Chasing the Muse

I am inexorably drawn back to painting. The jewelry studio will be tidied and moved aside for a time. The last jewelry market is coming soon. I feel relief at that thought. Yes, it is harder to sell paintings but it’s drawing and painting that have been channels to the heart of things, the channels to home. Here might be one of the last little ones:

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Take Heart

I found my words again although the geo-political atmosphere continues to be contaminated. Lots of shit flinging, a behavior observed in monkeys and apes, and the insane. And it’s contagious. I’d best stay clear and take a watchful position.

It appears that the heart theme has displaced the spiral theme and enameling has displaced the knotting. The colors make me feel childlike and cheery. The urge to place a heart on a piece seems to be a calling to “take heart”. Loving the clarity of Czech glass beads, too. I feel aligned with the work.

I see the path back to painting. I miss painting like I miss a lost relationship; the effort to reestablish flow is sometimes too much. But the energy is rising.

There are new options on the horizon. I hope 2017 will not be as steeped in loss as 2016 has been for so many of us. Let’s take heart and look to the future.hearts

Learning as refuge

The election is over. I am grieving. I really want to say more, write more, but I feel mute.

So I am taking refuge in learning new ways to work. Here are the first steps. Torch fired enamels. Fussy like etching, fussy like printmaking. But the colors are rewarding.

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torch-fired enameled earrings

Something Simple

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Sometimes friends have more confidence in your abilities than you do yourself. The friend for whom I made this necklace showed me the dress she was wearing for her son’s wedding and said, something simple, with a pearl.

So I made something simple with a pearl. Interestingly, the process was not so simple and depended on a little good fortune (reticulation can be unpredictable). But it worked, and I stretched a little, and she liked it and I’m glad it’s done. Commissions always have a bit of edginess. *wipes sweat from brow*