Monthly Archives: February 2023

2″ x .5″, dichroic glass and slate

This week has been amazingly manageable. It turns out that when the kids travel, and I only have myself to feed, bathe, schedule and rest, it seems like there are at least three extra hours in the day. Of course, those hours have been for work, but even work feels more restful when I’m not checking my watch for pick-up times and thinking about what to make for dinner.  And yet, the days alone still had their challenges.  The hills and valleys and the twists and turns weren’t as extreme as they usually are, but there were still ups and downs.  The slate in this pendant shows the ups and downs at every scale.  Rub it with your fingers and you’ll feel the bumps.  Look very closely and you’ll see tiny dips and rises in every millimeter.

2″ x .5″, found objects

Someone who stopped at my table during a craft fair said that she loved my use of mixed metals, and I glanced over my jewelry to see that I had, in fact, mixed many different metals.  In this pendant the mix was practical. I prefer the length of my silver chains, and I didn’t want to have to put the gold pendant on a gold chain.  So the silver star added some silver bling, and the bead posts below it help to pull  attention down to the careful beadwork below.  And thanks to that guiding star, a simple art deco design emerged.

1″ diameter, glass

I’ve always liked to look inside things, to figure out how they work and how they grew.  I got to use an electron microscope during a program at the museum of science as kid, and it was so wonderful to see the building-blocks of stuff, not looking like perfect circles, smooth lines and curves the way they tend to in illustrations, but with torn edges and bumps and bruises.  This little pendant has its own structure, and if you look closely you’ll see the rough corners and irregular cleaving of the glass rods.

1″x 2″, glass and found objects

When I look at other people’s art I see a clear style.  There’s a continuity to their pieces, and they could be picked out of a crowd.  I wonder how long it’ll take for me to have a body of work big enough to start to see a pattern.  Or maybe my journey is more winding, with too many influences and too many materials to allow for any sort of consistency. Despite the inconsistency of my art I was honored this week as one of the year’s artists of the month for Somerville (September was my month!). they gave us all superhero capes, and I think mine might be just the boost I need to fly forward and see where my art journey takes me.