Friday, September 27, 2013

Stone Love

I love working with gemstones. I love the feel of the stones. Some are opalescent. Others cool to the touch. Some are heavy, and some are fragile as bird bones Each stone has a vibration, an aura, if you will. And if you're willing to listen, to receive, the stones will share.

This week has been all about rocks and wire. I got my start making jewelry this way, and it was such a joy to explore this space again.
Purple Light ring (Amethyst and Sterling Silver)

Lollipop Tree dangles (Jasper, Copper, Sterling Silver)
Now that my jewelry pliers are all warmed up, I have so many ideas for stones and wire. For more wire wrap jewelry from this week, check out my Facebook page.

Cheers!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Playing with Paint

This past week has been all about putting paint to canvas. While I never thought I would call myself a painter, painting has quickly become a heart space for me. That said, before anything else, I'm a writer. So, the canvases that have been coming up are really meditations on the words and feelings that I am exploring right now. Here are a few completed pieces:

love love love, acrylic on 7 x 9.5 canvas

Hope Cards

Smile Cards
It is often said that you are what you eat. I believe that that applies to language as well. The language that we consume affects our day. I created these canvases to create positive energy. Each word became like a mantra for me as I painted it. There have been some tough days in the past few weeks, but working on these canvases helped remind me that I am loved, there's always hope, and a smile can change everything.

As always, if you want to see more of my work and get prices for sale items, check out my Facebook page.
Please like and share the page with friends.
Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Dreamweaver

I've been thinking a lot about dreams and dreamers lately, and even wrote a pretty lengthy post about them over on my other blog Life Explorations. Many cultures have their ideas about dreams and how to manifest them, but I would say that no dream symbol is more well-know than the dream-catcher. According to Dream~Catchers.org, dream catchers originated in a time of nightmares. Their design came from an elder's vision of a spider's web attached to a hoop. This is pretty good tidings, since a vision, itself, is a sort of dream. The hoops were hung over beds to catch the bad dreams and let the good ones slip through.
Silver Lady Webs with Aquamarine embellishment
While my little dream catchers are not exactly the same as the original design, the intent is the same. We take in so much energy throughout our day, much of it negative. What better way to filter the bad and take in the good, than to hang dream catchers from our ears.

Night Sky Webs with Blue Aventurine embellishment
I had a great time make these, and also got to play with some embroidery floss and stones that I've been carrying around for quite some time.

For more dream-catcher earrings, check out my Facebook page.

If you've had any experiences with dream-catchers, please share them in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Beauty of Bone Part 2

The little jewelry experiment I started with my calaveras beads ended up being an epic fail! I didn't even take pictures because it was not pretty. I did, however, find my rhythm with a different design. I'm quite happy with the results.

Blue on Blue Calaveras 

I love how the dark blue calaveras and the brilliant turquoise tassels play together. These are really fun earrings to make. I'm a big fan of tassels and had a blast making them in other colors. For pics of more calaveras earrings, check out my Facebook page:

Thanks for reading!

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Beauty of Bone

I adore Mexican sugar skulls. The vibrant colors are whimsical and fun, but the ability to embrace such a pivotal part of being human is what speaks to me most. Our bones are the building blocks of the human structure, and they are what we leave behind when we leave this plane. So, imagine my joy when I walked into a little bead shop in Hilo, Hawaii and saw these colorful calaveras (Spanish for skulls).

Colorful Calaveras!

 I've been carrying them around with me since that fateful day in December, and finally had an idea this morning for how I would like to play with them.


Work in progress
We’ll see how things turn out.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The Long Way Home

It's been far too long since I have posted anything on this blog. For shame!

Life is a bit of a whirlwind right now, but the one constant is the creative impulse. I've been making making and making some more. I even tried my hand at starting an Etsy shop. At the moment, here is where things stand:

I love paint!
I spent the better part of the summer with paint on my fingers (and clothes!) and I love being back in touch with this medium. When I wasn't able to carry my paints around, I worked with oil pastels. While I very much miss making batiks, paints and oils are more portable, which is what I need right now.

La Rosa, acrylic on canvas

Olas, acrylic on canvas
Metal Rocks!
On one of my recent trips I made a ring out of silver from start to finish. It was such an amazing experience. 
Ring in progress!

I really want to work with metal more. I picked up some silver wire and beads, which will hopefully appease my metal needs until I get settled enough to set up a metal working space. 

True love never dies.
While I've had the great please of picking up some new art/creative tools, my little seed beads are still number one in my heart. When things were really turned upside down recently, I turned to my beads for my deepest form of artistic meditation. There's something about taking such small, almost insignificant things, and turning them into earrings and other things that really makes me feel that art can transcend the physical plane. And knowing that those little seed beads can become something so much bigger, allows me to believe that so can I.


Expansion
I have been wanting to have an online store for a long time now. I had hoped to use this blog to jumpstart it, but I just haven't been able to keep it up. That said, I am always on Facebook for one reason or another, so I decided to launch an art page there. You can see all of the new pieces I've completed on that page, and if you would like to purchase anything, you can contact me from that page to do so. It's not as glam as Etsy, but it works for me right now. 
If you click the like button on the page, you'll be updated with any new pieces that I've completed on your Facebook timeline. I'll will try to post things more regularly on this blog as well, but the Facebook page will likely be the most up to date.

Sneak Peek!
Here's some of what I've been working on.

Complicated Rainbow

esperanza en el corazon, acrylic on canvas

Dancing Tree, oil pastel on canvas

Red Door dangles with carnelian stone embellishment

For more art, check out the Facebook page 

Cheers!