Custom Love

I don't know if I often feel quite this much unexpected love for a stone, but Agua Nueva, man.... there's something so ethereal about it. I can count on the calming effect of turquoise, the fire in my belly from opals and the cooling balm of variscite...

I never know what my thoughts will turn into when I look at Agua Nueva, but they will always produce a smile.

This is a custom ring made with a collector's stone.

Sigh.

Temp

I was actually thinking, especially in this financial day and age, how nice it would be to write an article for Etsy ( they have all of these great articles called "Quit Your Day Job" ) entitled "Appreciate Your Day Job" to remind us ( especially in this amazing and challenging period of economic history ) that there is no moment you stand on the mountain shouting, "I have won!" when you stop working for someone else.

If you're smart you look at leaving an employer a little more humbly, saying to the powers that be, "Thank you for this chance" and then getting to work on your own material.

As romantic as it would be to yell, "Never say die!!!" and refuse outside work, it's not always possible. I can support a whole lot of our lives on my artistic income, but the mortgage on a condo bought at the height of the Los Angeles housing boom? 

Nope.

So the perfect solution has presented itself: I will temp again until we find our footing. It means no specific job in the long-term, just a lot of answering phones and filing things for people I don't know. It both thrills me and repulses me.

It won't be every day: the goal is two weeks out of the month until Anthony has work.

Temping was the basis of my income for nearly five years after I left college.

I still remember my first temp jobs, the dread in my belly when I looked at phone lines and realized I didn't know what I was doing. There were several failed jobs in New York City that were embarrassing to say the least and then the subsequent ride home on the subway crying big tears of shame and loneliness. 

The ache would fade long before I fell asleep a mere five feet away from one of my best friends in the bedroom we shared in Astoria, Queens. 

Eventually I got so good at temping that companies were asking me to stay longer, looking for things I could do. Phone lines of every shape, size and number were near and dear to my learned heart. I became familiar with dozens of neighborhoods and sections of the city I would have never known if not for temping.

As overwhelming as NYC was to me at 22, I remember it with this golden glow of nostalgia and wonder: there's a halo around those amazing three and a half years.

How are we ever to know when we graduate whatever school we finish what the big wide world looks and feels like? I opted to go to the Big Apple and find my Broadway dream, only to discover that it wasn't being on Broadway, but singing - my material or someone else's.

So while my Broadway-bound friends auditioned and pounded the pavement I worked at Land Rover and Citigroup and Berger-Vitearea-McNamae-Schmetterer ( that long phone greeting haunts my dreams! ) and ten thousand other forgotten businesses, writing at night and booking time at a piano-rental studio on 47th street.

I have come to love the idea of temping: it's like being a babysitter: you can visit but you get to give the job back to its rightful, normally disgruntled owner.

Now instead of going home to a two bedroom railroad apartment with four roomates, I will go home to a husband I adore and two cats who make us laugh day in and day out.

And I know that this too shall pass and become its own thoughtful memory, humbling and tender, full of things I'd forgotten to notice until the years gave them a delightful amber glow and the hunger that made them necessary fades.

Sale!!

Love Among The Ruins is currently 20% off for the Variscite lovers!

For Your Self

Interesting 24 hours, this - I had just been writing to my Scottish Angel about how my heart palpitations had ceased mostly - the funny thing is that yesterday they returned with a deep vengeance: 20-40 seconds of non-stop flip-flop every five-ten minutes!

Having been to the doctor for this before, I am aware that it's stress.

I have been working seven days per week nonstop with the hope that I could keep my little family afloat. I am really proud of my hard work, but yesterday it took its toll.
So, here's the deal - I will be taking weekends, just like normal people :) I will still be responding to convos for about an hour on Saturdays, but Sundays I will do everything in my power to be computer-free.

Yesterday I made two pieces: both evidence of self-love and care:



A promise ring sculpture that can be worn as a necklace and a shield ring with a boulder opal at the center.
Yesterday I made many promises to myself, and this jewelry is a reflection of my vow to be careful and generous to this body and mind. I really really hope I can walk the walk!

Right in Our Own Backyard-ish

Yesterday I had my once-weekly demi-freakout about what's next for Anthony and I. They always happen on Sunday for some reason, much like childhood when  I used to cry every Sunday knowing that I had to go back to school. 

I was well-liked, I was a good student and I enjoyed academia - I still don't know why my reaction was that strong.

Likewise in September, right before school started I would have a sick stomach for at least a week - there is something about a locked amount of time for an endeavor that starts this inner bargaining thing... Any regional play I've done, any thing I've begun always comes with a freakout at the beginning - it's a rather human and lovable aspect of my normally brave self. 

Anthony is so good with my more vulnerable side, and yesterday while the world watched men throw around a football, we went to Malibu.

When I first moved here I thought that Malibu was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen - it's amazing how you get used to beauty and it becomes kind of normal to you.... we walked up The Point and enjoyed ourselves in the fading sun and icy breeze.

I cannot express how much I love my husband.
Yesterday we sketched out a game plan that involves leaving Los Angeles with the destination of Austin, TX or a few other places we were thinking of.

It was nice to dream, nice to think of the winds of change being harnessed a little by our ability to decide: God obviously has something planned, but I prefer to think Anthony and I can be good co-pilots, treating this time as a gift as scary as it can be.

Incredible!

This stone is remarkable and rare: an agate that indicates two bulleye agates becoming one, or becoming two from one. I cannot get over the clarity or gorgeousness of it, so I set it simply and it resides in the metal shop until some smart lady comes and whisks it away!

Meow II !

Stick Barrette

Zipper Pull

In the Leather Shop now lounging and popping their gum :)

Meow!!!!

10% of the bag sale goes to this wonderful organization that is trying to save the majestic leopard:

http://www.amur-leopard.org/

This little keychain has all the luxe in a small package!

Welcome to my new happy journey in leathercrafting!

The News in Leather

This is what I have been so excited over: in the course of the next few weeks I will be revealing a new line of leather bags and keychains and necklaces and pins in this:

LEOPARD PRINT!!!!

I am so excited. It is such hard work and requires many many woman hours, so the bag I am working on ( a clutch that is fully covered in fully-tooled and meticulously painted print ) will be mondo expensivo. Knowing these times we live in are different for many economically I am making small things, too so that everyone can enjoy the luxe-ness of it all.

I hope to get the clutch and a few other things listed later this afternoon in the Leather Shop.

In stone news, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever beheld that came from the earth besides mountains and oceans:

It is a drusy from AZ and I suspect the blue comes from blue chalcite. It is HUGE and so valuable that I don't even know if I can sell it in a piece of jewelry. The weight is also incredible: I opened the box it came in and sat transfixed. What treasures the earth holds!

May today be a treasure for you all!

Luscious

Like summer in January - in the Metal Shop now!

So Much Like a Lover

Love is a fierce and inexplicable force of nature that shapes our lives like wind and water. My friend Jillian wrote an amazing and moving post about it recently that your eyes would benefit to behold!

Sometimes our creative lives can take on the role of lover. Most often my relationship with my leathercraft is respectful and divine, full of gorgeous inspiration and tender moments.

Sometimes, though... hm.

These last few weeks have been.... interesting. We had no interest in each other, my chosen craft and I. I flirted and dabbled in other things: metalsmithing and painting were the objects of my passionate focus.

My patterns and leather sat by in the same room, seemingly unaffected by the lack of attention, growing no less beautiful without my eyes to behold them.

As the days passed I became fearful and slightly angry: this has been my life for two years: fallow periods of days were the most I'd ever been away from tooling, mostly due to travel and social engagements. This fallow period began in late December and it was now January 25th - where was my muse?

Where was my love? I remembered Julia Cameron writing about this in The Artist's Way, her groundbreaking book on creative nurture. Reading her words again I felt lifted: Oh! This happens to everybody.

This was not to be treated as an outbreak of Rubella or a case of food poisoning - there was nothing to figure out: just like any love, this one had cooled as love can when left untended. With people obviously it's HARD at times  - but you always have a listening ear. You and your partner get to discuss the ins and outs of love together in concert.

You and your art are strange bedfellows, unable to communicate in anything other than the most subtle energies of sort: the "Aha!" in the shower or the slow solo smile of realization. There is no "I feel".... no blaming and no reconciliation.

How odd!! All the trappings of a love affair and all the problems that follow suit, but a much more one-sided communication.

I'd like to think that my hides missed me... that somehow inaudible as it was, my little hand-drawn koi pattern wept as I did at our strange absence. Perhaps my marble block felt a slight resentment at the dishes and ceramic squares it bore as I smithed upon it, thinking, "This isn't what I am here for!" In reality, I'll never know -

But I do know this:

Today I tooled again. It felt AWESOME - like waking up from a really perfect amount of sleep into a day you know holds some amazing things.

I am shy about it a little, but I know the reasons why I fell under a grey cloud and I will take a little more tender approach to my creativity.

There will be silversmithing.

There will be leathercrafting.

There will be time made for play and social ease.

Most of all, there will be a healthy love between all three no matter what we experience - of that I can be certain, if for no other reason than today's timid first dance with an old flame.

Refreshed

Sunday I had a moment, after having been on edge since Friday ( earthquakes really make a mark on me: it's a reminder that we're so very mortal, which is good in so many ways and terrifying in others. They're like little dress rehearsals for complete chaos and maybe even death ) where Anthony looked at me from across the room and said, "Let's get out of here some day this week."
Amen!
Yesterday we took our poor spent minds and healthy bodies into the desert to Quartzite, AZ. This is what was there:
The Annual International Gem and Mineral Show!!! I came home with some of the most gorgeous and gentle stones: Variscite, Turquoise, Blue Chalcite, Prehnite, Mookaite, Rough Fire Opal, Sonora Sunrise and Pink Opal.

My favorite? Honduran opal, which is a rainbow of flickering fire and huge to boot! This picture is 1/100th of its grandeur. 

Thousands of little fires in rainbow colors burn brightly over the whole stone. Unreal!

In the car on the drive home I got an idea that is my exit from burnout using leather: a line of beauties that I will be making in the next week - omigosh leather. 

Retro. Elegant and a little bubblegum-snappy. Oh MY!!!!

It's back to the studio for me, custom orders abound and I did a bit of rearranging: I took the keyboard out into the sunny living room and put in a second chair so that the half of the room that isn't equipment has a look of rest about it.

That makes me feel more inclined to be there even more than I wished to be! Jones was destroying the right corner of that chair, digging his claws into the original maroon velvet with intent to un-stuff it, so the new arrangement doubles as historic preservation!
A beautiful, productive day to you all, my dearest friends.

Born of An Earthquake

Friday night there was an earthquake - a 3.4 with an epicenter 5 miles from our home. It was jarring and over soon. 

I dropped to my knees and tried to catch my breath - I had been soldering when it began and the panic that overtook me was so strong I was lucky to have had the instinct to turn off my Little torch.

I realized in that moment that I had better give myself a little break before I began anything again, so I spent the night doing other things, going to dinner, etc.

Yesterday I realized I had to make something so beloved that it would pull me out of my fear, so I used two of my favorite stones and made these.

They have calmed with their stories of ten million years of earth.

Mixed Media

Since so much of my thought revolves around leather ( even in this period of letting that field lay a bit more fallow! ) I decided that in the painting my thought bubbles will be the very images that find their way onto so many of my pieces.

This makes the painting mixed media, which is surprising as I expected it would be paint only. I love when the unexpected makes its way unguided into the mind.

Today is Anthony's birthday and to celebrate we are going to a new and exciting south-of-the-border restaurant in Culver City called Gloria's - it's only new and exciting to us as it is quite the long-standing neighborhood staple.

33 years ago he arrived on this earth and I could not be more grateful for my Schmilly!! 

May you all have a joyful and wonder-filled weekend, friends!

Thoughts on Resistance

I was driving today to Venice Beach to pick up a check from an art show I did: it is overcast and cozy here in Los Angeles today ( see snuggly duo for reference ):

So there I sat in traffic getting more and more annoyed in response to my environment as I waited and I had a moment of such crystal clarity - I want to share these realizations with you in case any of you may echo something similar in your experiences.

I had a wonderful chance given to me this week ( musically ) and after doing the hard work of amassing a wonderful, professional package to ship to someone very important I felt blessed and also responsible: this 'crest' of emotion - this JOY in all caps had to be tempered with an even and grounded center:

I used to get so high and so low in my early twenties when opportunities came and went. Everyday life was a rollercoaster of epic scope and it exhausted me and depressed my ability to live with balance.

The chance in front of me created a high this week, and I wanted to see where it took me by  observing the emotions instead of investing in it as I used to. 

What I saw more than anything was how deeply I resist letting joy simply BE in my body: how firmly I attach myself to finding the logical 'downers' in life. For example, there I sat today under a cloudy sky ( my favorite kind ) listening to a CD I love on a street that I know and my default setting was to find the things NOT to like.

I stopped. I remembered what really matters and I found myself breathing with relief the way we all do when we let go of our resistance.

In these next few weeks while I wait for reverberations from this beautiful reminder of musicianship I will keep a vigilant heart. I will witness my resistance and remember that good things need space to come into our lives.

If we are concentrating on what is wrong, will we miss the subtle breeze from somewhere delicious leading us towards a better path. Instead of tipping our nose and turning into the mystery we will hear that heaven was near from someone else and voila: one more thing to get grumpy over. Something else we missed. 

I for one am going to try to create more room for miracles by letting go of my resistance one short drive at a time.