Monthly Archives: April 2020

2″ x 1″, found objects

This week’s pendant is a creature.  Maybe not actually an insect, since I count more than 3 segments and less than 6 legs, but insect-inspired.  With green mirror-backed glass for wings, parts of a watch spring for antennae and legs from parts of a chain link, the whole piece emerged from the antique hatpin that forms the body.  Made from glass beads with an amazing sheen, the hatpin reminded me of dragonflies and the iridescent bees that we saw in India. I’ve always adored insect jewelry, so here’s my first pass at making some of my own.

1″ x 1″, found objects

When things are busy it can feel like time flies, and goodness knows things are busy in our house while school is closed, with each of us scurrying between zoom calls, trying to work, trying to cook, trying to arrange the next day’s schedule, all while trying to make the internet work smoothly.  But the hours when I’m responsible for childcare are looooooong.  Each minute reminds me of what it feels like to turn a bolt, where each full rotation only moves the bolt in a tiny bit further.  Slowly the hours creep by until it’s my turn to work again and then, in a flash, four hours have passed and I’m not nearly finished with what I needed to do.  This pendant replaces the hour markings on a clock face with tiny bolts, their threads moving along in my imagination slowly, slowly.

1″x 2″, glass

Last year at the library near our house there was a collaborative “temperature scarf” on the table for people to knit.  Each day someone sat down and added a row to the scarf using a color that corresponded to the day’s high temperature.  With a little data visualization, a little craft and a lot of community involvement, our family loved the project.  Even though the signs of spring are here, I’m still bundled up with my heated vest, a scarf, a jacket and a hood. My daughter pointed out that if I made a scarf representing my internal temperature each day it would be all blue.  Made of cut glass tiles, this pendant is a small piece of what that scarf would look like.

1″x 2″, found objects

This, the second pendant made from a hatpin, explores the ever-changing technologies that we invent and dismiss.  While holding the hatpin I was looking into how to make cloth diapers for families that are having trouble finding disposables right now, and I realized how much diaper pin technology has changed over the last few decades. No more metal, nothing sharp, but still very easy to lose! Hatpins have pretty much lost their purpose here in the Northeastern United States, but they haven’t lost their beauty.  The other bits and bobs on this pendant, including a small screen from an old cell phone and other salvaged parts, remind me how far our technology has come, that we have videoconferencing and virtual family holidays only 15 years after I had to go across the street to the phone center to make hard-to-hear international calls from the Netherlands.

1/2″ x 2″, found objects

It didn’t seem like a great sign when a glass bangle from our wedding broke into pieces this week, in the midst of being alone together in our house with two jobs, two screaming children and only a zoom chat or two to keep us sane. But I’ve taken the broken pieces, lined them up, and turned them into something that still has a sparkle.  The key element of the pendant is alignment, because social distancing has forced us to become a stronger couple by further aligning our schedules, our routines, our answers to questions from the kids and our rules about sweets.