so much

So very much to be thankful for, to share, to reflect on, to do.
Life's been something of a whirlwind since my last visit.  The greatest blessing right now - I've been able to maintain a new-found sense of resolve, the line has been drawn in the sand, the time is now, no longer when.

Inspiration has been coming from so many angles.  There have been two really exceptional audio downloads from WhiteHotTruth.  One a 20 minute conversation with Hiro Boga, I am now a big fan.  And then an equally excellent mass phone call FireStarter session with Jonathan Fields and 2 brave volunteers.  So much food for thought and good content.  I've been 'stumbling' onto some great magazine and newspaper articles.  Today's NY Times had two little jewels in the Style section.  Here's a link to one of them.  And a trip to Barnes & Noble resulted in a three gems, an Architectural Digest snippet on Donna Karan's new tabletop line, the Artful Blogger for some research I'm doing on an undisclosed future project (titter, titter - have to wait and see about that one) and finally, a lovely issue of American Craft.

We've had some glorious sunny days and Zoe's doing really well, as evidenced here ...

I've had an opportunity to revisit some old friends, jewelry component friends that is.
A surprise order for jangly bones gave me the opportunity to do some updating with new components.  Must say, I still really love these components ...

And I've also revisited my Woodland series from two years ago.  The first incarnation came into being soon after we moved to Asheville, inspired by these old mountains, the winter landscape and visions of woodland tinker folk and the land of faerie.  I had made a lot of the components and sold several of the series, but ended up collecting all the unsold pieces and dismantling them, regularly gazing at the bits and pieces in my storage bins wondering how they would get reincarnated.

Then last week, I had one of those late night epiphanies.  Languishing on my worktable was a bowl full of large would-be sterling chain links.  A fair amount of silver was there and I knew I'd use them up one day and that day turned out to be January 27th.  The idea - double up the long links to join the metal clay rings.   

These were good ...

But I think these are so much more better ...

Cleaner lines, earthy but still contemporary and interesting.  Next, I still liked the idea of the leather, but again wanted a cleaner silhouette.  I sat at my worktable all last Sunday afternoon, cutting leather strips, gluing them together, figuring out the whole glue thing was in there as well, choosing the silk to wrap and then hours sitting there playing around with endless combinations for how the pieces would close.  I needed a clasp that was low-tech, direct yet interesting, easy to operate and appropriate to the piece.  After all those hours of diddling around with scraps of leather and silk, I am enormously pleased to share the delicious fruit of my labors.  Here's the first version, about 19" long ...



And the clasp on the second one has a bit more of a flourish and the piece is 21" so that it can be worn as a bracelet, which looks amazing.  Here's a close-up of the clasp ...

And a little different angle of the finished piece ...

It's hard to complain about a rotten night's sleep when this is the result.

And then there's so much to do!
I'm still itching to get back to my cast glass experiments, but they'll be on the back burner a bit longer.  I'm pleased as punch to say that, after a seven year absence, Gallery of the Mountains at the Grove Park Inn is bringing my jewelry back in - the order is in progress on my worktable right now and I'll be heading back to it shortly.  I've also figured out how I want to use the channel set gemstone pendant, the corkclay base is drying as we speak and the new metal clay bail design will get fired along with the GOM components.  And as if I don't have enough to think about, I'm starting to look into creating my own line of perfume - how's that for random?  I've got a friend from Port Townsend that used to make the most exquisite blends and my last little vial is running low and she's out of the perfume business.  So's I emailed her yesterday and she emailed back and I've got a starting place.  This will be a pretty long wait and see, but I think it's got potential.  Then there's that aforementioned undisclosed project, which is going to remain undisclosed, that is in the infant stages of R&D.

Oh my yes, so much ... so very much.  Blessings are raining down upon me and I'm about to bust.  Ain't it grand?

sweet blessings to all  - kvk