Previewing the preview

(Hammer engraved and chased sterling elephant with faceted chrysoprase, cabbed here.

pepper tree flower. Fern. Brass sunrays. )

.

1/3 of our home is currently boxed up, but the studio will be the last to be packed and the first thing to live in our new home.

More than ever my work is the balm, the thing that smoothes me out

when I've become parched and cracked.

I have one last large offering for the 

Metal Shop

.

(Oak leaf and seed bead trinity earrings.)

In a few weeks I take off to be with family in the midwest and then settle our life in 

Livermore's golden, undulating hills.

It's been so strangely slow in coming, but it's speeding up so much: documents, keys, painting rooms...

The collection that will be revealed Monday

is a really romantic goodbye to summer.

The last campfire at sleep-away, the one where everyone sits singing

with their arms around each other, trying not to cry.

There's a lot of emotion in saying good bye to this wonderful old house

where so much life has come to pass.

Five years in one place was the longest I've lived anywhere outside of my 

childhood home, a house so embedded in me that just thinking about it 

tugs at my solar plexus.

When I come back to work in September

I might not be offering shop updates for some time:

I may do a little swarm of custom orders because it's been FOREVER

or I may be moving more fully into leatherwork

and bags in particular.

I can't wait to tell you more.

I can't wait to KNOW more!!

Any way you cut it, things will be a little different.

I sat at the wheels this morning and cabbed/ finicky-finished these stones.

I listened to the wind whistle through our three impossibly tall palm trees,

the ones that shed violently all over the yard during winter windstorms.

Our scrub jay came close to the mudroom porch looking for peanuts.

I breathed into the place that leaving this home has already cracked.

It hurts.

It's also giddy.

It wants out/ it wants back in.

Everything's both sides now.

I'll post an official preview this weekend.

xoxoxoxo,

Sunny

Metal Shop Sale

15% off in the 

Metal Shop

until tomorrow morning:

use coupon code SUMMERFLING

for your discount!

Happy Shopping,

Sunny

Around the Studio

Lapidary

Leather

Metal

.

My own holy trinity in the place I go to pray

.

xoxo,

Sunny

Summer Camp Preview

Eternal Summer Necklace: Grossular Green Garnet, Strawberry Top, Brass Feathers

.

RESERVED

Bronze Libran Friendship Bracelet Earrings. Cast wishbones. Seed Beads. Sleeping Beauty Turquise

.

RESERVED

Friendship Bracelet Earrings. Sleeping Beautiful Turquoise. Seed Beads. Sterling.

RESERVED

Camp Jacaranda Earrings. Royston Turquoise. Brass fronds. Seed Beads. Sterling Feather.

RESERVED

Turquoise Friendship Bracelet Earrings. Seed Beads. Arizona Turquoise. 

RESERVED

Turquoise and Chrysoprase Swimming Hole Earrings. American Turquoise. Australian Chrysoprase.

Simple Maidenhair fern posts

.

In the 

Metal Shop

Wednesday the 15th of July at 5:00 p.m.

Reserves welcome prior

.

xoxo,

Sunny

Summer Camp Series

Friendship Bracelets for your ears with all manner of fine American turquoises paired with seed beads

and a perfect summer necklace: strawberry top, grossular green garnet and feathers.

Minty green chrysoprase

bronze wishbones

Sing-alongs every morning before breakfast

and a smores campfire at 7:00 pm on Friday night:

grab your kit at the mess hall on your way down to the lake.

.

.

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Camp SunnyRising is in full swing:

make sure to pack your swimsuit and some stamps to write home -

it's beautiful here!

Update in the

Metal Shop

Wednesday at 5 pm.

xoxo,

Sunny

Dreaming in 18X10

It's a bunch of boards right now, interconnected gardening sheds

but in less than a year it's going to be my studio.

A separate building from our home, a few short steps away from hot coffee and 

breakfast.

An actual dream come to fruition.

I've spent the last five years making everything I've fabricated and crafted out of a second bedroom and 

century old garage… this will be an immense pleasure, 

mapping out what needs to be where and how to build out the space in such a way that 

is efficient and still beautiful.

A space where students could come, a place that looks over the golden hills of Livermore's wine country.

Even if everything falls apart with the home purchase (as I hear can happen)

I've still got dreams at the forefront of my mind and I don't see that changing,

no matter where moving falls on a timeline:

a switch has been flipped

.

I could tell you about the highs and lows of the last year,

about the city feeling so walled

about wanting to scale the pressing heights and get out 

to where I could find my breath.

The sky felt small.

I couldn't see stars,

just the pink of light pollution,

hearing the sound of freeways in my ears.

Blech.

It was tiresome to experience

such a strong desire for movement when movement felt impossible,

so I set about making our beloved cottage feel really nice

and working close to the bone in my second bedroom studio.

I set about blooming where I was planted

even though there were days where I might have felt more optimistic than others.

I explored letting life carry me

like the chariot tarot card I drew at Kelly's,

with varying degrees of surrender

as we searched for home.

In this month of transition

there's a lot of hard work ahead

physically and mentally

but I feel strong

and guided.

All of this to say:

if you've hit a wall,

pull up a chair and sit with it.

Rest in that space.

Don't exhaust yourself with scrambling,

just wait

and inhabit that waiting

until it becomes enough

in itself.

I wish I'd not have spent so much golden time attempting to scale

what wasn't ready to not be mine.

"Slow magic" as my Robin says.

Like mountains are made,

like rivers begin

from a drop

up high

.

xoxo,

Sunny

Present Moment Clutch

Right there, at the center of all things

At the top of this forever-now

 rests a place where wonderment and risk are married

where the infinity of what's possible

thrills and terrifies and spellbinds our animal brains.

Will we thrive?

Will we die?

Will there be stasis?

Never for long.

Sometimes we hesitate to reach out of what feels safe

because we know that being bitten is just as much of a possibility as being caressed.

I think regret might be worse.

Regret is a deathbed for thousands of worthy threads we never followed,

all the bright ribbons that whispered, "this way!"

as we stood rooted in our desire for something constant.

For safety.

All of the risk-takers I know live in technicolor.

They use fear as their seasoning, counting on it as a companion not-always wise but always present.

If everything is a risk

and we get to decide how we dance with that, these folks are 

doing the twist atop a swan float party boat on the river Styx.

Or very quietly finding the groundless center of their lives on a meditation cushion.

All effort is brave and worthy.

Here's what I know:

you cannot get small enough

humble enough

or isolated enough

to avoid that stunning verdant scaly visitor.

All we know for certain is that we're alive and at some point we die.
you either cower in the dark

or reach for the light

or fucking conga-line the shit out of this
present moment.

So? So.

I'll see you on the dance floor, Star.
.

Fine double milled veg-tanned leather

tooled and painted and stitched

lined in blood red suede

wild war-paint touches of crimson and turquoise chevron spikes

Southwest-inspired turn latch

warm and wild

and

in the

Leather Shop

later today

.

I just got back from Washington state a few days ago. I spent four days surrounded by friends and love, where one of my best girls sat with her own eternal now,

one that is sharp and beautiful and painful.

In her now she monitors and combats cancerous cells

and also she gardens.

She attends constant doctor's appointments

and builds jewelry from scratch.

She lives on the knife edge

where grief and bravery

and grace and humor

collide

.

…

In her now she is bitten. Blooming still.

In her now she is gifted.

Walking through the fire.

Visiting.

Visited.

We've started a GoFundMe page

for her treatment and healing:

please 

DONATE

.

xoxo,

Sunny