If you’ve been following me this week, you know I’ve been bitten by the jewelry bug!
I have a function to go to Saturday night. I don’t see myself shopping for a new outfit, so I better put something over-the-top around my neck as a distraction!
I named this necklace “Princess Berry Sprig”. Isn’t that wonderfully silly?
That was the vision I had the other day. What if I strung all my favorite globe beads the way one would create a berry wreath.
Of course this required wiring hundreds of little beads!
After I finished winding the beads, I just knew there was NO WAY I would be comfortable wearing wires around my neck.
So I created a satin ribbon buffer.
I simply love the result.
Ya know, for many years I filled orders for stores that liked my designs. However, I’d get these crazy little notes attached. They’d say things like “Customer says no yellow” or “blacks and purples only please” or “store owner really loves hearts…can you add some?” And of course I did. I’m a decade older now and when I think of these silly requests I think of how those stores never really received “My Work”. Can you imagine telling Kandinsky to only work in purples or maybe he should omit all yellow from his paintings? What it did, was throw off my designs. My natural talent and intuition is what comes out, if you ask me to change it, I’m just not sure what you get.
My point is, the past couple of days I have made pieces just for me and it feels great. They are my colors and they are my style. Now that I’m a little bit more mature, I feel like I can say to the world “You want more traditional? – Go to Kay Jewelers” , “You want something a little more earthy? – Go to your local smoke shop!”, “If you hate the color yellow, then probably my work is not for you.”
There are so many artists in this world and we are all so different. I used to worry about people stealing my ideas or copying my work. I don’t any more. I’m going to put my art out there and expect that it is not for everybody. It is for very specific people and somehow I will figure out how to connect to those people. If every artist tries their hardest to stay true to their own vision and their own style, then there is room for us all.
When this 365 is over, I’ll probably set up an Etsy shop to sell all my wares. And guess what? You can count on there being yellow in my work, just a little purple and probably not a lot of hearts ;)
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