Thursday, July 30, 2015

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 

.


(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




Thursday, July 23, 2015

Metal Shop Sale


15% off in the 


until tomorrow morning:

use coupon code SUMMERFLING

for your discount!

Happy Shopping,
Sunny

Friday, July 17, 2015

Around the Studio


Lapidary


Leather


Metal


.

My own holy trinity in the place I go to pray
.

xoxo,
Sunny

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

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 


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

Reserves welcome prior
.

xoxo,
Sunny

Monday, July 13, 2015

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.
.
.
.

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


Wednesday at 5 pm.



xoxo,
Sunny

Sunday, July 12, 2015

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





Monday, July 6, 2015

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


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 

.

xoxo,
Sunny