No, I’m not Marie Osmond even though that’s her song.  How do you get to be country? Country speaks to me of time outdoors, gentle wind and farm ponds. When I was young, my father was the soil conservation agent in Medford, Oklahoma. As such, he helped local farms put in and stock their farm ponds. Later, he was allowed to fish in those ponds. I loved it except when the mosquitoes were out in force. My dad even used these country ponds to encourage his then “new” son-in-law to take up fishing. This country ease later gave way to boats with big motors and some small tournament fishing for my husband. At least it started out as country!

Another part of country that I enjoyed as a child was picking sand plums. We used to load up in the pickup and drive somewhere to find sand plum bushes. It seemed like I picked forever before my little bucket would be full enough to stop. The mosquitoes weren’t so much the problem as the bees in the bushes. One country problem with sand plums was that there was often sandy loam to traverse to get to the fruit. We carried a big board in the back of the pickup because my dad had a propensity to get stuck. Luckily, we were usually prepared for the inevitable. We brought sand plums home and Mother made great jelly from them. That’s something else I consider country even though city folks sometimes make jelly and do canning also. I think you could say I WAS a little bit country growing up.

Thinking about being country naturally leads me in to thinking about being western as well. My dad always wore a western hat and boots. I still have his last felt hat in a box in my closet just in case a need to rekindle a memory. It’s interesting to me that after all these years of living in major metropolitan areas while my husband was with Procter and Gamble, I grew up to be both country and western. Our ranch endeavors have certainly helped add a western bent to my life. Although I don’t wear a hat and boots, can’t ride a horse and don’t rope any steers, I can help round up the cows with the jeep, help down at the barn and save the life of a calf with a needle and fluids. Does that count for country-western?

I think a person’s art form takes on the style of who they are. Certainly your life, past and present, influences the things you like and therefore your style. While I continue to be a bit unsure about my own art style, I keep trying various types of designs. This week, I’ after country-western. So here’s the question, what does it take for a piece of jewelry to be that style? Western is somewhat perplexing. I’ve perused the web and been in several “western” stores, but am particularly dissatisfied with the store offerings. While the pieces carry a hefty price tag, they largely appear to be made of plated silver, large stones, magnesite dyed to look like turquoise and flashing beads, crystals or rhinestones. Since I haven’t been to a rodeo in about a 100 (slight exaggeration) years, I don’t know if this is what cowgirls are wearing. I envisioned more authentic turquoise, pure silver and less bling. I have several photos of pieces below that I would call western. See what you think.

This cuff has a brass layer on the bottom and the top is fold formed copper. I wired the turquoise stones to the copper and then attempted to rivet the two pieces together. Since that didn’t work, I finally used leather to lace it together and just riveted the ends.

The lapis, coral and carnelian necklace shown here has bone horses strung in it. I’ve done several of these before and have even sold a few  as far away as a store in Maine.

The sunstone necklace is composed of an array of shapes of sunstone beads with a peach sunstone cabachon bezeled on copper for the focal. I hoped the copper shape would look western.

Finally, this necklace contains Native American fetishes made from various gemstones. They are strung amid picture jasper chips, turquoise and carnelian beads.

These westernish pieces are missing the bling since they don’t display any rhinestones and the turquoise is real. This is my style country-western. A couple of these will probably go in my etsy store and we’ll see what others think about them.

I’m a little bit country and from my roots in Oklahoma to my anchoring here in Texas I hope the care I take with my art will reflect who I am!