Monthly Archives: April 2022

1″ x 3/4″, found objects

It’s springtime and we’ve pulled out the tools for the garden.  For the most part they get used and then stuck in the dirt until the next time we need them, which means that every day as I walk to the door I pass a spade sticking out of the soil. That gives many reasons to think about all the spade-related expressions that I don’t fully understand.  My mom used to say “better call a spade a spade”.  I know there’s a card reference, but what’s the connection?  And why would something you have a lot of be something you have “in spades”? I know I could just google the answers, but instead I’ll wonder for a while longer, passing the spade in the garden each day.

1″x 2″, found objects

I’ve always loved library shelves.  Books with different heights and colors, textures and fonts, all lined up, spines pointed out, lined up and put in order. Ruffles and pleats, stacks of plates and folded sweaters all have the same comforting sense of multiplicity. Lots of the same thing, organized, but not entirely alike.  In this pendant the multiplicity comes from shiny and dull black circles, some empty and some full.  Iridescent beads that are so alike they’re clearly a set, but with their own quirky color variations and accidental angles.

1″ diameter, wood

It’s not just the tiny size, cool shapes and neat textures that I love about scraps, but also the fact that they’ve been tossed aside.  If I can find a use for them it feels like I should get extra points, not just points for good environmental stewardship, but points for creativity. On a recent visit to our local fab lab someone was cutting detailed Moroccan-inspired patterns out of wood veneer, and the punched-out scraps were about to be tossed. I asked permission and shoved some of them into my pocket, waiting for a moment of inspiration.  Here they are!

1″x 2″, glass, stone and found objects

In the ongoing days of COVID I’m thinking all the time about how to shield myself and my family from the virus, whether it’s with masks, isolation or elderberry syrup.  But it’s not just the virus that I shield myself from. I find that my clothes are a shield, against the cold, against being judged as unprofessional or judged as too serious.  I like the crossover between shields and family crests too, where a shield can protect us and simultaneously broadcast our identities and our affiliations.  This pendants uses some of may favorite colors and materials to form a traditional shield shape. Maybe it’ll also ward off the COVID virus?

1.5″ diameter, found objects

Many years ago I learned to make hollow glass beads.  When they’re made with opaque glass they trick the eye, looking heavy but feeling light.  I learned this week about aerogels, which are a most extreme version of being mostly hollow and super light.  The holes in aerogels blur the boundaries of the substance, and the holes through this pumice dull the light bouncing off it, in stark contrast to the shiny metal surrounding it. I like the idea that things aren’t always what they seem. What seems seems heavy might be light. and what seems simple might delight.