Friday, July 22, 2011

Pieces for week 29: Be The Pebble

I highly recommend the soundtrack from "Black Snake Moan"... some wicked, awesome, fierce Delta Blues will come blaring at you. Perfect for hot summer days and a tall glass of lemonade.

I'm listening to this soundtrack right now...lemonade consumed and ice cubes melting. We don't have a/c here in the house. I'm ok with that. There is something about fake weather that bugs my body. Yes, the heat can be oppressive...yes, I take cold showers...yes, I can get grumpy and enjoy the frozen food isle at Safeway...

Despite all that...I love the "real" feeling of heat...maybe that is why I love the blues. It's "real" music.

Speaking of heat...it's too hot to work in our garage studio.

So, I'm sitting in the middle of two fans and one overhead, playing with leather.

While in Tahoe, our neighbor vendor was "Joe"...a master leather worker. He has an amazing booth...belts, wallets, leather journals, key chains...well...all things leather. He has his work bench set up right there in the booth. Receives shipments of hides every few days... and sits there and makes things of leather.

To make a long story short...Joe began to give us scraps of leather...and challenged us...
"What can you do with this?"
Apparently he has asked other jewelers, and none met his challenge.

Except...he challenged us.

We have already sold one bracelet made of leather...that didn't take long to fly off the shelf!!!

One of my answers is a combination of Joe's leather scraps and a concept I've been thinking of...

Leather bangles with "Be The Pebble" stamped into them...

So many individuals these days seem to be riding the waves of circumstances...play victim. Oh, how we love our victim stories.

"Yes, but I was traumatized as a child..." "Yes, but I was ridiculed and laughed at..." "Yes, but....."

You know...all we need is to make a choice to not be that.
Simple.
You can argue all you want. The more one argues the more I can tell you are attached to your story.

Here's my pebble. I drop it in your little pond...or maybe I am stuck in your shoe (thank you, Tania for that visual!!!)...

Make a different choice.

Be the one who initiates change. Within your self, your circle of influence, your world.
Of course, I am talking about being "positive." Not pebbles of chaos and havoc...

A pebble of gentle ripples and changes.

These pieces are a reminder...and one piece as a message for Norway...

"Peace."


Monday, July 18, 2011

New homes...

Just an update on some of our pieces...and where they are now...

"Bacchaus" was purchased as a gift to a woman who has a tracheotomy scar. I am absolutely fascinated that this piece...a piece that came into being because of an error on my part...is going to cover someone's scar. (Copper got too hot and began to melt...the holes are a result of that! It was supposed to be a solid piece.)

This mermaid sold QUICKLY to a woman who fell in love with it....

Mermaid on the left is at PeraDice, mermaid on the right...made a trade with Pennie Pyle (of Pennie Wrapped Western & Wire Art Jewelry)for some amazing beads for our upcoming "ocean show" as Pennie calls it! :)

"Persephone" found a new home with a lovely lady...who wanted earrings to match. We whipped out a pair of earrings and gave them to the woman. I got a big hug from her! :)

I already told the story of this piece...about it being purchased by a woman who lost everything in the San Bruno fire.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Doodles and Dreams

(originally posted in December of 2009)

A frequent question we are asked is, "Where do you get your inspiration?"

(since the original writing of this post, I heard a great comeback for this question: "Where do I get my inspiration? Every time I get a bill in the mail I am deeply inspired!!!")

Anywhere! After almost back-to-back viewings of "Avatar"... I have walked away with TONS of ideas! We have a vine growing around our front porch that has these spiral tendrils...I've made lots of spiral tendrils out of wire! Leaves are another favorite of mine...plenty of those blowing around this time of year! I look at a lot of pictures on line. I like to do a google search on different pendant images. I keep my favorite ones...I don't copy those pieces, I just study them for my own ideas...here's an example from my notebook...



Another source of ideas are from my own doodles...mostly done during meetings at work! (I'm listening...really!!!)



Another source...my dreams! In the image below, there is a sketch of a broken wine glass with wine flowing out of the break...the wine becoming a chrysanthemum on top of a snake spiraling around the wine glass. I drew that sketch the next day at work...along with some other doodles. The wine glass/snake was actually a tattoo on a woman's cheek in my dream. Don't know what any of that means...but the image was so powerful that it stayed with me and even translated well to paper! (sketching is NOT my strongest skill)



Last night I was having another dream. In the dream I was opening a jewelry box to show a buyer an amazing piece I had made. In the dream I had the awareness that this piece was outstanding and demanded a very high price. I was opening the box for the buyer to see it one more time before it was sealed for the recipient. As I moved the lid of the box to the side, I caught a glimpse of the silver with a spiral...and then...

one of my cats FREAKED OUT AND SCAMPERED ACROSS THE BED...waking me up before I could see the entire piece.

DERN CAT!!!!

The frustration of not seeing the entire piece is about as frustrating as the time I dreamed I won the lotto...and was staring at my winning ticket...and could not read the numbers!!! ARGHHH!

Most of my waking hours today have been trying to remember what I knew in my dream. :)

Anyway...inspiration...comes from anywhere... from anything... at anytime. The artist's goal is to catch it when it happens...and in the meantime...always be working...sometimes it can be an accident while working on something else. You just never know.

(authored by Lisa)

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Focus<-----highlight in yellow

(This post is from June of 2010...it is still applicable!!!)

We are busy. Events in May handed us opportunities that astound us. Josh used a "slight" bit of downtime to move our studio from the dining room to the garage. We did an inventory on ALL our pieces of jewelry. I made list after list of "things to do"..."things I wish I could do"..."things I had better do..."
So MUCH! And it's all GREAT!

And...with everything we must focus on...there are also many tempting distractions. This is how the picture played out in my head. I ended up with realizing that life is one big ritual on focus.