Just Playing...

Not everything needs to be an amazing piece of art. Sometimes you just have to play. Play is where ideas come from and skills are discovered...for instance:

I found a store with a stash of white buttons.

a white button

I bought a bunch of these white buttons...and painted them.

a blue button

Yellow buttons

I had a sea of button possibilities.

I have no idea what to do...but painting them is fun!

And then, while outside having coffee, a dragonfly flew over my head, and landed.

And I suddenly had a silly idea.

Actually - while playing with THIS idea, another one developed...and THAT idea is currently in the pickle.

Playing leads to discoveries. Don't forget to play.

Imagination is the beginning of creativity.

George Bernard Shaw

Life outside of the studio...Lisa's POV

A few snapshots of my day today...Josh and I wandered through Sutter Creek and Jackson, California.

For the bride who wants to go vintage, this set up had it all. All very pretty...so not me, but I can appreciate the charm of it all.

Ok...this is me! LOVE LOVE LOVE these shoes!! Even the little handbag.

Note it is a Chevy. Note the crunched bumper. Note the Nissan tag.

 

This vase gave me quite the creative idea. Instead of surrounding a stone with metal, why not surround metal with a stone...????

 

I am fascinated with old, falling apart buildings. Here is a window that someone once gazed out of...and now...the flora has taken over.

When did this lace curtain fall?

Cafe De Coco. Very good cappucino!

Need to hold a meeting? This strange little room was adjacent to the main dining area in Cafe De Coco. Just a big plain room. This is the view when you exit the bathroom!

I found white buttons...brought them home and began to paint them.

Trying to find it....again

Sometimes I just seem to make messes.

The big wire mess

I feel clueless...and so I go out and buy magazines.

Seeking inspiration

And...nothing happens. I now have a big wire mess and a stack of magazines.

I try to convince myself that my big wire mess is like writing my "morning pages".

Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages-- they are not high art. They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind-- and they are for your eyes only.

Except - I have not written morning pages in a very long time. Maybe an artist needs to do a daily morning wire mess. Just empty out the brain...waste some wire.

I don't know.

I'm going to eat a breakfast burrito and head out. Look at things. Touch things. Consider things.

Re-fill the well. Let's see what happens.

(Lisa Kewish)

The Business of Learning Business

Recently we set up our booth at San Rafael's Food & Wine Festival at Falkirk...a lovely little Food and Wine event with art and craft booths interspersed between vintners' and restaurants' tables. The day was sunny and warm, the setting was inviting. It seemed like a perfect place to sell our work...and yet we only made one sale all day.

Disappointing doesn't begin to describe it. And for a few minutes Lisa and I felt the temptation to run back to the easy, safe life found in a corporate job. But then we sat down and analyzed ourselves, our booth, our products...pretty much everything about our business and realized we need to change our perspective from artists to business owners in order to make it work. This doesn't mean we will compromise our art, but it does mean restructuring how and on what we spend our time, it means changing how we setup our booth and what we put on the tables. It means taking a hard look at how we price our work.

So, I guess it was a good day after all. It was good because it helped us recognize that we aren't just artists; we are business owners too. On some level we knew this, but our understanding of what that means just stepped up to another level.

Peace.
--Joshua

Life on a Tuesday night

Just thought I would share a little snapshop of my current point-of-view.

That is Josh (right side of pic) working on our table covering for our booth. We are fitting the fabric (Wal-Mart sheets) to be a snug fit on the table. I'm done with using bungee cords!! Anyway, he's measuring and pinning the fabric - I'll be sewing the seams in a bit -

To the left is Booger. Sleeping. The cat is actually helping by weighing down the fabric.

Yes, that is our mantle with my photography, one of my charcoal drawings (15 Pears), and some of Josh's sculptures...and a lava-lamp.

Yes, Josh's hair is actually spiking up in three spots. It has been a long day!

Welcome to our world! :)

How does your potential grow?

Art expresses life. Jewelry art intimately expresses life. It is intimate because it is worn against the body, it is seen, it is felt, it is experienced. Some jewelry artists draw meticulous designs and hold true to that design. Others, like me, work by intuition. I never know where a piece is going to end up - but it always tells a story. Usually, a very telling story.

I made a series of "copper skeletons"

I posted the pic and received many compliments on the basic copper shapes. The second guessing began; "Hm, maybe I need to just leave these the way most people would expect them." "My designs are very wacky...maybe they are too much for this world..." But I knew I had something in me that wanted out. Ever find yourself thinking, "there is more to me than just this...more than what you see?" Yeah. Still waters run deep.

Reading the bracelet from left to right - it begins with some sense of uniformity. I expected that this design element would stay the same all the way around the band. But it didn't. The uniformity begin to split and get a little crazy. And then "something happened"...a new bead, full of potential hits the scene...and then, all heck breaks loose...

The uniformity is no longer and instead seems to be leaping, landing and then jumping off again. One element ( a bead) seems to be stepping outside of the lines! It is a little chaotic. The brass wire that attaches the beads is NOT uniform and perfectly straight.
Because -

Life is not uniform and perfectly straight. Things happen. Events change things. Thoughts change the self. New paths are tried out. One should be leaping, landing and then jump off again. Some aspects should fall outside of the lines...surprise and chaos IS OK. NOT everything should be controlled and put on the day's agenda.  Potential is powerful. Many fear their own potential. A good way to hide from one's own potential is to live inside the lines, plan everything and act as if he/she is in control.

Ever watch a vine grow? A vine just goes...unchecked it can take over. I believe that is how our lives should be. Full of unchecked growth. Yes, jewelry is intimate. I may have some intimate stories to tell in bead, stone and metal. There is unchecked growth ahead. Potential untethered.

FOCUS <---highlight in yellow

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.