Earrings, Necklaces, Philosophy, Wire Work

Bowling

February 7, 2010 Karen

How many pieces of jewelry can you make while “watching” the Super Bowl? Today was Super Bowl Sunday and the game watching from my favorite chair presented a good opportunity to get some stringing completed. I shouldn’t actually say I watched the game. It’s more that I listened to the game and looked up at the appropriate times. I must say this provided quite an earful stemming from the television noise and the cheers or the opposite thereof from my spouse. Included in the sounds were the three adult dogs who chorused the announcement of a skunk in the yard and the little yelps of the seven puppies who heard their mom barking outdoors. Need I say that focusing on the jewelry was a challenge?

Thankfully, several things did come together as shown in the photos herein. All the necklaces have earrings, but the pictures of a couple didn’t work out. I believe that all the major bead components for these pieces were purchased from Turquoise Magpie.

The stones/colors for all these necklaces were selected with Spring in mind. The boutiques are already filling with fashions for warmer weather and the clothes beg for these lighter colored accessories.

Seeing a warmer than Texas setting on television for the Super Bowl helped me think about Spring and realize there is hope for brighter, more pleasant weather ahead. I’m thinking that designers need some special video, lighting or music to jump ahead to the next season while still physically stuck in the current one. I guess the Super Bowl “watching” helped me get there.

I hope your team won and that even if you are not a Saints fan, you will cheer with me for the city that came back. Having lived in Louisiana for nine years and hearing first hand from those who survived Katrina, I can only find joy in this win for the city of New Orleans and the whole Gulf region.

Uncategorized

Puppy Post

January 31, 2010 Karen 3 Comments

Many readers have asked for pictures of the my blue heeler puppies as they grow. They are now two weeks and two days old, have their eyes open and are doing a very fine wobble walk. I’ll let the picture tell it all.

Puppies at Play – growling and biting

TROUBLE! “I’m sure I can get out of this whelping box.”

DOUBLE TROUBLE! “If SHE can get out, so can we!”

OOPS! “ I think we just got caught. “ BACK IN THE BOX!

Metal Work, Necklaces, Wire Work

Going in Circles

January 27, 2010 Karen 6 Comments

Some say if you keep going in circles, you’ll never get anywhere. But just think of all those times that going in circles pays off. I watched the national women’s ice skating competition the other evening. The circles they went in were pretty impressive. I made a pecan pie for my mother’s 89th birthday yesterday. She thought that was a delicious circle. AND, if we didn’t go in circles, albeit loops, we’d never find our way back home and I rather like it here at Dreamcatcher.

I’ve been going in circles with the metal work this week. It all started with a single left over circle from a pair of earrings gone awry and things mushroomed from there. Using the torch I had added color to some copper sheet metal and several natural circles appeared. The left over earring became a pattern and the medium circle necklace on the right developed. You can see a bit of the color created from the heat of the torch. Perhaps I went a bit overboard as I created a hand made chain out of wire circles. These circles are graduated becoming smaller toward the back.

Since there was more of this copper, I cut some smaller circles and made a second necklace.

Undaunted by strange looks from across the living room, I made one more set of circles. Surely someone might want a bit more bling! The larger circles came from a piece of metal I got at the recycle establishment. They already had an interesting patina.

It’s quite a wonder this latter piece ever came together since I worked on it between trips to the lease pasture to help round up and haul the cattle several times today. I even took the components with me when I served a picnic lunch to the men and they laughed at me for working on the necklace instead of eating. Some days, it’s a real struggle to finish anything and I wasn’t giving up. The glare on this picture gives the copper a strange hue that is not really present.

The final photo shows the back of one of the necklaces which is the same for all three.

I’m thinking this journey in circles should continue into bracelets and belts now. It seems that I’m enjoying going in circles. Could it be I’ve been on the straight and narrow for too long?

Who knows? Next I may decide to try rectangles . . . , but somehow I don’t think it will be the same.

Philosophy

What Makes an Artist?

January 25, 2010 Karen 9 Comments

Have you ever been called or called yourself an artist? I recall my shock the first time I was in a store that sells my designs and the owner told a customer that the “artist” for the particular piece of jewelry was in the store today. I turned to look for her and found “the artist” in the mirror. I didn’t look like “the artist”, but who else could the store owner mean?

In my masters and PhD work, I studied many artists, particularly investigating their creative thinking. At that time, I don’t recall seeing any bios that resembled my own. For example, Julia Cameron discusses artists in her book, Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity. “Artists have stared out of windows and into their souls for a very long time. It is something in the staring-out that enables us to do the looking-in.” I don’t recall ever really taking the time to stare out and then look in. I could say that LIFE got in the way of this, but I believe the true artist carves out time for this introspective endeavor.

Wikipedia defines artists stating “the definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art.” Webster further explains that an artist is (1) a person who works in, or is skilled in the techniques of, any of the fine arts, . . . (2) a person who does anything very well, with imagination and a feeling for form, effect, etc. . . . “ Both these descriptions make an artist more common than I suspected.

Unfortunately, only the second Webster definition, included imagination (creativity) which I believe is essential to the artist. Are artists those who perfectly replicate what they have seen created by others, found in nature, etc. or is an artist that person who imagines something unique or creates a true variation on something that already exists? I choose to believe that creative thinking is an essential component to artistry. I remember using the Torrance Visual Creativity Test to in the evaluation of several adults. One young woman was a painting major at a reputable college, but her creativity test indicated little visual imagination. I didn’t discuss her score, but learned later that she had changed majors to business. (quite a big switch). At that time, I wondered if we might save some art majors a good deal of unhappy college hours if they investigated their own creativity at an early stage or if the colleges, at the least, provided training in creative thinking.

You do not need to find fame to be an artist. That’s certainly apparent by those who commit to their art by doing as the artist for my books used to do. For many years, he slept on a pallet in his cold warehouse studio, earned money by baking bread for a bakery at night, and painted during the day. Luckily, he has now found sufficient success for a more comfortable life.

If you don’t need fame, do you need recognition to be an artist? Again, I would say no. I think a true artist solely requires appreciation from within. If so, the old “believe in yourself” statement holds true. Many of us, however, do require the appreciation of others to continue our art work. I would certainly have ceased to create new designs if my early pieces had not been appreciated. I feel it is very difficult to create in an arena of naysayers.

What elements might it take to be a true artist? On the practical side, skill and technique developed through patient practice would certainly head the list. The less tangible elements of creativity, vision and fortitude weight strongly among those other needed qualities. If I chose these elements and wanted to work toward being more of an artist, I find that I need to go back to skill and technique. My creativity and drive have pushed me into production and now I notice minimal flaws in construction. If I want to “be” an artist under my definition, I need more skill practice. (If this was music, I’d be saying I need to practice more scales and arpeggios!) This skill practice also requires a critical eye, the kind that doesn’t accept “almost perfect”.

The difficulty will be in conducting skill practice while wanting to forge ahead with production. I need a healthy balance between the two and will try to keep from tipping the scale. Perhaps this will allow the “artist within” to emerge.

Balance, Earrings, Necklaces, Pendants, Wire Work

Celtic Design

January 22, 2010 Karen

Most of my designs are composed of freeform, asymmetrical or random patterns. I’ve favored this style for so long that I wondered if I could actually follow a pattern. Even though randomness is not always a bad thing, I still remember what happened when I let the children in my elementary classes “do their own thing”. It was very difficult to get them back to the routine. Therefore, I usually saved this freedom for the end of the day and then quickly sent them home to their mothers. By the next morning, they were usually ready to get back to the routine.

I observed this same phenomenon with the graduate students that I taught. One evening, in an early childhood class, I let them experiment with drops of colored water on waxed paper. Each student had a straw and they were to observe the movement of the drops blown across the paper as well as the manner in which they combined. The drops move like liquid mercury. I thought we had put everything away and started my lecture only to glance up and note two women in the back of the room racing their water drops across the waxed paper as they blew through the straws. I bent down and met them at eye level just as the first water drop crossed the finish line. I was laughing so hard inside that it was hard to be stern. We never did quite return to full intellectual seriousness during that class.

With the knowledge of how freedom can trump rigor, I was concerned about following the Celtic knot pattern. Thankfully, I don’t have to go somewhere to get straightened out. I can still create a balanced pattern. The necklace shown here, composed of Celtic knots IS balanced. I have several acquaintances who really like Celtic knots, but I’ve wondered about their meaning. I retrieved the following information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_knot

“Celtic knots are a variety of (mostly endless) knots and stylized graphical representations of knots used for decoration, adopted by the ancient Celts. These knots are most known for their adaptation for use in the ornamentation of Christian monuments and manuscripts . . . “

This didn’t tell me much more than I knew, but the Christian connection is interesting. I like these knots because they are seeming endlessness. I had a great deal of trouble figuring out the pendant knot. The others on the necklace chain are not endless. Each is made of two separate figure eights that are brought together with jump rings on each end. This is more easily observed on the earrings.

This set has found a temporary home at Dovetails of Wimberley and if folks like it, the store owner suggested we make it in silver. We shall see whether or not I can replicate that knot.

You know, following a pattern wasn’t too bad. It was actually quite calming to know exactly what should come next in the design. (But I wouldn’t want to do this all the time!)

Color, Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Techniques, Wire Work

New Pieces

January 19, 2010 Karen

I’m short on time and short on words today, but wanted to put up some pictures of completed necklaces. The copper pendant with the sterling silver cross was born of my efforts to put more movement into pieces. The cross hangs from a hammered figure 8 piece of wire that allows it to swing inside the copper piece. The bumps on the outer edge of the copper were made with my doming set.

The butterfly pendant is atop a domed and stamped piece of copper. I used the torch on the butterfly to give it a bit of color.

This piece is made of ruby zoisite (large chips) and kiwi. I used plated silver beads and added some blue rounds to the necklace. I regret the color doesn’t show very well in the photo

This piece took several days because I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted to do a layered pendant and use rivets, but in the end I just have layers and fake rivets. The oval is copper and the diamond shape is brass that I stamped with Ranger brand alcohol ink to add a bit of color.

The seed bead pendant has been close to completion for quite a while. Now I can check it off the list of UFOs (unfinished objects. . . check . . . Hurray!)

Uncategorized

Changing the Sheets

January 15, 2010 Karen 1 Comment

Today’s post is NOT about jewelry design. Little or no work took place yesterday, but there certainly was a good deal going on.

One of my Blue Heelers delivered her first litter of puppies yesterday. It took all day long. The bitch (a female dog, of course) had been staying in the house at night since I feared she might whelp in the dog pen where one of the other females could hurt the puppies. She was up and down all night on Wednesday and I finally gave up and got up to sit with her at 4 AM. It was nearly 3 PM before she delivered her last puppy. If a dog could just talk, you could tell by the look on her face that she would be saying “halleluiah” after she finished with the last puppy. I just know that dog was smiling!

I’m well aware that dogs have been having puppies by themselves for centuries, but I wanted to see these puppies as they were born. It’s a good thing because the first puppy was breach, not uncommon, but it needed assistance since it was “stuck in the door”. Two of the others needed help to get started breathing. So, if a midwife helps a woman deliver a baby, does that make the assistant who aids the dog a “midbitch?” hmm . . .

Following the births, I needed to change the newspapers in the bottom of the whelping box. Now think about this. How are you supposed to get the sheets (of paper) out from under the dog and seven puppies when they won’t move? My tired mind pondered this for a while, asked the dog to move, poked and prodded, but to no avail. Then I remembered how you change the bed sheets when someone is ill. You roll the person to one side, remove the dirty linen and replace it with a clean sheet. Then you roll the person to the clean side and take care of the other side. OK, I can do that. The dog was already on her side, so I removed the old newspapers and replaced them on the vacant side of the box. Then I attempted to roll the dog to her other side. You know, dogs just don’t roll well when you want them to. Finally, I moved all the pups to the clean side and tried to drag the dog (humanely, of course) over to that side. That dog is heavier than she looks and this didn’t work either. She grabbed her pups and moved them back close to her on the dirty side. At this point, I admitted that the dog had more fortitude than I did and called for reinforcements. My husband came and put all the pups in a basket, moved the basket away from the dog, and thankfully, she followed. Then I was able to change the papers without incident.

Although both of my females who have had puppies are black, the puppies are all born white except for markings on their heads. In just a few weeks, they will get their dark coloring. The first time this happened with a litter, I wondered if my dog had been out visiting the sheep dog next door rather than the great male heeler I brought her. No, this is just an interesting phenomenon.

I guess the lesson I learned yesterday is that motherhood makes you strong. This dog, which can normally be persuaded to do something if there’s a treat in my hand is not to be reckoned with now.

Earrings, Metal Work, Wire Work

Still Swinging

January 14, 2010 Karen

More earrings swung into place after yesterday’s post. These are largely composed of small pieces I had played with for several days. I lay all the pieces out and was then able to see what should come together.

Does this mean that I should never throw any doodles away?

Earrings, Necklaces, Pendants, Wire Work

Swingers

January 13, 2010 Karen

I’m NOT one, but I do like jewelry in motion. I also like designs that have dimension. Following the post here on January 2, I took the bracelet shown wrapped around the pasta can into one of the stores where I market my designs. (I took it sans pasta can!) Although it didn’t have stones on it yet, the owner especially liked the depth to the bracelet armature.

Since then, I’ve been playing with how depth might be suitably worked into various designs. I made several “something or others” out of wire and they sat on the work table for 10 days. Finally, some of these came together as swingers last night. It’s difficult to see the depth on the necklace pendant, but there is about 3/4 of an inch between the front and the back swirls. The stone dangle wraps around both the pendant swirl and the necklace allowing it to swing.

It’s a bit easier to see this on the earrings which, by the way, didn’t want to quit swinging long enough to have their picture taken.

Whether these are winners or not, they were certainly perplexing as a design project and will, hopefully, spawn other dimensional ideas.

Now, I wonder about that other kind of SWINGER . . . sorry, I can’t write about a topic that I know nothing about. You’re on your own with that one.

Philosophy, Techniques

Using the Right Tools

January 10, 2010 Karen 2 Comments

I started beading ten years ago and remember spending considerable time searching for an appropriate way to store, yet have available, the many beads in my stash. At that time I had no idea that my hobby would eventually require so many different tools. While stringing beads requires several tools, working with wire and metal in jewelry design takes many more. Today, I spent most of the day rearranging my studio and realized just how many great tools I’ve acquired. Most of these came my way as a result of generous gifts from my family and friends. (Thanks!)

I’m not a big tool buyer. I try to make do with what I have, but have learned several lessons lately about how having the correct tools can make things easier. This, of course, doesn’t just apply to making jewelry, but to many other things.

For example, yesterday I visited my mother at the nursing home., I meant to take my good scissors because she has been considering having me cut her hair since before Christmas. I put it off by saying, “Let’s wait and ask your granddaughter.” This seemed to be a good idea and it worked well until after the holidays and everyone, including her granddaughter, went home. I had my nerve up to cut her hair this week, but forgot to take the needed tool – my sharp scissors. When I told Mamaw, she announced that SHE had scissors. “But Mother,” I said, “ those are for paper”. “Well, I don’t want to be butchered up,” she replied. To show her that they wouldn’t work, I took her scissors and whacked through the nearest thing I could find - a Kleenex. Unfortunately, the scissors worked great and we took on the task of cutting her hair with the old pair of scissors meant for paper. Now grey hair is not the same texture as a Kleenex, but by the time I thought of that, I was worn down and resigned to my task.

We started with a towel around her shoulders to catch the falling hair. She couldn’t see how much the towel was catching, but she could see the tiny pieces of hair that kept falling on her sweatshirt and so she kept wiggling as she flicked them off. Eventually, we removed the sweatshirt, but that didn’t help much. I hooked up her hairdryer and used it to blow the hair off of her, but she insisted that it was “too hot.” She hollered once when I got the comb hung in her earring and we had to stop to remove them. We stopped again to remove her hearing aids since she was sure I was going to cut them and another time to move her glasses (I thought this might help if I got the hair a little crooked, but it didn’t help at all. That woman has great eyes for spotting uneven hair whether or not she’s wearing her glasses.)

A couple of times I thought I was finished, but when she looked in the mirror, she found places that needed more whacking. She was sure one side was longer than the other and I was unable to convince her that her head was just leaning. When I thought I was finished, she still complained about her fly away hair, full of electricity due to the full-blast heating of the room. Thinking I could cure it, I used hair spray and announced her complete. Then she took the comb and, of course, when she ran it through her hair, it flew away again. Eventually, we agreed that we would stop for the day realizing we could always cut a bit more since she had her own scissors. I donned my coat to leave only to see her looking in the mirror and pointing to her neck. Yes, I had left a little long hair that was now showing. I whacked it off and exited quickly.

With the right “tool”, I’m sure I could have done a better job cutting my mother’s hair, but we might not have had such an interesting time. Part of the problem was not the tool, but rather my lack of expertise in cutting hair. I guess you can have the best tools in the world, but without technique and practice, you can’t be an expert.

While I don’t plan to become an expert at cutting hair, this Mamaw episode does bring light upon my wire work. I have good tools, and creative designs, yet much of my work still looks quite amateur. Those great Lindstrom tools that I bought just can’t do it all by themselves. So I guess I’ll keep asking questions of my expert friends and keep practicing. I used to try to teach my highly creative students that they couldn’t get by on just great ideas. They had to learn how to bring them to fruition and that takes practice. Now I need to practice what I used to preach.

As for my wire and metal work, I believe there is hope. Besides, now if I need to really find out how my designs look or whether the wires are even, I’m just going to ask Mamaw, with or without her glasses.

Dreamcatcher Designs