the beach, and here are our hands together, holding our precious mementos.  i plan on using that sea shell somehow in upcoming jewelry pieces, as part of my australia/new zealand-inspired work; my thoughts are overflowing with ideas, which is certainly an encouraging thing after such a long, dry spell. this is one of my favorite photographs from the entire trip, and i have a LOT of favorites.  i will be, i promise you, sharing some stories and images from that journey, as soon as i can figure out how best to delegate my time between making jewelry, organizing my schedule, and writing posts for ornamental.  i'm in the middle of re-vamping things here, working things so that it won't be such a drain on my time to sit and polish my words and photographs.  in the meantime, i hope that the closing weeks of your summer are as rewarding as you hoped they'd be, back in the young green days of june when we had the whole season ahead of us.  xo

pendants

 
i've enjoyed making these, so so much.  hammering each letter by hand, reading the word as it slowly appears in the silver, and again after i've tarnished and then polished the discs again is like working with wordly magic.  it is magic, there in my fingers, and a joy.  thank goodness!  i was beginning to wonder if i'd be able to get back into the swing of things, after being dormant for so long. words as ornament - my mantra, i think, for going on twenty five years.  this newest line of intention pendants celebrates the act of stepping out, of taking chances, of being brave, of new beginnings, new chapters, new new new.  there is a working compass, nestled in one of my bezels, in brass.   it can be a scary thing to set out for new horizons; we've all done it, we've all been frightened of the unknown, the unseen.  i feel that my life is one big question mark these days; at least it isn't dull.  never.  not mine.
anyway - head on over to my little etsy shop and see if you might find a word that fits your state of mind.  (my mouth, and my dentist, will thank you ;))

traveling is not for babies 2: australia

 incredibly beautiful, isn't it?  and so close to home - an hour's drive away.  whenever i've been far from the mountains of western north carolina, whenever i come back home again after having been to other magnificent places in this big wide world, i take a good long look at the landscape surrounding me and cannot believe what a blessing it is to live deep in the middle of where i've landed.  it brings such a deep, soothing peace to look, and smell, and touch the immediate world of mine; it brings great peace, and calm. can you see me there, an integral part of the ground where i stand?  i am a part of the water, in the rock, that rests beneath the sky.  i am all of this; the world is in me, the universe is as well.  trying to express this is sometimes difficult; the notion can overwhelm.  but, here you are with me, looking and feeling and even experiencing a little of what i see.  at least, i think you are.  i think you can; i'll give it my best attempts, anyway. 

 

so i take you from here, beautiful here
and here 
to magnificent there: i can't seem to find a big enough pocket of time to begin sharing with you all of the many, many magical moments i experienced in july, halfway 'round the world.  i tried to start, two weeks ago, when i wrote a post and worked on the words and the photographs for nearly six hours - then my lefthand pinky finger, i think, hit a button it wasn't supposed to hit, and all was lost, in spite of efforts to have saved it as i went along.  i remember that happening once, a decade ago, when i worked and worked and worked on writing a poem that was meant to go with an art piece i had titled "The Book of Trees".  poof.  gone.  i sat there, stunned, and began to head into that sickening spiral of despair, when i realized what a waste of time that would be, and wrote the poem again while it was still rather fresh in my mind.  i always think, when i've lost something like this - written words, photographs - that the work had been some of my best.  of course it was:  it was gone.  a ridiculous thought that i've tried to remember whenever this happens again (as it inevitably does).but for now, i will tease you with this, a view from my cottage that i had all on my own (picture kangaroos standing there in the grass, under the moonlight, standing silently there with their shadows, staring up at me, insignificant me), see? i walked out into the early morning and saw this and this, soft this and back again, first thing in the morning, to this it was a wonderful place to call home for a few days, there in the middle of the australian bush.  

 
 
all light was beautiful, in this place, from early morning 'til dusk and on into the night. 

 
the light was other worldly, needless to say.

(karen hardie, dear one, these are for you; and jacky, they dropped off, i swear xo). 
(and i'm adding here, after a couple of you have inquired, that this is a Silver Princess variation of the Gungurru Eucalyptus, which blooms from autumn through winter in western australia; you can go here to see a wide variety of the dr. suess-like blossoms of this region).

monday, i'll be sharing with you some of the light-filled faces of my many friends in western australia; if it weren't for them, i'd never have had such a magical time...i'll also be showing some new "intention" pendants with an "onward" theme, perhaps as esarly as this weekend.  stay tuned.  xo 

settling in

  i''m back.... sort of.  back from beautiful, magical places halfway around the world to this beautiful place that surrounds me every day.  i'm back, sort of, while trying frantically to juggle trips to the dentist (already i'm at $1400 and will soon be having to drum up another $3600, just for starters.  and i am a little confused as to how i am supposed to come up with this money, just like that), writing and photographing a workshop proposal (this always takes days and days and days), staring at an unkempt house, an impossible studio without knowing where to begin.  last week, at the gentle urging of my visiting friend julie (guardian angel extraordinaire, she always comes through and i'm ever grateful for this), i ventured out into miles of wilderness, hiking for miles and miles and miles where water and land and sky meet as one. 
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I GIVE UP.  i sat and worked on this blasted post for SIX HOURS and now it is gone.  into thin air.  

i had some lovely lovely photos of last week's hikes, i wrote from the heart and it is gone.

i don't know when i will be back here.  i have pressing needs, and my mother had extensive tests run all day today.  needless to say i am disgusted with blogging, with my computer, with wasting my time sitting here all that time for naught..

you don't know what you missed.  i shared some exquisite things.

i'll try again, when there is time.  right now, there is not one minute of it.

australia?  new zealand?  they happened.  they were incredible.  i don't know where to begin, nor how to carve out another section of time.

i received news from mama this afternoon that she had six hours (same time frame, actually) of extensive tests run, and more will be run next week.  please, please, please keep her in your strong thoughts and prayers.  i'm trying not to worry.  it is hard to be brave these days.