Monthly Archives: December 2023

1″ x 2″, found objects

When I work in prevention, one of the assets that we try to strengthen in kids is resilience.  I love the idea that it’s not our strength that keeps us going, but our ability to roll with the punches, change course and move through our troubles. And I explain often to stained glass students that what makes a traditional leaded glass window stronger than a copper-foiled one is the lead’s flexibility. It can bend enough to withstand a gust of wind or a temperature differential.  The triangle of this pendant reminds me of puffed-out chest, strong and confident, but what gives the pendant its real strength is the little moving bit at the bottom that will swing and adjust as the wearer moves.

.75″ x 2″, found objects

I don’t want things to stay static, but it would be nice to feel like the world is moving forward steadily, improving and becoming more peaceful more healthy and safe.  But instead it feels like a pendulum, swinging one way for a few days, or months or years, and then right back.

1’x.75″, found objects

This week marks one more trip around the sun for me.  Every time I sit down to make a pendant about time I end up reaching for a gear.  The careful turning, the cycling, the even divisions that remind me of days and months and years all just scream TIME IS PASSING.  And in this design the screws might be there to mark the bright spots in the year, or to catch the gear and try to slow time down just a bit.

2″ x .5″, found objects

This week the holiday craft season began in earnest, with a head-spinning number of craft fairs and markets.  I participated in a few, and one of my favorite parts of selling my work is watching people find a piece for themselves. They fixate on one, look around at others, and almost always go back to the first one they found.  This piece, Riveted II (of course made with rivets) reminds me of the power each piece has to capture someone’s eye.