thinking and re-thinking

I'm thinking something needs to change.
I look in the mirror and think, I'm 55 (well almost) and I've got zits - wtf?
I drink 3 to 4 large mugs of black tea most every day.
My vegetable intake is less than ideal.
I try to remember to drink more water, but even when I've got a quart jar on my desk it tends to just sit there.
I get up in the morning, wash my face, make tea, eat a little something - lately a banana and some toasted almonds, sit down with tea at the 'puter, spend way more time than I planned reading email and surfing blogs.
I look at the yoga DVD sitting next to the tv and think, "I'd probably feel better if I'd do that."
As I sit down to the computer, I think, "my time would probably be better spent meditating for a bit."

So I've been looking at the Urban Zen site and reading a bunch of really excellent posts at WhiteHotTruth which lead me to this book and was immediately smitten with this blog and I'm thinking, "enough already!" 
If not now, when?

excuse me for a bit, I'm re-thinking a few things .........

blessings - kvk

delicious transformation

One of my favorite things  ~ opening the tumbler and sorting out the fresh batch of treasures ~ and always a nice way to start my morning.  Delicious anticipation and delicious transformation.  I am never not amazed at the finished components and their amazing transformation from clay to fine silver - after all these years, a wonderful thing for sure.  My fresh batch of lovelies ...

Ever one to go on word association journeys, this morning I've gone from transformation to catalyst,  thinking back on my own on-going evolution, thinking about what have been the catalysts along the way.  Through the years, these catalysts tend to be either people or places and once the lessons have been learned, the new awareness firmly absorbed and assimilated into this body and mind, it's time to move on.  Washington state has proved to be a powerful catalyst in my life.  For some reason, living in the Pacific Northwest is like jumping on a bullet train for transformation, for Dave and I both, and probably why it seems that Asheville is so slow.

Turns out Provence was another such catalyst.  Looking at my little pile of lovelies, the influence is quite tangible.  I worry that the Provencal spell will wear off, but now I'm thinking the magic of that place has been absorbed and assimilated and has established permanent residence in my psyche.  I'm thinking, yes!

So in anticipation of the catalysts to come and paths unknown, today's Abraham quote seems very timely ...

We would begin saying, "I'm not ever going to get it done. I'm an eternally expanding Being, and I'm doing great where I am, and I'm so eager about what's coming." That's the essence of the vibration that keeps adventurous things coming, keeps you feeling always excited, stable and secure, keeps you feeling in love with life. All day, every day, count your blessings! All day, every day, make your lists of things you appreciate. And as you keep activating what is working in your life, then more pleasing things on all subjects will flow to you. 

with deep gratitude and joyous blessings - kvk

wednesday's radar

What's pinging on my radar this morning ...

Really excited about finding this source for diamond drill bits for my flex shaft - jumbo bits up to 1 3/4".  Woo hoo - big holes in glass and stuff !!!!!!

Serious lust here - Urban Zen - just my cuppa.  I'm thinking my jewelry needs to be there ... time to visualize done!  This is so much my aesthetic ~ this image just takes my breath ...

And I know I've posted this before, but it's always a welcome way to start the day ~ from 1 Giant Leap, Happy ..

still feelin' wabi-sabi, still soaking up birthday month gratitude
back to the product shots for me ...
blessings - kvk

feelin' wabi-sabi

Some days I wake up in a thick fog and struggle to move through the day; some days feel all rhinestone sparklie; today I'm feelin' kind of wabi-sabi.  Could be the pieces I'm working on ...

Gotta admit, I'm pretty obsessed with these right now.  Nice to know my galleries are feeling the same way.  It's always interesting, after all the designing and problem solving and assembling and pricing and catalog organization, to start actually producing the work.

Could be the tools I use ... toothpicks and drinking straws, coffee stirrers and crimp beads stuck on the ends of bamboo skewers, vintage clay tools from my pottery days and strips of crusty card stock and why magenta plastic wrap makes me so happy ...

It helps that the sun's pouring in ...

And that there's a lovely dusting of snow and I don't have to leave the house ...

And that Pat Metheny is playing in the studio.  I started my workday with one of my favorites - Speaking of Now.  We got to see them perform most of this album, absolutely incredible.  I do love Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays.  First time Dave saw them it was free, first time I saw them it was 1980 and $4 at Ruby Diamond Auditorium at FSU, next time it was 1983 and $12 at the old refurbished theatre in Bellingham, WA, next time was 2005 and $45 at the Paramount in Seattle, still incredibly reasonable considering they played for 3 hours.  The first cut from Speaking of Now ...


I'm trying to figure out why I'm calling my morning mood wabi-sabi.  Seems to be this - I'm feeling inspired and motivated, but most of all grounded and at peace with a bit of a happy tingling sensation lurking in the background.  I've also got something from Danielle's blog as my new theme - rather than visualize possibility, visualize done.  That's feeling much more better.

One more cut to swing on out.  This one just makes you feel so good, Afternoon from Speaking of Now (okay so this visuals are not so nice, but the tune is sweet sweet) ...


This will be me, visualizing my goals and aspirations - DONE!
on this frigid Tuesday morn, with gratitude and joyous blessings - kvk

gotta love YouTube

Look what I found - my two favorite segments from the Living Treasures film ...



And about two minutes in, Arakawa's black seto ware ... breathtaking.  (sorry - didn't see one without the cyrillic subtitles)


gotta love YouTube.

blessings - kvk

just a wee bit ...

... further down the hole.
Just found this link at AOT's blog.  Amazing good fun.



joyous blessings - kvk
'cause hey, it's my birthday month!

this morning's rabbit hole

I usually start my mornings with a large mug of strong black tea with a few drops of stevia, a munch of something for brekkie and a, hopefully, brief perusal on-line for email and blogs ... the brief part is the challenge.  This morning finds me following links from one end of the spectrum to the other, winding my way down a rabbit hole of assorted inspiration.

First an email from Phuni at Tibetan Karma in MA about a fund raising effort for Machik -" Machik works to develop new opportunities for education and training on the Tibetan plateau and supports initiatives that advance innovative, solutions-oriented approaches to the challenges of community revitalization and sustainability".  Over the last few years, Phuni and I have developed a great rapport and she's been a great supporter of my work.  She is Tibetan and a big part of her life and business is her commitment to supporting sustainable products and social justice.  I'm always on the lookout for good causes to support, so for the month of December I'll be donating 10% of my gross sales to Machik.

Next on my morning cruise, I was checking in on new blog posts.  I started with Tumbleword, followed her link to Lucid Cafe and started looking at the artist biographies which lead to one on Robert Motherwell which lead me to remember that a favorite video was due to be released on DVD, Storming the Citadel, a really excellent film on the New York School of abstract expressionists - really excellent film, now on my wishlist.

Thinking about favorite films that we owned on VHS and no longer have and miss terribly, lead me to look for an all time favorite, a National Geographic special, The Living Treasures of Japan.  It's an hour of some of the most inspiring artists and work I've ever encountered ... a traditional potter, his enormous anagama kiln and exquisite pots, the very essence of wabi-sabi; the sweet smiling and ancient face of a weaver of hemp and dyer of indigo; music and theatre and paper and, well, it's just an amazing collection of artists.  Turns out their DVD's are 40% off right now.  Needless to say, this one is coming home to Kathy.

One rabbit hole I'm reluctant to do down is Tumblr.  I see it everywhere, love the look of it - I especially love the archive at Abundance - but that's one hole I need to resist ... for now anyways.

So the tumbler I really use, that would be the rotary one with stainless steel shot, should be about ready.  Ah, but one more update on my adventures in glass.  My mondo box from Rio Grande was deposited on my doorstep sometime last evening, one side split.  I opened it right before bed only to find the contents inadequately packaged.  The 10 8oz. jars of crushed glass in one oversized zip-loc bag, one of the jars halfway open, the other nine jars swimming in 4 ounces of bronze frit.  Not happy about that.  A mess and an unsafe mess at that.  I'll be calling Rio here shortly to fill them in and suggest some packaging improvements.

Well now, if I haven't been playing hooky just way too long.  So on a gorgeous fall day, this will be me off to empty the tumbler and get back to work.  Here's another favorite Nick Drake cut ...

• River Man by Nick Drake

blessings - kvk

thursday radar

Been in observation mode much of the day ... this is what's popped up on my radar with some musical interludes.

Firstly, it's been an Incredible String Band kind of day ... maybe because the cloudy and cold makes me think of what England must be like this time of year.  My ISB Pandora station has had some perfect tunes.  Hard to beat Steeleye Span's Calling On Song.


This morning I was struck by all the little treasures that surround me while I work  ~  bowls and dishes filled with bits and pieces and gems and nuggets ...

The black and white dish  ~ tumbled quartz, bone fragments and glass from North Beach in PT along with two carved bone tiles from an antique store all resting in a little black clay pinch pot dish, the edges brushed with pmc slip and over-fired which makes the slip crawl and curl into little mercurial balls...

A tiny Japanese dish filled with the recently extracted gems from my silver scrap pile.  I love this image.  I may have to blow it up and hang it on my wall somewhere ...

  

And then there's the assortment of cast glass beads from Ghana, the other source of my inspiration for attempting my own versions.  Like Andrew mentioned in his comment, sticks are forced through the molten glass to make the holes - hence the 'blown out' ends on many of them.

My own glass experiments have been informative, but less than wonderful.  One problem I've had is the glass sticking to the paperclay.  So I thought I'd refire the beads that were kind of interesting and see if I could get the edges to smooth out.  I made little cups around each bead to keep them from sticking to the kiln shelf.  You might notice the ragged look of the shelf - a long ago remnant from particularly unsuccessful enamel mixed with pmc experiments.  Then, fingers crossed, I chucked them in the kiln ...

 

Nothing much happened - it appears I needed to fire higher and longer.  The Roman glass experiment was equally informative and less than perfect.  The tops ended up a lovely mottled green albeit with some spikey bits ... 

The crusty parts of the crushed glass settled to the bottoms and sides and look like bread dough - sort of an unpleasant look for a bead, well, at least they're not to my liking.  One of them was okay, the other two, not so nice ...

Yesterday I bought some kiln wash/bead release that I'm hoping will help with the sticking problem and I'm holding off on any more experiments since my Rio Grande order will be here this afternoon  - ten colors that make up five pounds of glass ... delicious anticipation, no?

Ahhhhh, another musical interlude.  Being the tenacious sort that I am, I heard this cut on said Pandora station and have been trying for hours to find it on-line so's I could embed it here.  All normal efforts failed, it was nowhere that I could find, so I bought and downloaded the album, then uploaded the track to a playlist sight and created a widget for you to enjoy herewith.  Hope you like it ... I do.  Goodness, I can be ever so silly and driven and, well, tenacious.  Sweeney's Men, Dreams For Me ...

Another treasure showed up super quick fast fast - over the weekend I dove into a rather large splurge and ordered two litres of freshly pressed, unfiltered Tuscan olive oil from one of my favorite on-line catalogs, Toast , one to keep and one to share.  Amazingly, they arrived today.  Must get some good crusty bread and do some dipping ... ohhh and some freshly chopped rosemary from my little bush that's currently huddled under a protective plastic covering.

Nick Drake seems like a nice finish for now ... well Nick Drake and one more image ~ a fine treasure indeed, my Little Zoe Bit all curled up in a toasty ball ...

Well, Nick Drake and a couple others inspired by the String Band ...

Rightio ... back to work for this little peep.
and with vast amounts of gratitude for the treasures in my life ...
blessings - kvk

vigilant me

It seems my life's theme over the last couple of weeks is vigilance: watchfulness; the process of paying close and continuous attention.  I've been working hard to take notice of all those little things that I tend to ignore and brush off with the thought of 'later'.  It's that ongoing feng shui-ing my life thing.   Moving through this process I just never know what's going to catch my attention.

This one amused me to no end ... I decided to finally, and I do mean finally, wash the canvas from my PMC tool kit.  This is the tool kit I bought either late '97 or early '98, one of the original PMC tool kits, and it has never, and I do mean never, been washed.  I'd kind of been enjoying it all nasty and crusty, layers and layers of lord knows what built up through the years.  But the other day I looked down and said "enough".  Behold the before ...

I won't say the result is pristine, but it's worlds better ... worlds!  Then I decided my work surface needed attention as well, so it got a good scrubbing.  Then I tossed the nasty little bit of oil-soaked foam (okay, so it was less than a year old) in my vintage PMC container (anyone remember those?).  It's quite refreshing to have a shiny and clean work surface and toolkit.  I probably won't wait another 12 years to clean up my tools.

I had to take a break from taking catalog and website pictures - it was making me crazy and I was getting really bored.  Beware of Kathy when she gets bored, she's been known to take on new and daunting projects.  But you see, I've been thinking about this one for years, and I do mean years.  I've decided to teach myself how to cast glass beads.  You see, it all started when I first saw this necklace ...

I had seen it in Ornament magazine ads and then it was in the Collectible Beads book that Robert Liu did in '95.  It was those chunky translucent blue and sea green beads that really got me - pate de verre - I had no idea what that was.  Funny thing about this necklace ... the maker is Laura Popenoe and she lives in Port Townsend and we got to be quite good friends while I was there.  Wouldn't you think I would have asked her about those beads?  Nope.  I have been thinking about emailing her and getting some pointers, but being the pig-headed sort that I am, I'm going to work on my own for a bit and see where I get.

I've bought a book ...

 

And what really got me going was my idea for molds - creative paperclay.  In the early days of PMC, core material for beads was a big problem.  For years I used paperclay, which was less than ideal but there weren't really any options.  So I knew that it would fire to 1650, not shrink and not burn up - it's the volcanic ash and talc.  After firing, I would just drop my beads in water and the paperclay would crumble and dissolve.  I thought it could be great for glass molds ...  the core for the center hole  made ahead of time, dried and stuck into little pinch pot molds - no bead release or worries about getting the bead out of the mold.  Plus they're very cute ...

Next, I discovered there's a rather large art glass supplier here in town.  I bought a few vials of ground up frit to experiment with ...

My first experiments have been less than stellar ...

But another one of those late night epiphanies has me trying something else - crushing up Roman glass and seeing what it does.  I'm not sure if this might be kind of sacrilegious, but I love the colors and I've got a bunch that's been sitting in a bin for ages, so what the heck.  My first attempts are cooling in the kiln as we speak ... that's the hardest part for me - waiting.  You have to wait until the kiln is bloody room temperature before you can open it!

 

I've also discovered that Rio Grande is selling glass supplies, who knew?  Ah, which leads me to another bit of house cleaning ... I just sent back all my silver scrap.  I cleared out a ton of old components and bits and pieces that had been sitting around forever.  I had a bunch of really early glass fired in PMC failed experiments.  I took a beefy pair of cutters and managed to extract most of the silver from the glass.  All that old stuff along with a lot of not so old stuff and with silver at $27 p/oz ... well it was a fine idea with excellent timing.  I got to do some much needed space clearing, get a nice chunk of trade-in credit, buy some regular materials but also order a nice assortment of frit for further experimentation. 

As I move forward to lord knows where, I'm back to that idea of vigilance ... staying awake and aware and heart centered.  To help with staying mindful, I've started getting the Daily Quotes from Abraham-Hicks.  I used to be a big follower, but I got kind of turned off from them for a while, they've gotten so commercial.  But I just decided that if the message resonates it doesn't matter where it's from.  An excerpt from today's quote did indeed resonate, "you cannot attract the presence of something wanted when predominantly aware of its absence." 

That's a tricky one ...

So much going on ... I'll keep you posted.
blessings - kvk

p.s.  it's almost my birthday month!!!!  wowie zowie, the downhill slide to fifty-five!

p.p.s.  270degrees is not room temperature ... drat

patination

Today feels like one of those days where I've inched a bit closer to my core ... does that make sense?  This whole process of reworking my jewelry line and catalog is about shedding layers of artifice, peeling away masks and digging deep.  It's closing in on 4 months now and at this stage, well today anyway, I'm feeling a bit bonzo.  Clear but somewhat distracted.  Taking pictures all day most every day, my relief comes when it's time to recharge the camera battery ... hmmmm, probably a bit of recharging me in there as well.

I've been rediscovering little hidden treasures around the house.  I'd completely forgotten about this little olive oil bottle - one of my favorite pots of all time - and there it was tucked way back into a cupboard.   I love the glazing and especially the handle - bailing wire with a sanded section of a branch.  There's a small chip out of the spout, which is probably why it was in the back of the cupboard.  But I love that it's gotten kind of saturated over the years.  I've washed it out and, after it's good and dry, will refill it later today.

I found my little bottle while digging out the canister of brown basmati rice to fix my breakfast.  I was craving warm rice with toasted almonds and cinnamon and milk, well soy milk.  I always forget how much I love this combination.  Even better with a huge mug of scalding black tea.

So's I can feel productive and still take a break from pictures, I've been working on redoing all of my printed materials.  I had this idea to print my catalog on one of my favorite papers - onionskin.  I love onionskin paper, always have.  It's paper of another era, the long-gone days of airmail and cotton rag content.  Unfortunately, it didn't work for the catalog - at all.  The images were not the least bit clear - kind of a crucial element. 

But what it is working for is my product info / care and feeding cards.  I do love the look of these ...

During my breaks, I've been on a hunt for old fashioned super heavy duty selvedge denim jeans.  I had discovered these - a Japanese company that's whole gig is to make really high quality reproductions of iconic American clothing, like the Buzz Rickson's bomber jacket in Pattern Recognition.  Here's their version of the jeans I'm craving ...

Their version is, with shipping, $350 ... not gonna happen.  What I discovered instead, and much more reasonable although way more than I've ever paid for a pair of jeans, Levi's has brought back their selvedge denim 501's.  They're still a hundred bucks, but I think that's doable.  Funny, I'll pay $350 for a pair of shoes but not jeans - go figure.  What I love is the directions for breaking them in - best not to wash for at least 6 months and don't sit on any white couches.  They'll form to you and become a reflection of the wear patterns in your life.

I'm thinking the battery's ready to go and the sun's come out which should make for better lighting to, hopefully, take the last round of product images.  I'm down to the earrings now.  Then review everything, maybe re-shoot a few, then tag everything and start packing it all up to ship back out west.

As for layers being shed and clarity settling in - for some reason I'm reminded of these lines from Zero History, "Everything they were wearing ... qualified as what she'd call 'iconic,' but had originally become that way through its ability to gracefully patinate.  She was big on patination.  That was how quality wore in... as opposed to out.  Distressing, on the other hand, was the faking of patination, and was actually a way of concealing a lack of quality."  I'm feeling rather well patinated.  I like it.

blessings - kvk

Auction Success!!!!

Congratulations Lynn!  Thank you for your wonderfully generous bid of $170! 

Being on the fringe of the beading community, it's been amazing to watch everyone rally to Andrew's aid ... such a wonderful thing to help such a exceptional human being. 

So Lynn - you can email me via the contact box in the right hand column and we'll sort out the payment options.  I'll start making the copper box and getting your beautiful fine silver Fairy Box ready to ship.

Thank you so much to Kelli and Katie for your generous bids.

with enormous gratitude and blessings - kvk

auction for Andrew ... one day left!!!!!!

Okay, so there's one more day to bid on this sweet little Fairy Box for Andrew's mountain of medical bills.  So far, Lynn's my top bidder at $170.  I'm lovin' $170, but $200 would be most excellent!  Any takers?

 

The box is about 1 inch square and 2 inches tall, with a tiny piece of beach glass at the crest.  It's handbuilt by me from fine silver PMC.  The texture is from a volcanic rock and my fingerprints.   A really sweet little treasure for a super sweet human being.  

BTW - It will arrive wrapped in silk tucked into one of my special collaged copper boxes.

 

Thank you so much to my bidders.

blessings - kvk

fun with product shots

I'm feeling like taking pictures of my very much expanded line of jewelry is turning into a life's work.  Progress is being made and even better - yesterday I finally hit on a look.   The key components were found while rooting around looking for props to photograph my little silver box for Andrew's auction.   I rediscovered a couple of beach treasures from Port Townsend - a very cool pot shard and a piece glass slag (glass that's been in a fire) and then added a big chunk of flourite that I had on my table shrine.  I've put a piece of sanded clear plexiglass on my worktable for the background.

BTW, the auction is going through Sunday and there appears to be a bidding war between Katie and Kelli.  Lovin' this - you go girls! 

So, quick like a bunny, I'm taking a small break to share a couple of my favorite images thus far.  Nice thing about the web, I can leave the images dark and rich - the images for the print catalog are bright and crisp.  I'm using a pretty slow shutter speed 'cause I much prefer them dark and lush.

Here's the flourite, followed by the pot shard and then my favorite, the chunk of glass ...

p.s.  this last one's got a speck of schmutz that I need to erase, but I love the look!
Okay, back to work for this little peep.

Once again, a huge thank you to Kelli and Katie.  Anybody else want to jump in?  it's a really sweet little box and such a good cause!

with heartfelt thanks and many blessings - kvk

halfway through scorpio + an auction for Andrew

I looked at the calender this morning and became aware of the date.  This time of year is always an uneasy one for me.  I kind of tiptoe around from mid-October to mid-November, ever alert, anxiously waiting to get through Scorpio.  I met my beloved in October 31 years ago, I've lost many loved ones during this time of year, we've made big cross country moves on more than one occasion and there have been wonderful breakthroughs in my life, work and business.  Most years it passes without incident, but if anything is going to happen, it tends to be big.

So this morning, in an effort to weigh in on the positive side of Scorpio, this awareness has me seeing to some  things I've been ignoring ... breathe into this moment, engage rather than submerge, do rather than try.

An important thing on my list is this:
I've been wanting to participate in the effort to help with Andrew Thornton's ever increasing medical bills.  So here's what I'm doing ... I'm auctioning off this little box - handbuilt by me in fine silver PMC .

It's tiny, fairie sized - 1" x 1" x 2" tall with a tiny piece of beach glass at the crest.  The lid is hollow, texture is from my fingerprints and a well-worn volcanic rock.  I love making little boxes, but rarely take the time.  So, for me, this is something of a treasure.  I think of it as a place to tuck memories or small wonders, hopes and special wishes.   

I'd like the starting price to be $50.  Please leave a comment if you'd like to make a bid.  The end date is Sunday, the 14th.  I'll contact the winner on Monday to get PayPal and shipping info.

with enormous gratitude and blessings - kvk

happy bits

What's made me happy thus far on this glorious fall morning ...

~  The print catalog is finished and ready to print.  The last hurdle was putting together my palette card, this one goes to the reps with the samples and a cropped photo version is on the price list page.  Oh yes, I'm quite pleased with the finished product.  You know, God is in the details ...

  

~  Perusing the current issue of Selvedge while munching on breakfast and sipping tea and discovering new treasures to lust after.   RoughLinen.com ... oh my, I want it all.  

~  And I'm really lusting after this overcoat from Margaret Howell ... at just under $1300, it's not going to be in my closet anytime soon.

~  And then later today, I'm going to be super happy ... my brother just got a zotzy new Canon camera and is passing on his Nikon digital SLR to his lil' sis ... and it's due to arrive this afternoon.

Now, I'm on to taking product shots for the website.  Trying to decide on a background and the overall 'look' I want to convey.  So, for the rest of the day, I'll be printing catalogs and taking pictures and sipping tea and enjoying the warm embrace of all these happy bits.  

blessings - kvk

homemade feng shui

Our house sits on a nice size lot, well for being in town it's a nice size ... just under a 1/4 acre.  Only thing, it is fairly steep and drops away from the house into a jumble of trees and vines and briers.  To me, it feels like the surrounding energy could very well be sliding down the hill and away and, in feng shui world, it's not an ideal situation.  The only 'cure' I'd found suggested shining a light on the back corner of the house - that would mean a four or five story lamp pole and was not going to happen.

The slope ...

This is the city and there's two enormous cell phone towers not far away and then there's the train crossing just down the hill that literally rattles me to my core, although I have finally gotten to where they don't wake me up at night.  To help with erratic city energy, I had already done a bit of perimeter securing with some 'e.m.f. bombs' (aka orgonite) that Lynne sent me last year.  Now enter Kathy Van Kleeck and her alternative feng shui cures.  So my feng shui idea for the sloping property issue was to put wind chimes in the trees along my boundary.  They're a standard cure for other things, why not sloping property?  I had hung some ceramic ones that I'd made back in my clay days, but they weren't fired high enough and sounded more like a clunk than a ching.  I was feeling the need for metal chimes with a nice ring.

A few months ago, I had seen some nice little chimes at the Arboretum gift shop.  On Wednesday, I took myself for an afternoon of tooling around and remembered about those little chimes.  These had gemstone themes and I bought three, one of each theme.  Getting home and unpacking them, the 'gemstones' looked to be dyed something, not awful, just not my taste.  They also had these really heavy stone pieces at the bottom and how they were supposed to blow around I have no idea.  Along with the cheesy gemstones, the supporting nylon was very thin.  Are you wondering why I bought them in the first place?  Well, they do have a lovely sound and I really only wanted the components anyway, so I set about doing some alterations.
  
I don't know what it is, but I love restringing wind chimes.
In progress ...

.

Ready to disperse some energy ...

I already like the idea of the new chimes and maybe that's a big part of it.  I'll let you know if I feel a change ...

sending out good energy and blessings - kvk

not so bad

Well, the sun is pouring into my studio, the order is packed and ready to post, I've got an encaustic experiment brewing and an hour or so while I wait on some components in the tumbler and wax to melt.  Sooooo, I thought I'd do a bit of sorting ...

Not quite as bad as I thought.  Actually, it's kind of meditative ... except for the part where my joints are a bit achy today.  Must be that cold front moving in.

And in other news ...
Here's the cover for my new catalog.  The background is a graphite rubbing of my worktable.  The stair image is the LaCoste stairway that inspired the new components and direction.  Still very much a work in progress, but I'm liking it so far.

Back to sorting .......
blessings and all good things - kvk

darn - wish I hadn't done that

Off to a rousing start this morning ...
First thing, I am not, nor have I ever been, a morning person.  So the fact that I had to be at the mechanic first thing for an oil change was a bit of a challenge.  Fast lube they're not, so I hoofed it down to the bakery for coffee, a breakfast sandwich and the NYTimes.  Secondly, I don't drink a lot of coffee - copious amounts of black tea, yes ... coffee, no.  So two cups of coffee and an hour later, I headed back to the mechanic to wait a bit longer.  Finally, almost two hours later, and with a fine old coffee buzz (just don't get that from the tea), I was heading home to finish up a jewelry order. 

Thirdly, I'm one of those artists whose right and left brains are quite balanced, a gift actually.  That analytical side reigned supreme for many years, but these days I can call up either side at the appropriate time.  My little left brain keeps my studio organized, all my little bins of tiny tiny gems sorted into lovely colorways and combinations.  So, I'm thinking it was probably a combination of things.  That lingering coffee buzz, maybe the music was a bit too raucous.  Maybe it should have been Steve Tibbetts instead of Fever Ray.  Basically, I hadn't really settled down enough to focus.  I was pulling out a nice selection of gems to assemble a bracelet and, golly if I didn't press down just a bit too hard on that one plastic bin and send the better part of my citrine and andalucite spraying into my amethyst and rose tourmaline.

Darn ... wish I hadn't done that.
Deep breaths ...........

a brief diversion ... what I'm loving today

Today I'm loving the audacity of Regina Dabdab's jewels seen via Robin Richman's blog ...

Which would look very cool with this from Share Spirit...

 or even more better with this from forme d'expression ...

while gazing at the almost surreal interiors of Aurelie Alvarez like this one ...

 or this one ...

 or maybe looking for inspiration and lovelies for my more mainstream homefront at I Gigi ...

scrumptious eye candy ... loving all of it.
okay, back to work for me.
ttfn - kvk