my fingers are all ablister, new jewelry photos, Brendan Benson and a baby crow!
My poor fingers are all ablister with my guitar playing attempts. Literally. Underneath my callouses that were developing so nicely there are little pockets of fluid. Ouch. Now that they can manage some bars of a song, now that they can play SOMETHING, it is becoming a passion. To have the music coming from me, to participate in the music instead of it only playing through my ear, sounding in my head… it is a bliss, and that far away place that music takes you, that addiction that hums in the blood. It is a frustration as well. I want it mastered. I want to write the songs, I want to create more than plunky sounds. Such a long process! Yet meditative, pleasing all the same.
Although I do have one complaint. Things were going quite strummingly in my song that I am playing (Good to Me, by Brendan Benson). It was all going lovely – my teacher showed me tricks on how to change the chords quickly (which worked so well, and just !! happy!) but then… then… BAR chords. What the hell! Now my fingers have returned to being moronic and slow, stumbling and awkward…. and things are not going strummingly at all. They are going very stumbling and stupid. grrr… perseverance. I will play this song. I will learn this confounded instrument. I will.
Some pictures of recent items made this week! I photographed them on an antique cog from some old farm machinery that we found in the back field. I love that thing with all of its contrasting textures and rich colours.
This pendant was made for a client from a drawing that she gave me of her wedding invitation. The two large birds represent her and her husband. The small bird is their baby. The tiny little bird is their hoped for future baby. It is a gift for her husband, so we went with a simple metalsmithed design in brushed oxidised sterling, so it would be masculine, and strung it on a simple greek leather cord with a sterling clasp. It is hard to see from the photos, but the underlayer is oxidised a deep grayish black so that the birds really stand out. I love playing with rivets. 
It measured about 2 cm wide x 2.5 high.
The following is one of my “Love you to the Moon and back cuffs”, with custom stamping on the inside of the client’s children’s names. I love how the moonstone at the clasp looks in this photo.
This was another piece for the same client. It is a special piece for the new mother of very premature twins. In each tiny dome is the initial of one of the twins. The freshwater pearls are their birthstones. They are also representative of innocence and all things new – so fitting to represent these fragile new lives. I love this necklace – delicate and elegant, and full of meaning.
And my guitar poem seems fitting at this point – as all things guitar are on the brain!
Guitar
by K.
please forgive me.
these clumsy attempts at love
are not at all what i wanted
going in.
these naive fingers-
awkward as adolescents
rushing, furtive, fumbling
too slow, too fast
all wrong
do you know how
much i want to make you
cry out? how i need
you to bend to me?
in dreams i close my eyes
and cradle you, my fingers
skim your contours, read
you like braille – sound the one
note where you buried
your heart.
copyright 2007 Kuriosities.com, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted without permission
Also, this… I must thank Mr. Benson from the very bottom of my heart. And no, before you get all excited, I do not know him personally or have any affiliation with the man or any such silly notions – it is just this… take a little peek at what is gracing his neck at Bonnaroo…
Yes! it is my Dodo stamp pendant…and this notion makes me absolutely giddy and full of joy…one, because Brendan is wearing my pendant (oh! hurray!) and I admire his work so very much, two, because it means he must like it (hurray!) which means that I was able to give something back to someone who has provided me with hours of music in this little studio (that makes my heart so very happy, I love to give gifts), and three, because thousands of people saw it (oh my!).
So much to write!! But actually I have to work now…food on the table and all that jazz…(unless there is a benefactor waiting in the wings, who expects nothing in return but poems, pendants, letters and journals…I am accepting applications….anyone? please? ).
But I will leave you with this small strangeness – we now have a baby crow, found in the middle of the road, baking onthe pavement. Rescued and now ensconced in our home. Half hourly feedings where I get to be Mama Crow shoving food down it’s little throat. Poor little soul, but found his way to the most adoring lover of crows. He is well and spry this morning!