The Master's Work

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Isn’t it odd that just when you are feeling really good about the work that you do, someone else comes along and does it way so much better? Crushing, isn’t it? That is the point where I pick myself off the floor and repeat my mantra: “There is a market for EVERYTHING”, (including what I do).

 

Over the last several weeks, various people kept saying to me, “you should see the show at the NYC Museum of Art & Design”. People were really taken with Daniel Brush and his work. When another friend sent me a link to a NY Times article about his show, I read the article and was blown away. His work is both sculptural and jewel-like and is produced solely by himself, a self-taught goldsmith. This guy taught himself to do granulation, for god’s sake. The pictures of him in his studio with ancient, Victorian machinery that he single-handedly restored was awesome. Also, the article stated that he rarely leaves his studio on 23^rd St. and doesn’t sell his work through any store, gallery or agent. He just works: Quietly and for many years on a single piece. And did I mention the pieces he creates? Jars of steel with high-karat gold inlay. Granulation. Pave-set 17^th century rose-cut diamonds in “drawings” made of steel. Bake-lite whimsical jewelry with beautiful and precious pave elements. Some pieces are not jewelry at all but feature layers of blued steel with high-karat gold and granulated tiny butterflies or bees. These pieces are more like follies because they incorporate tiny magnets for an interactive puzzle of re-arrangement possibilities.

Several days prior to the show’s closing, I found myself in the midst of his massive show at the museum. Each piece was more detailed and beautiful than the next. There was a room full of his sculptural “jewelry”, a room full of shadowbox “sculpture” and a room full of textural line drawings. I have no idea how he made any of it.

Upon turning a corner of the show, I heard and noticed a small cluster of people around a small man who was gesticulating and speaking with a voice like Tom Waits. I listened closely and yes, it was Daniel Brush himself! This was indeed serendipitous and I tried to position myself inconspicuously to hear his golden words of wisdom. He was so approachable that I loomed bravely in his shadow until everyone else had fallen away. How did he work, I asked him? He is a late riser. Eats the same thing every day: Cheerios for breakfast and pea soup for lunch. Sweeps the studio floor for two hours. Works from 2pm to 5 in the morning. Talks to no one. Doesn’t make work to sell, but makes work to challenge and interest himself. If a piece takes three years to make, how does he price it and whom does he sell it to? He wouldn’t answer my pricing question but seemed more intent on WHO bought the piece, that it would go to a good home, that they would love and care for it because it was so hard for him to let go of his work. He prefers to sell on a handshake.

It was also interesting to note that his wife was there. She was a smallish woman with long blond hair and very sad eyes. I noticed that she he had her left wrist in a cast when she slipped quietly away from the crowd. I wondered what her experience was like, living with a partner who worked incessantly and apparently took himself incredibly seriously and had enormous pride that one could interpret as monumental ego.

My experience speaking with Daniel Brush was that of a true admirer. I was impressed with his IQ and tenacity. I was inspired by the manifestation of work so beautiful that it belonged (and is) in the Smithsonian. He mentioned that he has about 10 collectors who purchase his work and this is what has kept him afloat for these past 30 years.

I could not help but question the inherent rights of the male sex, however. The love of a good woman, keeping him afloat in lean times and mostly running a home while the genius creates. The unnecessary “burden of proof” that accompanies the god-given trust-worthy and capable male species. Talent is not random, it is perfected. But luck and support CAN be quite random.

Oh well, back to the studio and the drawing board. I need to create my own little masterpieces of genius. I just wish I had three years to work uninterruptedly on a single piece and not worry about when I last ate, or how to pay the mortgage. Time to sweep the floor, or get up off of it.

Some Things Change

 

2013: Here comes another year, and we’ve never been here before. Are you ready for the next journey? 

Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not because change, for me, is really hard. Once I dig in and attach, it’s so difficult for me to release from these attachments. I want things to stay the same. For me, 2012 was a lesson in letting go of so many things: People, places and things that are, ultimately, impermanent. Permanence is an illusion, I know, but this rocks my core and it challenges my ability to stabilize in the instability of life.

Losing a loved one is destabilizing. Devastating. You can touch them one minute and the next minute all you have are the memories. I’ve always been fascinated with mourning art and jewelry. Pieces of a loved one’s hair that are encapsulated under glass or inside a devotional locket. I see these creations as human attempts to rationalize and maintain contact in a spiritual dimension. When Buddy died it was too soon. This wall and desk locket was an act of my love representing her love, because she loved Buddy so deeply. He found her and protected her on her journey of loss and transformation. Buddy was always there, shielding and looking inside with those piercing brown eyes. Like hers. He was there for her daily walks around the lake, bouncing and running with joy. I grew to love Buddy too. And then all too quickly he was gone.

 In August of 2012 I was at a street fair in Delhi, NY and came upon a young woman whose specialty is pet portraiture. Her little portraits were painted on wooden plaques no bigger than two inches in diameter. When I saw the beautiful detail of her work, I knew what I had to do, so I commissioned Lilybeth Cressman to create a small portrait of Buddy as a puppy. I wanted to make a locket as a memorial to this superb creature. I cut an oval of copper and gave it to Beth for the painting, along with a photo of Buddy as a Puppy. From there, the locket took on a life of its own as I bought several hundred vintage watch crystals. At the same time, I found about 50 vintage chasing tools that had been created individually by a master craftsman. These were all truly one-of-a-kind. Note the little flower and leaf stamps around the perimeter of the portrait and the small wing on the back of the frame. When Buddy was buried, I delicately cut a bit of hair off the end of his tail. Under the crystal part of the locket, remains Buddy’s tail with a silver cap. It can be removed and worn, if desired. Buddy loved bones. Now he’s in Doggy Heaven, eating all the bones he could possible want.

As we head into 2013, I wish you all a protected journey and the courage to transform!

To Dream is to Live

 

As many of you, I have been trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy and to make understandable a world that is predominantly nonsensical. I have felt listless, hopeless and irrelevant. How can I let this experience destroy celebration and cloud hope?

Where are our leaders and our mentors? Hourly, I ask myself how can I be relevant in my daily rituals in the face of such monumental tragedy and a world that might end on friday?

But here I am again with my fingers tender, cut and bruised. I struggle to make something beautiful the way a weed finds a ray of light through the crack in the sidewalk and moves  towards the sun.

In the light I want to render that beauty, the only common recipe in a stew of chaos among all people.

Beauty surely represents all that is good.  If you create: a sound, an image, or a moment of laughter, the hope shall win and exist in all eternity.

That is the dream for which I live. As we dream, we live.  DREAM ON!

Into the Void and Out Again: Remarkable Reappearances

 

It’s amazing to me when I get attached to something that is embarrassingly unnecessary in my life. Something that is superfluous. But is it?

We all have attachments to things that are considered a luxury or even a vanity. But the interesting thing about jewelry is that we wear it so intimately and often with great personal reflective meaning. It becomes a part of our body, our talisman, and our persona. It comes into our lives and then poof it’s gone. Where did it go? How can I go on without it?

When I was 16 and scavenging through my mother’s jewelry drawer, I came upon a small rose gold Figa the size of a bean. She and my father had lived in Brazil for 10 years and this amulet in the shape of a small clenched fist was considered good luck and frequently pinned to the baby blanket of a newborn for protection. With her blessing, I became the new owner of this Figa which I wore on a single gold hoop for over 20 years. With a surprising lack of observation on my part, the jump ring above the Figa wore through (reference Blog “Can This Be Repaired? 2/3/08) and the little clenched fist dropped from my earring into oblivion. I was panic-stricken: was I no longer protected, doomed to a bout of bad luck? I searched everywhere for my little talisman and gave up knowing that it had found it’s way back into the void. I never really recovered from that loss and blamed all current my misfortune on that missing Figa. 5 years later I moved into a larger space. I unrolled and laid out a black oriental rug in my studio that had been in storage for many years. As I was talking on the phone one day, I glanced into the central medallion of that rug and there was my Figa, sparkling in the sunlight in the very central “rose” of the medallion. I could not believe my eyes. And I could not believe that it coincided with the death of my mother.

Over the holidays, Cynthia was visiting her family in Vermont. I’ve been with C’s family for Christmas dinner, so I know it is a lavish event with fine china and linens that hold court with the smorgasbord of gourmet delights. The day after Christmas Cynthia called me trying to contain the panic in her voice: “I’ve lost BOTH of my pinky rings”. She was distraught with this loss that seemed to mirror other losses in her life on so many levels. This is what we do: attach meaning. If I’ve lost this, what else will or has disappeared from my life?

How many times have I received these phone calls or lost something I loved as seemingly silly as a piece of jewelry? The answer is many, many times. But I have a secret I will share with you. I think that the jewelry I make is infused with such love and good intentions that not only will a lost piece of jewelry fall into the void, but it just might find it’s way out and back to you.

The next day Cynthia called to tell me that she’d found one of her rings in the hem of her shirt. She was on her way back to California and feared she’d never find the other one. I had already pulled some pinky rings from my stock and was getting ready to finish one for her when I received an email from her saying that her mother had shaken out the tablecloth from Christmas Dinner, put it in the wash and the dryer when she heard a ping of something metallic rolling around in the dryer. AND THERE IT WAS! The second pinky ring reappeared!

I like to think that the universe reclaims items when they fall into the void. Their time with you is up, or is it? The seasons change; things come and they go. One minute they’re here, the next minute there gone. Don’t Panic, it’s the natural order of things. What is taken away is replaced. Perhaps you are next on the list for a remarkable reappearance.

Sentimental Journeys

Often the paths of our lives take a varied route.  As Heidi says, "one minute you're IN and the next minute you're OUT". We've all been there. 

A broken relationship and leftovers from our deceased relatives all contribute to the feelings that become attached to our jewelry, the iconic representations of so much emotion ripe with meaning.

Have you ever wondered how you could wear that ring again or dispel the "bad vibes" that become embedded in these small works of art?  There are several things you can do.

First, you can take out the stones of a piece of jewelry, sell the metal and have it crafted into another piece of jewelry.  But the stones retain energy.  There is an energy that is held and emitted in metal and stones.  Of course you realize this because stones and metal have been used as electrical conductors for centuries.  Diamonds and crystal can transmit light and when focused on a piece of paper, even start a fire.  Stones and metal are used as electrical transmitters in electronics. 

In 1985 I studied the healing properties of stones with a Psychic.  I learned that each stone carries vibrational wavelengths that can contain healing properties.  For example, Amethyst (in the quartz family)  is a stone, which can strengthen the endocrine and immune systems.  It can provide purification and regeneration on all levels of consciousness.  I believe that if you are attracted to a certain stone, it has specific healing properties, which are attuned to you.

Other than having your jewelry ripped apart and re-designed with your stones, I often tell my clients to practice this exercise I learned from the Psychic.  Place your stones or jewelry in a bowl of sea salt directly in the sunlight for one week.  Create conscious visions every time you see that bowl and imagine the pieces draining the bad energy and re-charging anew with the pure light of the sun. 

Recharge, regenerate and recreate. What else is there?  

Biting the Bullet

                       Bite the Bullet. 

          I’d take a bullet for you. 

The saying started during the Civil War, when injured soldiers were given a lead bullet to bite upon during surgery without the benefit of anesthesia.

Ouch.

Lately, things are tough all over and all my friends are wondering when it will end. Things are different now. The struggle continues with little sign of letting up, but my personal viewpoint is that “things can always be worse”. I mean, look around, there’s always someone who is struggling more and suffering harder.

Where are you on the scale of 1 to 10?

I discovered “bullet stones” in the 90’s and have always been drawn to them. The bullet-shaped stone mimics the shape of a gun bullet. I‘ve always loved guns. I love the machinery of them, the mechanics, the design. I especially love vintage revolvers. 

I don’t tell many people this because everyone I know is a pacifist. I like guns for guns, it’s the people who use them that I distrust.

I designed my first bullet charms years ago. I like the ironic contrast of the dark with the light, the need for the good with the bad. This is what they represent for me.  And in honor of today's Fall Equinox, where there is an equal amount of light and dark, all the balance is elusive.   Everyone bites the bullet occasionally. 

 Just shoot from the heart, it’s bound to work out.

What is a Black Heart?

Does Joan Jett have one?  Or is Blackheart the fictional demon in the Marvel Comics Universe,  the character  created by Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr.,

To me it is the image of rebirth that ties to the Greek mythology of Persephone: As the Goddess of Springtime and Rebirth, she is eternally connected to the cycles of the earth, which lies barren in her absence and bloom again each spring with her return. And her initiatory experience in the realm of the dead is such a powerful experience that it changes her life forever. It is after this transformation that we remember her most for her role as the Greek Goddess of the Underworld.

Out of the tunnel of darkness comes light.  Note the sparkle on this black drusy quartz necklace.  This gold charm is created to represent the light at the end of darkness, the glimmer and hint of a better future as spring begins her awakening. 

Sparkle, glimmer and begin anew!  Ahhhh, spring is in the air.