New SlideShow Program...

Just discovered a great slideshow program online called Slide. Quick, easy, FREE and you can share almost anywhere. So, I created this--some of my recent and past work. Give it a try!!

More Experimenting...

Another package arrived from Objects and Elements...so love getting those! Their new line of handmade brass charms are so cool. Very ancient in appearance, so many to choose from! Can't wait to begin working with them. I did immediately pounce on the faux bone I ordered. In case you haven't heard, this stuff is really fun to work with. It's basically PVC in sheet form. You can cut, saw, heat, bend, scratch, and carve with ease. Age it with anything from shoe polish to glaze, buff it up, and you have the look of ancient bone. Robert Dancik is the genius behind this, and he is aslo a fantastic jewelry designer. Take a peek at his site and get inspired...Don't miss his tutorial on YouTube!

So, here are two new designs using some of the great stuff from O and E. The bracelet is made from a 7-inch brass bangle topped with layers of brass, faux bone, copper, sterling silver and a Michigan beach stone. I textured and aged/patina'd all the metals myself. This piece is cold-connected--held together with brass screws and nuts. The ring is a layered design using sterling silver that I impressed with a woodgrain pattern then colored with patina to bring out the design, topped with sterling silver, a text transparancey sheet, a cup of plexiglass, a copper washer, a brass bezel and sterling silver bead (again, held together with a brass screw and nut). Love them!

More to come soon....

Sunday--It was a Good Day!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a nicely productive day for me in the studio. My head was chock-full of inspiration from visiting my favorite artist's websites and blogs, and I was ready to try some new techniques and designs. I created four rings, each very different in style and appearance. One incorporates a vintage photograph and loose gemstones under a clear mineral crystal dome, one features a super-cool antique signet stone I found at a funky antique fair, the third features a hand-carved 800 year old bead from Africa, and the last is a huge stack of mixed metals hammered and heat treated with oil pastels. WHEW! Three of the rings are cold-connected, no soldering involved, and use my favorite copper and brass tube bezels in one way or another. I connected the elements using rivets and brass screws. How cool is that???

I'm most excited about working with oil pastels on metal (thank you again, Susan Lenart Kazmer). I had no idea you could work the colors into the metals (with or without patina), heat it with a torch or heat gun, then seal. The possibilities are endless, and I plan to do much, much more with this. I'll keep you posted...

In the meantime, here are a couple photos of the results. What do you think?????

All of these designs are available in my Etsy shop...

Amazing Artist...

Okay, so I'm cruising through Susan Lenart Kazmer's webiste--a constant source of inspiration--and I see they now have a Zine (online magazine). Wonderful stuff, you MUST take some time here. Anyway, while browsing through previous posts and images I discovered Richard Salley, my new FAVORITE ARTIST OF ALL TIME. His work is absolutely inspired. What he does with found objects, metals, wire, heat and patina will take your breath away. His tutorial for a locket pendant created from a rusted automotive flange has me digging through my husband's workshop for similar design elements. AND, he offers an online tutorial to create that very locket!! Please, please visit his site and prepare to pick your jaw up off the ground. I've included a couple images of his work here to whet your appetite...

Bye-Bye 2009....THANK HEAVENS!

Excuse me if I slam the door on 2009...not the best of times for so many of us. I now turn my attention to 2010, with the hopes that the year is prosperous and PEACEFUL for all. I've been out of my studio for a while, holiday madness put the brakes on my creativity outside of the kitchen (I cooked me up a storm this season!). The holidays brought me a few culinary firsts--my first brined, organic turkey for Thanksgiving (DELICIOUS), my first "fancy dinner" with friends (tucked fresh allspice leaves into each folded napkin--cloth napkins--at the table), and my first attempt to make homemade beer bread (eh, could take it or leave it). All in all, fun and EXHAUSTING.

Now, it's time to get creating in the studio! I'm still struggling with my conscience, debating how to create meaningful art and jewelry that doesn't take advantage of the planet's resources...my designs this year will be different--I can feel it.

I would love to hear from other artists out there who are "creating with conciousness" so to speak. How do you express yourself artistically? Please, send me your stories or images to share. We all need inspiration, right? I hope 2010 inspires us all to create with intent, share with heart, and celebrate the natural wonders all around us.

Happy New Year!

Another Social Skill Gone Extinct...The Spoken Word

First, let me say that I am totally aware of the irony of this post. Read on...

So I'm at a gallery event the other night. My jewelry is currently being shown in a new cooperative gallery--a fun, ecclectic mix of art and artists of all ages media. I'm chatting with a pretty, young potter whom I discover is also a yoga instructor. I mention that I spent close to twenty years as an aerobics instructor. With big eyes she responds, "Aerobics? Do people still do that?" It was as if I had told her that I practice medicine using leeches (which, by the way, many hospitals still do--go on, Google it). Oblivious to my obviously cool reply of "Amazing as it may seem, but yes, people still "do that"", she went on burying herself by continuing, "I mean, I remember aerobics, like, back in the day, in the 80's, right?" As if the 1980s were the equivelent to the Stone Age or any other dark, forgotten time prior to Ipods and teenage Vampires. You know, before anything IMPORTANT happened in history. She sat there smiling at me, completely oblivious to the verbal torpedos she so casually launched. If I didn't already know this girl I would believe she was intentionally commiting conversational suicide by being a total bitch. But, I do know this woman (I shouldn't call her a girl, she's in her late 20s), and it hit me that she was like most people her age--oblivious to just about everything other than whatever was in her immediate center of interest. A product of a life spent surfing the 'Net, a child of Facebook. Who needs to master the art of conversation when you can OMG, LOL, ROTGL!!!

When I got over my initial fury (mostly because I couldn't help but feel TOTALY ANCIENT in that moment) I actually felt sorry for her. She's a good artist and a lovely young woman, but I like to actually SPEAK to a person, interact, connect, all that OLD -FASHIONED stuff and to her I was the eqivalent of a living dinosaur. Interesting, but aren't they suppose to be, like, extinct or something?

I knew in that moment I would never connect with her on any level other than superficially, and that made me kind of sad. Many say that the age of the Internet has brought the world closer together, but I think it has isolated individuals more than ever. Who needs to master the subtle art of good conversation and depth of thought when you're entire verbal repertoire is confined to 140 characters or less? She may have benn "friended" a thousand times on Facebook, but how many friends does she really have?

Give me a good, long conversation over a cup of coffee with a real-live person, face to face, not Facebook, and I'm one happy camper. I want to hear you laugh, not read LOL on a computer screen. Social networking via computer is all fine and good as long as it doesn't replace the need for vocal cords and eye-to-eye contact. It's what keeps us human. It's what makes us human.

Sorry, this far exceeds 140 characters...

Creating with Consciousness

Last night I watched a 60 Minutes program on the gold trade in the Congo. Needless to say, the program was NOT a feel-good story with a happy ending. Turns out, gold mining in the Congo is just as corrupt and evil as diamond mining is. Young boys and men work in slave conditions digging into the Earth in search of gold for less than a dollar a day in pay. The gold/gold dust is sifted out of the soil, and treated with heated MERCURY (in buckets over open fire) to bind the gold together into tiny nuggets. Gold is sold to rebels and soldiers that in turn buy guns, drugs, whatever they need, to fuel and fund civil war in the region. The gold is exported to the World trade through Dubai, and yes, this gold may end up in the jewelry you and I purchase at local jewelry stores like Walmart (the country's largest seller of gold jewelry).

As a conservation biologist, this appalling practice and trade is unacceptable. The Earth and surrounding ecosystems are ravaged, and the cost to human life is incalculable. As a jewelry designer, I find myself in an evolution of thought that gives me great pause. Can jewelry be designed and created without contributing to the atrocities of strip-mining and human suffering abroad?

I try to create jewelry with a purpose--reclaimed metals, found objects, non-precious metals, etc. but I still use gemstones and beads mined from the Earth. Is this truly creating with consciousness? Is it enough? Long ago I made the decision to NEVER use, purchase or promote the use of diamonds in jewelry. As far as I am concerned, the diamond industry is just as fraudulent and corrupt as organized crime. The term "blood diamond" doesn't begin to describe the level of horror associated with diamond mining. But what about gems from Brazil? Brazil is famous for amethyst and other quartz mineral gemstones. Mines are everywhere, and mining companies have alarmingly similar practices around the world. Rip open the Earth, take what you want, pay little or nothing for it and move on, leaving behind a wake of destruction.

I am in a true moral quandry here, and am not sure what direction my designs will take, or if I should even continue to persue jewelry design at all. I try to raise funds for wildlife conservation through the sales of my work, but that seems pretty hypocritical if componants of my work are created through destroying the very systems I strive to protect. How can I look at gold wire or sheet without seeing the faces of the men who slave to get it out of the ground? How can I set a gemstone without seeing the scarred Earth from which it came?

Jewelry design and personal adornment are ancient--all cultures on the planet have decorated their bodies with items made from gifts from the Earth. The history of jewelry fascinates me and has inspired me for as long as I can remember. The jewelry INDUSTRY of today is a far cry from singular aritsans creating works of personal art. Today's market is a voracious beast churning out tons of glittery, meaningless JUNK. Junk that funds wars, fuels famines, and fosters desperation in the countries selling off their natural resources with no sense of the future consequences.

As I said earlier, there is no happy ending here. I am going to take a long, hard look at myself and my purpose in creating jewelry. My conscious demands it, and I believe I owe it to myself and to the countless, nameless souls who give their lives so wealthy countries can drape their citizens in glitter.