Monthly Archives: March 2022

1″x1″, found objects

This week was Holi, an Indian festival of colors that usually involves good food and throwing powdered pigments at each other.  We’re waiting to celebrate on a warmer day, since throwing colors isn’t a great indoor activity, but I still wanted to make this week’s pendant colorful. Nothing in India seems to happen without a gold accent, and there are no rules about which colors “go together” so the glass tile and the rings of colors are loving nod from puritanical New England where you can’t even wear white after Labor Day to loving colors with no rules.

1″x 2″, found objects

This week I was gifted a super cool alarm clock that was designed to look futuristic back in the 60s or 70s. It was called “Atomic” when atomic was cool.  I took the clock apart carefully, exposing all of the beautiful gears and springs and screws. This pendant is the first of a series that I’m sure to make from the clock’s inner workings, timely (no pun intended) because the world is once again bracing for nuclear war.

1″x 2″, found objects

I’m back home, settled in with the rest of the family for the remainder of a mixed-up quarantine.  Although I’m testing negative now and will probably not infect anyone, I’m so exhausted that I don’t want to be out and about.  This week’s pendant captures the bumpiness of the quarantine period, as well as the little gems of rest, calm and beauty that came from spending an extra week by the sea in Mexico and taking time to let my body heal.  I’ve used 40 pieces of bone to represent the traditional 40 days of quarantine.  Although the COVID quarantine period depends on where you are (5 days in the US, 10 days if you’re stuck in Mexico…) it seems like all together our family’s illness journey will take at least 40 days.

1″x 1/2″, watercolor

There have been a shocking number of ups and downs this week, unrelenting like the waves at the beach a few blocks away. I got sick, tested negative for covid, then tested positive, stayed in Mexico to recuperate, and am trying to balance my frustration and illness with some enjoyment of the weather. I didn’t bring enough adhesive for two mosaic pendants, but this watercolor and nail polish creation with the colors of ocean and palm trees will have to stand in for this week.