Inspiration Is Everywhere

"Sometimes you get shown the light/in the strangest of places if you look at it right."
-Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia

Inspiration is everywhere!

Yes, as a jeweler it can come from checking out other jewelers art, but for an artist with an eye for the abstract, the microbiological and the organic miracles of life on planet earth i also often find paintings to be inspirational, giving me a sense or a feeling or triggering a memory associated with color or texture.

Periodic synesthesia and, as Rimbaud would put it " . . . a long derangement of the senses," can help the poet become a visionary for sure, but "sometimes you get shown the light/in the strangest of places if you look at it right."

Such as reading the Sunday paper.
In particular, the New York Times Book Review.

There has always been a love in me for the sweeping and feminine forms of classic cars, and those fins and often creative tail light placements capture my attention.

It's something that is missing from todays car designs. An it's something that I miss.

I have no idea what the inspiration was for car designers in the last 25 years, but it definately wasn't aerodynamics, the female form or even the contributions of the ever-phallic rocket ships.

Oh well . . . we still have classic cars and we still have the history of them captured on film.





This inspiration is still in it's initial experimental and embryonic design stage, but i have a feeling it will fruit something beautiful and modern with roots in the classic.

Corbitals

Wheels within wheels of Sterling Silver hoops and a red Coral sphere bisected with an ear wire axis of Sterling Silver. Simple yet as dynamic as any two planets trajectories.

LIKE PLANETS

Like planets,
we orbit a common source

sometimes
we range far out,
on our lonesome

at other times we come so close
. . . passing in the night
with the knowing glint of starshine

this silver flashing lining
so momentary in the velvety bed of night
a warm and welcome touchstone
of unity.

main hoops measure approximately 1"

Midnight Inspiration

The inspiration for these Sterling Silver and Coral earrings came to me at midnight. Not a typical tale for me, for you see, i am a night sleeper, a dreamer. But, alas, this particular night found me awake and restless. The heat of the day had subsided with a miraculous rainshower earlier, and so . . . out to the studio i go.

To get there i must step out onto the back deck, my feet feeling the rain wet wood. I step down into the garden, following the straw lined path now very cool and wet, nearly squishy to my bare feet. In the day i have to be mindful not to step upon any creature for the rolly-pollys and ants are busy moving from the garden across the concrete patio between the studio and the garden.

I do not put music on, but opt to listen to the music made by the wind in the trees. A cool night breeze this is which blows through making my tall carrot flowers sway sleepily. And as i sit to meditate for a moment and take in this nights present moment, i am filled with inspiration and begin to look through my materials and my silver to manifest this complex sense of the night . . .

. . . and these earrings "inspircoral" are born . . .

. . . there is something in them of the sacred circle, the path of planets, a cool night breeze and my neighbors backyard wind chimes...the striving of the life force in the sea...the transformation of extreme forces, met with grace and peace, a creation somewhere between allowing and dreaming...

The silver swerve and circle are free to rotate around the axis of the ear wire. The coral bead is free to spin.

Upcycled Innovations

Human kind are story tellers. From connecting the stars in the night sky to create images of our mythic understanding of the seasons and our own cyclic nature to the stories we tell through television and new media we express ourselves and our dreams, our fears and our hopes. The pendant pictured above is Sterling Silver and upcycled television circuit board material. Once finished and about to be given a name, i suddenly noticed that it has circuit solder points which reminded me of the constellation Orion. "Orionic" is the first in a series of upcycled creations using circuit boards. When i saw the broken television someone had dumped in a parking lot, i was immediately struck by the turquoise like hue of the circuit board. I didn't even think twice about harvesting one mans trash. The neo-primitive urban hunter gatherer in me took what i could use and cleaned up the rest of the mess. I remembered my fathers code of "Leave it cleaner than you found it." This bit of culture would come out when we arrived at the place we would camp after hiking through the Olympic Mountains and we would scour the immediate area for pop lids or any trash. These days i impart this "leave no trace" on to my children as well as emphasizing a lifestyle of recycling, precycling (making consumer choices which reduce the need to recycle, such as buying produce from a local farm instead of in a plastic bag or a can or jar), and upcycling (taking a piece of trash or found object and using it as a raw material in the creation of something of greater value). I am glad i have found this piece of circuit board, it feels like the perfect upcycling material to integrate into my work.

Recently i made some lovely little Jade earrings. Getting back out into my studio after a hiatus was so much fun. This particular Jade was a lighter color than most of my material, and although not that milky sea green color, it is a beautiful shade of green.

My friend Kate said that they remind her of old styled "hippie glasses" which made me wonder about the subliminal influences. Has the muse gone all misty eyed and nostalgic on me . . . perhaps. Whatever the influence, they came out well and quickly found a new home with someone who loves them dearly. Another happy story.

There are many shades of Jades out there, and i have my favorites. But the fun is in the variety. I have some lovely rare "chrome" Jade which i prefer to call "juicy" Jade.

I also have a lovely darker and mysteriously marbled jade which my father sent me from Washington State. It was unearthed in a construction project near the place i come from and i am excited to use it in some upcoming pieces.