Hello folks, I'm so glad to be able to talk to you again today. I'm on a countdown to my annual visit to see my mother back in India, and I am now counting the days to my next adventure. I have various side trips planned, to Goa and to Udaipur in Rajasthan and will bring back tales from all those fabulous places. I have a show planned, in collaboration with a well known designer in Bangalore and of course will meet up with mates from school, college, relatives and friends - a very relaxing holiday (not!). I will need another holiday to get over this one. Every year I decide that I will chill out when I get to India, but by the time I even have my bags packed I have such a bulging itinerary that I know I will be rushed off my feet. Anyway it will be nice to get out of the cold and rain that we're currently enjoying here in the UK. I made the last few necklaces for my show and am now going to relax completely. There is one more necklace planned, as well as some earrings, and then that's it. I shall relax and take it easy before my holiday as I'm certainly not going to get any time during the three weeks I shall be away from hubby and cat! For some reason, all the beads I picked up last week were green - I couldn't get away from onyx as much as I tried. I named the necklaces after The Absinthe Fairy or La Fee, the Green Goddess or Belle as she was otherwise known. Absinthe is a drink that captures my imagination - I've only tried it once and it is pretty vile - but that's probably because I'm not a fan of aniseed. It is an anise-flavoured 45–74% spirit derived from botanicals, including the flowers and leaves of Artemisia absinthium ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. However the beautiful green colour, the story behind it and the fact that absinthe has been reputed to be the muse of many thinkers and artists in the nineteenth century piques my curiosity and interest. It was banned in Europe for a long time in the 20th century because of its high alcohol content and has only recently made its way back onto the bar menus in Paris. The Green GoddessTransformation has always been the fundamental essence of the Green Goddess, for transformation is what she provides on several parallels. During the magical ritual of la louche, the drink transforms from the concentrated, alcohol-rich, deep emerald green liquor into an alluring opalescent, cloudy greenish-white mixture when water is added to it over a couple of cubes of sugar. This, of course, is symbolic of the subsequent transformation that takes place in the drinker's mind. As the cool water liberates the power of wormwood oil and the other herbal ingredients from the green concentrate, so will new ideas, concepts and notions be set free in the mind of the drinker - be he a poet, an artist, a scientist, or the common man on the street. Or at least, that's their excuse for drinking absinthe in such quantities! I love the beautiful canister of ice water with the taps that regulates the outflow of water over the sugar placed in perforated spoons - such a fun ritual! BelleLa FeeThis is the most beautiful of the Absinthe Fairy necklaces - It has seven strands of onyx nugget beads, seed pearls, diamante beads, and the most sumptuous, delectable box clasp that can be worn to one side should one wish it to be visible. These necklaces are very much more beautiful in person - the diamante is very difficult to photograph unless I go out and buy myself a macro lens - maybe one day! Just now, all I can do is take loads of closely cropped photographs that I hope will excite your interest - these are moments when I wish I had a bricks and mortar outlet to exhibit my necklaces. That's me for this week, folks. Have a great week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx
0 Comments
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” ~Leonardo da Vinci Hello people of the ether, I'm so pleased to make contact with you again today. I hope you've all been wrapped up warm as we are set for a wet and chilly winter- those of us in the UK certainly are. It has already started snowing in parts of North America and that I think is one of the benefits of living alongside the North Atlantic Drift, the warm ocean current stretching from Florida to north-western Europe. As the warm waters of the drift flow toward western Europe it moderates our climate here in the UK, allowing for winters that are less cold than would be expected at our latitude. Without the North Atlantic Drift, many places in Europe and the United Kingdom would be as cold as Canada. Brrr!! Thank you Florida for keeping us warm (ish)! Even so, in such a tiny country there is a marked difference in the weather between the North and the South. This was brought home to me as I was in London for a couple of days at the beginning of the week, and up in Edinburgh at the end. Boy! Was it cold up there. There's a lot to be said for living in the balmy Midlands as I do - no surprises here. I went up to Edinburgh to a meeting, but managed to take some pictures and do a bit of sight seeing while I was there. Edinburgh is built in the most beautiful sandstone, but the buildings in the centre have got grimy with age and some of them look dark and forbidding, very Gothic. You get a feel for the grisly history of the place - a lot of blood has flown down those streets. Parts of the castle are from the 12th century. On this occasion, we had no time to go into the castle so we took a walk in the bracing cold wind around the periphery and serendipitously caught the most beautiful sunset. The city is built on an undulating hill and a walk that looks completely feasible on a map could in reality turn out to be a steep climb (read hike) up an almost vertical slope. Great for mountain goats, but not for those growing older with all the aches and pains that entails. Still, we managed a lot of walking, up and down the Royal Mile - the shops were a bit disappointing - unless one craves whisky, woolens, fudge, or tourist tat, with the odd Celtic Jeweller thrown in, we couldn't find anything to spend our money on - just as well, I thought, and boarded the train for the four hour journey back home. I wish I could've grown wings when I wandered around Edinburgh, life would have been so much easier! Birdie Necklace (More Birdie necklaces!!??)I'm sorry, I changed my mind. I know I said I wouldn't make any more but I love making the little critters with tiny wings and flowers on their tails - this time I made them in various colours and put them together with beads I made earlier. I've been using a tutorial by Debbie Crothers to turn the beads extremely shiny - this involves zapping them with a very, very hot wallpaper stripper - it is most definitely not just a heat gun, this is more like a dragon snorting fire out of your fist, but the beads go beautifully shiny, get a glass like finish and are never sticky as they sometimes are with varnish. I sprinkled the necklaces liberally with a medley of agate beads, African glass and jade and produced a couple of colourful, fun pieces that can be worn both summer and winter. Last week I made the 'Empress', a beautiful necklace of green onyx and seed pearls with a micro pave connector. I made earrings to go with this necklace using diamante ear cuffs and butterflies with green onyx. I think they go beautifully together, what d'you think?? A Clamor of Winged Things, by Jef Littlejohn The calm of a frozen white I found this little poem on a website that I visit randomly and thought I'd share - the link to the website is in the title, do take a look if the fancy takes you.
That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello nice people, thanks for coming back today. It was Halloween last week, Diwali the week before, and Guy Fawkes day at the weekend - the fireworks were going off everywhere. I've been in London for a few days and will be in Edinburgh for a few more. I was at exams at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists - doing the examining, I hasten to add. The College is moving to new premises near London Bridge and it was sad that we were there for the very last time. I've been going to 'the College' in Sussex Place for exams and events since 1989, and soon it will belong to the London School of Economics. It was such a familiar place and we took it for granted, a second home that we knew so well, complained about the food and met our colleagues and friends, and now, we'll have to get used to someplace else. I wandered around Camden market the evening before, browsing the shops and people watching. EmpressBefore I went out to London, I made Empress - a long necklace with four strands of green onyx and tiny pearl beads with a beautiful bar spacer of micro pave diamante. The spacer isn't very photogenic, although I've tried to go as close as possible with a macro lens in a couple of pictures. In real life though, it is very very pretty! To help give it length I've used a black cord at the back - this one is beautifully wound, with no loose ends and will last forever. I usually do not like the idea of cord, probably because the ones I've seen are sloppily made with loose and fraying ends. When I found these, I thought they were worthy of a Caprilicious effort. A little bead cap on either side made of wire and green silver lined seed beads works well with the onyx. I'm in Edinburgh as you read this and will be home soon. I want to tackle my Non Brexit Fish over the next two days, once I've rested up a bit. I am keen to finish it but want to take my time over the engineering of it - I don't want to create a useless article like the steering wheel mug holder in the picture. That's me for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you on friday as usual, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello folks, how are we today? I've been gearing up for my annual visit to India and working at all the things I need to set in motion at the day job to hold my place until I return in a few weeks. However, I still found time to play with baubles and beads. I will be carrying some of my choicest pieces back to Bangalore and have invited a few of my favourite people to come and see them. MonarchThe title refers to the butterflies which are a focal point of this necklace. It is a deceptively simple piece, with faceted onyx beads, a diamante clasp and the butterflies. I won't say any more about it, and leave you to make up your own mind. I think you'll agree with me that it is a beauty. ZenThis necklace sprang from a visit to the Jangchub Ling Buddhist Centre in Stratford Upon Avon. It is a very peaceful place where they teach meditation to anyone who would like to get away from the hustle and bustle of life and living. I got talking to one of the teachers, who is also a monk and we talked about Caprilicious, among other things. I learned to knot pearls a long time ago, but found it a tedious activity. I felt sufficiently enthused to come back home and make a meditative mala necklace. Malas are made of 108 beads (or derivatives thereof - 18, 27, 36 or 54 would be acceptable numbers). Knots placed between the beads make it easy to handle and keep count of the number of mantras chanted during a meditation. The mala is made up of gemstones or beads that are meant to be infused with the energy that’s channeled into them through a mantra repetition. The guru bead is the bead that the tassel will attach directly to. The guru bead symbolizes the student-guru relationship and three more marker beads are placed around the mala at regular intervals. I was instructed to say an affirmation at each knot and when I finished, I took it to Stratford and it was washed in distilled water to cleanse the amazonite beads, and my friend the monk said a prayer over it. I used sand polished matte amazonite beads to increase the tactility of the necklace, and knotted them with contrasting orange linen. On reading about amazonite on Crystal Vault, my go-to bible for such matters, I found that apart from being pretty the stone is also meant to have soothing properties. I invite you to use the link above if you want to read about it. I must tell you a bit about the Guru and marker beads - they are made of hand carved Bodhi seeds from Tibet. They are carved into the shape of lotuses which are symbols of peace. The Bodhi tree, a central symbol in Buddhism, is a sort of fig tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment. I'd never seen Bodhi seeds before (I've never seen a Bodhi tree either) and was quite excited to find them on a website I was visiting when I was researching my Mala. That's me for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place - well, I'll be middair as you read next week's edition, and I'll endeavour to keep going with little snippets each week until I'm back home.
See you next week, then Until then xx Good day, good people, and welcome back. Arctic winds are a-blowing and Halloween is on it's way. We turn the clocks back this weekend and it will be dark earlier and earlier - the only thing to remember that it doesn't last and spring will soon be back. In the meantime, Christmas will soon be here and is just around the corner - as of today there are sixty days left! I'd like to take a moment to wish the new iteration of the Mitchell Gallery well - the art gallery in Warwick where I have displayed my jewellery for over a year has given way to an interesting and potentially lucrative initiative and a spanking new and beautiful website, allowing the artists time to paint as well as be involved with the sales side of things. I have been invited to display some of my jewellery at the Hampton Manor Christmas Fayre and if anyone is in the area, do come along and take a look, it sounds like it will be fabulous. This time, I will just deliver the goods to Toni and Tom, and they will be displayed and sold by the gallery, so I don't have to do any of the hard work. They have a spanking new website, and I am deeply honoured to be listed as one of their "selection of emerging and internationally-renowned painters, sculptors and designers". I have been totally seduced by bead embroidery this week and have decided that that is the way forward for me. The technique called 'Painting with Beads' attracts me, filling a negative space with colourful beads is so much fun that I am absolutely smitten. I made a bracelet with hand carved carnelian flowers. The bracelet is covered with leather on one side and ultrasuede on the other, and sandwiched between the two layers is an aluminium cuff blank. It isn't much fun to stitch through leather, and I used half a dozen needles. By the time I was done the needles were bent completely out of shape. I 'painted' away merrily with little gemstone nuggets and seed beads, embellished the bracelet and generally had a fun time doing it. I think it looks great, would you agree? KaterinaI found the diamante pendant in this necklace quite by accident, while I was looking for something else altogether. I fell in love with the rectangular piece of green quartz, as well as the scroll work around the quartz, carrying the diamante' and the integral bead cap to hold a tassel. I sent away for green onyx beads to match the quartz, and made a tassel of seed pearls - while I was collecting the beads together I found a baroque green crystal pendant, so I used that as well, right at the centre of the tassel. Katerina or Catherine the Great was Empress of Russia in the eighteenth century - she was a wise and ruthless woman who took the throne from her husband Peter the Third in a coup d'etat. She wore the most beautiful baroque jewellery, and was known to be fond of emeralds. The necklace I made was inspired by images of these pieces of jewellery and is ideal for the festive season, as well as being perfect to carry to destination weddings and parties where one would be anxious about carrying precious jewels. I've played with other little bits and bobs, a few beads in polymer clay when someone who bought a necklace for her friend asked me to make earrings to match, and some practice with bead embroidery around Swarovski Rivolis. I'm working all weekend, so may not have too much time to play with beads and baubles, however, I'll catch you next week, same time, same place. Have a great week, folks,
xx Hello folks, thanks for joining me once again. We are now midway through summer and the streets in the towns and cities of England are quiet, as everyone has gone on holiday. The kids are on their school break and people have taken the opportunity to go abroad to wreak havoc in far away places. I've been playing with the leftover pieces of copper from my efforts with fold forming - I'd originally thrown them into the bin until I realised how wasteful I was being and that I ought to practice my soldering skills on the remnants. I 'sweat soldered' textured strips of copper to the front of rectangular pieces of copper, spot soldered silver wire to the back and converted them into stylish angular ear wires to suit the shape of the earrings. They are light and easy to wear with little turquoise dangles, and I was quite happy with them. By the time I'd filed, burnished and antiqued them, I was exhausted but carried on trying to make another pair. I melted a couple of bezels, and eventually gave it up as a bad job. Note to self; do not play with fire when tired! This time it was the bezels that were toast, next time it could be something not quite so easy to abandon - Ah well, one lives and learns. The ShardI've hoarded a string of kyanite 'icicles' for over two years as I couldn't think what I wanted to do with them, and then one day, Alakazam! it came to me. I combined them with Biwa pearls and as both the kyanite and the pearls have a glow of their own, they were bound to go well together. As I went along, crystal teardrops jumped out of the box to join the party and The Shard came into being. I've used kyanite before and I love the cool silvery sheen of the icicles - I do find them difficult to use, as on their own they are dull and need to be lifted out of their pale serenity. Pearls with their warmth seem to be the obvious choice in my mind, although I have used coral in the past for the same effect. I named it after The Shard, one of London's landmarks. ArabesqueI took one look at the topaz stones in this pendant and fell headlong in love. It was bought on my trip to Jaipur a couple of years ago, and I've been hoarding it ever since. The necklace with the faceted onyx and little silver beads which have been cleverly cut to catch the light, turned out to look as beautiful as a dance move, hence Arabesque. In my youth I always wanted to learn to dance, but my mother wouldn't support my ambition for reasons unspecified. With this necklace I feel I've achieved something akin to being able to perform a dance move myself. That's all I have for you this week, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello folks, and how are you today? Everywhere around me I see frantic preparations for Christmas and I feel like I am the only calm person at the eye of a storm that rages madly around me. I have done nothing, yes, nothing towards Christmas, and what's more, am not really bothered about it! As I type, The Last Temptation of Christ is playing on the telly on silent - there's a very good looking blonde guy in Lagenlook robes stopping a crowd of wild eyed men from stoning a beautiful woman in fabulous jewellery - perhaps they were miffed because they couldn't afford her prices? I assume it's the story of ' cast ye not the first stone - not very Christmassy, is it? I covet her jewellery - she's wearing some fabulous silver around her neck; and his robes are quite fashionable these days - beige linen layered over a white undershirt, with strappy sandals, very modish! I'm only watching it because it is an unlikely film for Martin Scorcese to direct and all the controversy that surrounded it. Of course, watching it with the sound turned on intermittently isn't helping me much, but the bits that I watched properly haven't exactly been gripping! The Christmas ads are getting more inventive than ever - this is the cutest one this year - and no, I'm not getting a kickback from John Lewis'. I've been taking stock of all I've done this year - I've learned to make soutache jewellery and to solder, have made strides in my handling of metal clay although there's a long way to go, reopened my Etsy shop and had a good response and consistent five star feedback from people who shopped there. I opened an Instagram account and taught myself to use it, wrote four tutorials and have been retained by a UK magazine for jewellery makers to write four more next year, and written yet another for an online journal based in the USA to be published in the New Year. I've continued with wire and polymer clay all year and participated in 3 little shows mainly for charity and one in India, as well as a couple of online auctions. I continue to post my blog on a weekly basis come what may, chronicling my designs. I enjoy writing it, adding music and poetry and little stories to spice the blog up. The only technique I haven't played with is enamelling - who knows, maybe next year will be when I take it up again. Of course, I work full time, and have been crazy enough to take on the added responsibility of being the Clinical Service Lead and have been recruited to be the Principal Investigator in a national clinical trial, apart from the other daily stuff that goes on. Before you ask, I have help with the housework, an indulgent husband and do not have any children to run around after. So yes, there's plenty of time to do all these things. I also think that if one has a passion for something, time miraculously appears in the busiest schedule to pursue it. Making Handmade from HandmadeI'm firmly convinced that this is the way forward for Caprilicious. I love the idea of making my own pendants and clasps and even beads - if Caprilicious is to produce one of a kind jewellery, I will have to go one better than buying in components and assembling a necklace, or worse still, buying in a piece of jewellery and reselling it. Of course, both these endeavours have their merits and can be difficult. After all, loads of people can buy in the same pendant, but come up with different results with the final piece of jewellery - it's all in the way they put colours and shapes together and their own personal design ethic. With this in mind, I've been putting out tentative feelers for people who might like to collaborate with me - with me making the basic findings and them making the jewellery. It would be a most interesting experiment to see what other people come up with using my components, against what I might make myself. I have decided to make photo journals as I make my components, as an aide memoire so that I will remember how to remake them if needed. However, I don't really want to make too many of the same piece as then the phrase 'one of a kind' then becomes rather meaningless (and because I have a short attention span and get easily bored). Perhaps these photo journals will be the basis for other tutorials, later on. The Octopuses GardenInspired by the work of Kay Bonitz, I played with my collection of Czech beads and came up with this little pendant. I used up a small collection of orphan dagger beads and eventually a credible pendant arrived on my work surface ( that's a posh term for a bead tray in my lap). I wasn't entirely happy with it as it's a bit untidy at the back, but as a first effort I thought it wasn't too bad, and I wore it to work in the morning. The blues and greens are striking together and I got loads of compliments, and that's why I have the 'cat that's got the cream' look in the photograph! EssaouiraWhen last in Morocco we escaped from the craziness that is Marrakesh and slipped away to the beautiful and calm seaside town of Essaouira. The taxi ride there was scary and put hairs on my chest, but we were soothed by the Heure Bleue Palais hotel, which is simply fabulous. In memory of that holiday and in the hope of another in beautiful Morocco, I made this necklace with ornate Moroccan amulet beads and lapis lazuli slab nuggets. I've been making plans for my annual show in India. My friend who previously helped out with the invitation cards is in the middle of an exciting move to China, but she showed me how to do it myself. I've had a load of fun playing with images and fonts and have come up with my own design. The room at Raintree is booked and hopefully the monetary situation in India eases by February as I am as yet unable to find a company who will provide a card reading machine to a business that isn't registered in India. That's me for this week, folks. I will be back next Friday, as usual, have a lovely week and I'll catch you same time, same place next week.
Until then xx Hello folks, thanks for joining me here again. The title of this blogpost comes from a quotation by Oscar Wilde (one of the world's biggest elitists if ever there was one - but he gave great quotes!) "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art". To my mind, we are all works of art - and we all deserve to wear it too. Embellishing the human body with jewellery has been around for centuries, but only recently has the concept of jewellery as art come into being. The very first pieces of jewellery from an archaeological find were 100,000 year old beads made from Nassarius snail shells. Jewellery evolved from being functional (brooches and pins), to denote social status and store wealth (gold and diamonds), denote personal status (wedding rings), love and mourning (engagement rings and brooches) and confer protection (gemstones such as turquoise and other talismans). Now, in the 21st century, we no longer need to wear jewellery to denote our status, and Oscar WIlde's original quotation has a chance of being adopted as the modern woman's slogan. Once you 'get' the idea of wearing statement jewellery, it is hard to go back. You wear one piece, and you are hooked for life! Watch the irrepressible 93 year old New York interior decorator Iris Apfel, in this little video :- Attitude, attitude, attitude - it ain't what you wear, it's the way that you wear it! The Saga of the Bronze Clay Earrings - Part 2If you have been following the blog, you will remember that I spent an entire week refining the design and the engineering of this piece; you can read about my adventures with bronze clay here. At the end of last week, I had a pair of components for earrings. I put these through a long cycle in a tumbler with some stainless steel shot and a drop of liquid soap and when I drained the liquid away in a large strainer, this is what they looked like.
And this is what the earrings looked like when I finally made them up. Although they still need a some work to perfect the design, I learned a lot from making them and really enjoyed the process of being drawn out of the box into thinking laterally. What did I make with the funny squiggles? Well, they were an experiment in setting little stones into metal clay. Here are the earrings I made with the little critters. AcaciaThere are two types of opal - Common and Precious. The common opal, which comes from Peru and Africa is white, yellow, brown, black, orange, pink or blue while the precious variety is the variety found in Australia, with it's multi colored flashes. Common opals can have markings shaped like trees, mosses and ferns - these are composed of manganese deposits in the stone. Dendritic opal is also called Merlinite and is meant to have shamanistic properties that promote spiritual growth by blending heavenly and earthly energy, helping you to remain open and approachable. If a stone can do all these things, bring it on, I say. When I looked into the depths of this pendant I saw the tree like patterns and fell instantly in love. This photograph was taken with the pendant held to the light and you can clearly see the fern like patterns. In a less lit up situation, the pendant almost looks black, as you will see. I love the idea that there is a secret hidden inside the stone that very few people know about - perhaps that's the inner child in my psyche. The pendant, set in sterling silver is so pretty, accented with a ruby, a white topaz and a couple of sapphires. I only needed to make a simple necklace to show it off with a scattering of pearls, tiny, shiny silver beads and an ornamental silver hook clasp. I had an email a couple of weeks ago telling me that I had won the 'Great British Bead Off' Editors Choice - this means I need to remake the beads and write a little tutorial with photographs, for their readers. I am also required to send in the beads to be photographed and claim my prize. That should keep me busy all weekend, I think. You can read about these beads here. Well, that's all this week, folks. I've not had too much time to play as the day job has been inexplicably busier than normal. Hopefully things will calm down a bit and I can play with beads and clay again and be as happy as a pig in muck. Have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray!......... and I was finally able to go into the conservatory and use my kiln. I really don't know why we bother in Britain - conservatories are freezing cold in the winter, and roasting hot in the summer - ours is tacked on to one side of the house so we have to walk around the house to get to it. As we are stuck for space, my kiln has ended up there - but, come what may with the weather, I have decided that I am going to use it this year. I made a start this week, and tried out some of the enamels I bought from a lady who retired from the jewellery business. With enamels, none of the colours resemble the raw powdered glass in the jar once they have been fired, and the transparent ones look different when fired onto copper than when put on silver - why must life be so difficult??? - sigh! I have perforce to keep the area tidy - with the kiln running at temperatures of 850C, there is little room for stuff falling over and general clumsiness, which is why I have this picture of my work station - isn't it tidy??? Mike has a jar of copper pennies and I used some of them to enamel onto - it was great fun, and without actually making anything, I achieved a lot. I found out what the various colours looked like and I stuck each penny on the lid of the container, so that I would find it easily again in an attempt to take the guess work out of the exercise. This picture shows how unlike the powder the actual colours look on the pennies - at least I know what colours will be my favourites now. And, I learned that a mixture of vinegar and salt shines up the copper pennies - that old wives tale is definitely true!
Glam Rocks Glam rock was a style of music that came out of Britain in the 70's - sparkle, sequins, purples, reds and gold, outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter were associated with this era, with David Bowie, T Rex and Roxy Music being big stars of that genre. I am old enough, of course to have enjoyed their music, and I dedicated this next necklace to it. The clear crackled quartz, and the purple shell pearl nuggets in two strings with the pearls and silver crystals carrying an aspen leaf are most definitely glamorous. I like to contrast purple with green, so I added a green carved jade butterfly and a faceted teardrop, as well as a shimmery Czech pressed glass triangular bead to a squiggle of wire, hung from the bail of the leaf. The Pomegranate Tree I had a friend who had a pomegranate tree growing in her garden - as children, all we had to do was reach up and pluck one for a quick snack. I think on reflection, that the pomegranate is a very overrated fruit - there's an awful lot of pfaffing about to get an ounce of the good stuff. However, it sure looks pretty - both on the tree, and when split open. My mother found these four coral cabochons for me, and I decided to group them together into a pendant for maximum impact, as individually each one was only about a centimeter long. The minute I did this on a piece of paper, I was reminded of the pomegranate tree of my childhood. I clustered the cabochons together, and doodled around them with wire and crystals to try and recreate an organic 'tree effect'. A coral teardrop was added for movement - I love a bit of movement - otherwise the piece looses its dynamic, and is just a lump of metal and a few stones. Have a lovely weekend folks, it is Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, and traditionally, it always rains on a bank holiday - I shall stay indoors with the cat and play with my beads. However, if the weather is more like it should be at this time of year, some gardening/ barbeque action may be on the cards.
Catch you next week, same time, same place xx I have been a doctor for thirty years now - so what is it that draws me to creating jewellery and all the other things I do around Caprilicious? - photography, writing blurbs, posting on Facebook, setting up and modifying my website regularly, writing this blog, marketing, sales, packaging and posting, trawling the internet for unusual elements and beads, entering into bidding wars with unseen enemies for beads I crave, learning new techniques on line, taking classes - and all this while keeping a stringent eye on the day job! I am a long way from retirement (it seems like a long way just now) and there is no room for error - I have to keep up with the advances in medicine as they occur, and the job itself is pretty stressful. A good friend of mine asked me the question, and this set me thinking - what have I gained from all this activity - am I just a busy fool? Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time ... For 'art' insert jewellery making in my particular case! I have found friends in quarters I would never have thought to look, met some really interesting people, and of course, the people who buy from me are the tops! After all, Caprilicious is my alter ego - every piece in it speaks to, and of, me - as a corollary to this - anyone who likes my jewellery is a kindred spirit! OK, enough of this introspection, let me show you what I made this week. And so, without further ado...... ROYARoya was made with snow white jasper lozenges with inky blue agate nuggets and blue - black crystals. A few silver tone spacers and four Shiva eye beads add a pop of colour to an otherwise sober piece. The Shiva eye is the operculum or lid of the sea snail, and has recently become very fashionable. It is usually circular and fits snugly, sealing the entrance to the shell. These beads are filled with an orange resin, giving them their colour - if not for this, Shiva Eye beads are usually white. ROYA is an Arabic name, meaning vision. This ties in with the Shiva Eye - according to mythology, Shiva and Parvati, his wife, were having a bit of a romp in the Himalayas, where they lived. Parvati came up from behind, and shut both his eyes with her hands, and the world went dark for a few seconds. Shiva, who had a really bad temper (and by all accounts, no sense of humour) opened a third eye in the centre of his forehead. He would rather be disfigured for life, than be blind for a few seconds??? - I don't know! someone should have sent him directions to the nearest sense-of-humour shop in Nepal! My mother suggested that it might have been because he wanted to keep an eye on his mortal subjects at all times - who knows?? In his place, I would have added a fourth eye for good measure, this time in the back of my head, just to keep a watch for those naughty people behind my back - lack of foresight (or is it hind??) I call it! Wake up, TitaniaI spent an enjoyable day with polymer clay and wire, fashioning what looked like the seed pods of the 'Honesty' flower, a project from a book by Rie Nagumo. Translucent clay is difficult to work with as it becomes brittle very quickly, and I had to coax it and speak to it sweetly ( threats and the swear words flying around weren't working on the darn thing) to stay attached to the wire frames until the curing process was complete. I made quite a few, and only managed to lose six. These are paintings by Kay Konrad, a German painter who painted these beautiful imaginary scenarios from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The one above is called Titania meets Oberon and the one below is Träufelnd Oberon, Titania Asleep. As the mood of my necklace was evocative of these paintings, I requested permission from him to reproduce them on these pages. Have a look at his art on http://www.kaykonrad.de . I think his paintings are so dreamy and fairy like. I sent him a link to Caprilicious and he said my jewellery was beautiful - what a nice man - I am anybody's for a compliment! In the painting above, Oberon is just about to drug Titania in her sleep with fairy dust so that when she wakes up she falls in love with the first person she sees. A lot of people have had that problem, even without the (non) help of Oberon's magic - or there wouldn't be so many divorces in the world - so I called my necklace Wake up, Titania, in an effort to save her from falling for a wrong 'un. Seed beads and coiled segments were wired onto fairly stiff copper - I wanted the necklace to be robust, and not become misshapen too easily. The seed beads I chose were a pinky - purple to go with the mood of the paintings, but the copper wire inside the glass shines through, and only the more strongly tinted beads show up pink. My poor Muse was exhausted after this effort, so I gave her a rest, and entertained myself by exercising my right brain - reading a fabulous book called Wire in Design by Barbara Mc Guire. It is a compendium of a whole load of wire artisans' work - I then Googled each artisan in the book and drooled all over their stuff, until I could coax my muse back through the door, all rejuvenated after a couple of days off. Falling LeavesEva Cassidy was a hugely talented American jazz vocalist who died tragically of a melanoma at the age of thirty three. Terry Wogan introduced her to the UK listener by playing her music on his show on Radio 2, well after she died, and her album went to the top of the charts in the UK and Europe. This necklace is a tribute to her amazing arrangements and vocals - the silver electroplated maple leaf, with the pewter leaf spacers interspersed with faceted onyx olive shaped beads is called Falling Leaves. The maple leaf has a few onyx beads on a little chain dangling in front of it to provide extra movement to the piece, without detracting from, or obscuring the beauty of the leaf skeleton. That's all the Muse and I had time for this week, have a nice weekend, and we'll catch up with you next week, same time, same place
xx |
Follow
|