health pendants

1″ diameter, found objects

When you scratch the surface you see reality and history peeking through.

1″x1″, found objects

I feel my collecting (read:hoarding) impulses kicking in.  Because the future is insecure, it’s hard to know exactly what will be useful and what won’t.  What kind of scarcity will come first?  And will there be an object that might help?  Or will it be the people around us that really matter.  Luckily, much of what I collect is tiny, so I can indulge my impulses for a while.

1″ x 1.5″, found objects

It’s not the good kind of slide.  No, this time it’s a slide down a slippery slope toward a future that’s looking deeply disturbing.  But after a day of reflection I was able to put a bit of shine deep inside. Maybe there’s a bit of hope somewhere.

1″ x 1″, found objects

I’ve been working on a piece of glass that shows hills and valleys that will cover the bottom section of a window, masking the view of roads and buildings and offering a more serene view.  But the hills themselves in my glass windows are busy,  with lumps and bumps and spikes, and in real life they’re even more rugged.  The further away you go, the smoother and more serene they look.  This pendant, made from pieces of a copper planter, has a hilly section on the right and a valley in the middle, with a nice, flat walkable area on the left.  

.5″ x 2″, glass

I don’t usually have the patience to do a color study before I make a larger piece.  But these tiny pendants work as color studies, just like the more thematic pendants can serve as little maquettes for larger mosaic compositions.  Although my tendency is to jump into huge projects with little to no planning  (as long as no one is paying for the project), I’ve started to like these small scale tests and practice runs.

.5″ x 2″, glass

How I wish it were the season when flowers were blooming instead of wilting and withering! I put together a pendant made from hand-pulled cane to bring a few of spring’s colors with me into the winter months.

1” x 1.5”, glass

When I was in High School I was art editor for the student art and lit magazine. I ran weekly critiques where we looked at submissions and then voted on whether to publish them.  In my memory, the critiques were actually quite respectful and thoughtful.  We thought about contrast, design, message, and applied all the art concepts we were learning in art class.  The one that feels most relevant today is “too busy”.  It’s easy to fill a canvas or a piece of paper with too much. You lose the subject and the noise wins.  And this, my pendant for the week, is an ode to “too busy”, in art and in life.

1″ x 1.5″, beads and found objects

If someone says that something is  “cookie cutter” it’s not usually a good thing.  It’s generic, just like all the rest. But for me, cookie cutters have only positive connotations. Anything that helps me bring more cookies into the world is a friend of mine!  As soon as I added the eyes from a set of hooks and eyes to the little silver triangles in the pendant it looked too much like cookie cutters for me to think about anything else. And then, of course, the beads became sprinkles.  

1″ x .75″, found objects

A friend invited me to a bodypump class at a local gym 6:00 AM this week. That’s pretty much the antithesis of anything I would ever do.  I’ve only stepped into a gym when coerced, I get all the sleep I can these days, and the term ‘bodypump’ scares me silly.  For a variety of reasons that were only partly my fault, I didn’t go to the class, but it got me thinking about pushing my limits in other realms.  I decided to take a flameworking class that’s probably well beyond my skill set, I’m applying for some projects that are long shots, and while it may not seem like much of a push, this pendant is yellow.  Yellow!  I never use yellow.

1″ x 1″, found objects

Can you tell what’s in the middle of this pendant?  It’s a decorative paper clip.  If I look at it as a tiny maze that resembles what I try to make it through each day,  it’s a good reminder that all of the obstacles, all of the twists and turns actually take me on a path that holds things together. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether I’m on my way into a stuck center or out to the exit, but either way, each turn gets me closer.

1″x1″glass and found objects

Technically. this isn’t my best work.  It’s messy on the edges, and the arrangement doesn’t have the grace and consistency that I try to create.  But it’s like a quick glance inside my head these days: all the tools are there, and there are flashes of brilliance, but everything’s just a bit stuck in the mud, and I have to work hard to pull each piece up and out so that it’s not buried anymore.

1″ x 1.5″, found objects

I love the idea of copper nails because copper is so soft, you’d have to be more concerned about beauty than strength to choose them.  And beauty they have, with a want glow and a patina as they age.  But these copper nails could be combined with the pin back at the bottom of the pendant to create a strong connection, if only for fabric, without depending on the strength of the metal.

1″ x .75″,  found objects
I’m horrified to see that the days are already getting shorter, and school starting yesterday gave me clear proof that fall is here.  The cold is tough, and the flowers drying out is rough, but the part of fall that really gets to me is losing the light.  As the evenings fade and then the afternoons fade too, I fall into a funk.  This pendant includes a glow-in-the-dark watch hand, which I hope will stretch the glow of daytime for a few extra hours into the fading fall nights.

1″ x 1″, found objects

Wouldn’t it be cool to have wings?  I think most people imagine soaring above the earth, watching the world go by, but for me they’d just be practical.  I’d be able to skip the traffic, zoom from one place to another, manage all the pick-ups and drop-offs and meetings and workshops with no sweat.  I’d struggle in the winter, what with the cold and the snow, but I think I’d still give them a try.

1″x1.5″, glass and found objects

I’ve been on Cape Cod all week, waking up to the sounds and colors of the ocean, and hearing the calls of seagulls all day.  Although teaching a mosaic class has stopped me from spending full days at the beach, it’s been a beach-filled week, and I’m sad to see it ending.

.5″ x 2″, found objects

There was a mural in Allston when I was growing up  that I absolutely loved.  In fact, I think it’s still there. Though faded now, it shows windows on a large brick wall, and through each window you can see a scene inside.  Cats, people, couches… there’s another similar mural on Newbury street with portraits of stars in the windows.  And in both cases, the windows are false or boarded up.  It’s just an imagined life inside.  Here in the US, unlike in the Netherlands, shades are drawn as soon as it gets dark, and you have to imagine what’s happening inside other people’s homes.  This pendant shows empty windows, ready for you to project your imagined reality, and a central window glowing with bright amber light.

1″ x 1″, found objects

I’ve made more than one design called “organization” because it’s a constant process, but this one is “organized”.  It’s the dream.  Small bits of my life and my space are in fact getting organized. I can manage about one square inch a week, so a pendant is just about perfect.

1″x 2″, found objects

Every time we see my in-laws we’re each given a bag of goodies.  Everything from  sweets to travel-sized toothpaste to jewelry, it’s all the things that my mother-in-law has thoughtfully collected over the past months.  And my goodie bags have extra special things in them; broken bits that need to become part of something new.  In the most recent bag there was a piece of hematite that became the center of this pendant.  It look like it was carved like a shark’s tooth and hung in a finding, but the finding is gone, and it was just a stone.  Each of the goodie bag gifts comes with a story, relics of a time gone by or a trip taken.  And here are a few, to create new stories together.

.5″ x 2″, found objects
It’s been HOT out this week, and I’ve been so grateful that we live just a short bike ride from the local pool.  It may be scorching hot in the sun outside the pool, and the screams and splashes of kids in the water may not allow the calm, relaxing swims that friends go to local ponds for, but in the middle of a lunch break, it’s a pretty great stop.  For those of you in the Boston area, find this pendant and many more at the Artbeat festival in Davis square this weekend!

1″diameter, found objects

Last week was fireworks, but this week, on the actual 4th of July, we’re zooming in to one single firework.  It’s not the colors that amaze me as much as there being lights in the sky, and I love when they spread out and each little ember breaks into hundreds of tiny new ones.

1″ diameter, found object

My city does its fireworks display a whole week early, and when the weather is perfect, like it was tonight, everyone is out.  There’s a line around the block for slushies at the 7-eleven, and the fried dough and the ice cream are flowing.  But the best are all the colors as the sky changes from blue to black.  This piece is made from another treasure passed on to me, and it has all the beauty and wonder of fireworks in the sky.

1″x1.5″, found objects

With a  shift in my work and the beginning of summer, plans changing and plans being made, the question of balance is once again top of mind.  I was gifted a bag full of earrings, full of history and the aged metals that I love.  The one that found its way into this pendant had a funny sort of balance to it.  No symmetry, but a half-hug.  Held together with a chain and a bead, it has the kind of precarious balance that I’m feeling right now.  Does it work? Yes. Will it work for long?  Not sure.

1″ diameter, found objects

Biking may not be the first thing you think of when you see this design, but here’s the back story: from the time I was small, everyone around me has been on a quest to find just the right bike gear.  My mom wanted a wide tractor seat for comfort, my dad wanted all the fancy gadgets, my husband wanted an electric bike to transport the kids, and we’ve been on a years-long quest to have the right size bikes for each kid on any given day.  If you squint, you’ll see that the center of this pendant looks like a bicycle seat, and it’s got all the fancy bits and pieces to make it just right.

1″ diameter, found objects

Last weekend my son spotted a mama bird sitting on her eggs in a nest above a pathway, and we watched her sit cozily while we walked below.  Then this week I was hosted at a graceful, generous, beautiful house in Provincetown with an ocean view.  It was so nest-like and comforting that it seemed like there was no reason to leave.  And the coper bead that acts as a nest in the pendant came from a thrift store near there, where it was just waiting to become this week’s design.

1″ x 1″, found objects

We just got back from a few days in Puebla, and while we were there we were able to visit a talavera factory.  We saw the process from start to finish, from fresh clay dug locally to workable clay, through to glazing.  Although there’s a limited palette of traditional colors that can be used by certified talavera makers, the designs are a different story.  Anything goes.  Ancient local motifs, designs that came with Arab immigrants, designs from Spanish conquerors, and contemporary designs.  It all counts.  I like that as long as the materials and the process remain the same, it’s acceptable to borrow across borders and cultures.  People often have trouble pinning my jewelry down and comment on how something might look Egyptian, or Native American, or French.  While I don’t want to be too derivative, I look for shapes and patterns that please me, informed by art from around the world, all made with the same techniques.