Kuriosities

Dear Lou (letter #5)

Lou,
I don’t know if I trust
you anymore. The way those blackbirds
fell upon the trees thick enough
to block the sun, all I could see
were wings, the whir
of feathers, their shrill echo
a language undecipherable
to my ears.

And that one, Lou, you know
the one. The snow
of it’s belly, a star shining amongst
the frantic dark. Was he an angel, Lou? Did
you send him there with warnings, the whisper
of his wings beating in my ears,
urging my heart to uneven ground? Was
he there to sing the sun back
into the sky?

Or was he too lost, Lou? Unable to wing
his way back home?

It is always like this though, isn’t it?
You, sitting silent, the deliberate quilt upon your lap,
unfolding square, by patchwork square.
Me, in the hayfield turning stones, searching
for needles to stitch myself into my own
story, never knowing it already began
without me.

It is a grey and damp thanksgiving Monday on this blustery island. We awoke to sopping wet ponies and that chill that sinks into your bones, letting us know that winter is on its way. Not quite yet perhaps, but it is making plans to visit soon. The house is quiet now, with everyone recovering from yesterday’s festivities of overindulgence in food and drink. We had friends come and stay the night, which was fun, and a bit of an adventure. It has been great to have old friends move to this island, people who I can just feel comfortable with and enjoy.

After dinner, my friend C and I decided to take a walk in the twilight hayfield to help the feast settle. We decided to take Miss Molly Ma Gog, and C’s dog (who is actually also Miss Molly’s brother) Bear along with us.

The dew was wet on the grass, and you could smell the woodsmoke from our fire in the crisp evening air. The moon was full, lighting the hayfield and stretching shadows from the hay bales. The two Labradors bounded ahead of us with reckless abandon. Reckless being the key word here. For on the other side of the first hay bale they bounded joyfully onto none other than a skunk.

!!!!!!!!!

The silly things didn’t have a chance. One second they were leaping through the grass in one direction, a fraction of the same second later they have spun 360 with their tails between their legs headed for home, intermittently throwing themselves face first into the wet grass in an attempt to scrub the stench from their woe-begotten faces.

C, bless her,  reacted as a well-mannered lady with “Oh my, oh my, that’s not good, is it?” I was still feeling the wine from dinner and cursed a blue streak that could have well lit the night’s sky.  F$%##%! Goddammit. (Which people never suspect I am able to do for some reason.)

One skunked Lab is enough to deal with, but two is quite the ordeal. So the stinky duo were incarcerated, much to their woeful dismay, with gallons of skunk-off seeping into their miserable hides in the bathroom – where they proceeded to bark and howl their misery for all who would listen for the entire night.

Ah well, as C told me, it will be a thanksgiving memory for us to remember and laugh about next year. And despite my stenchy Molly ma Gog, I am already giggling a bit about it. Poor puppies. Poor skunky C and I after trying to de-stench the puppies too.

Today I am immersed in myths and stories of goddesses. The weather and time of year got me to thinking of Persephone and pomegranates, so I hammered out a simple little pomegranate pendant today in honour of Fall and changes. Sterling silver, raw silk, and 4 garnet seeds…

pomegranate

three seeds
or was it four? caught
between my teeth, each one
a valentine bursting, your dark juices
staining my lips.

the taste of you lingers
on my tongue…

Not too much new so far this week with the cymbal – my client and I are still working out design details. Several people have asked for updates, so although nothing groundbreaking or even beautiful has been accomplished, I’ll show you where things are at. I have the basic shape cut out of the cymbal now. A strange thing that was to take a saw to an instrument – it felt like destroying a work of art – wrought with discomfort and something akin to guilt. Which is silly – the thing was broken and no longer usable – and I am recycling it which is a good thing… I still felt like a vandal.

It was actually not too bad to do the original cut once I started – although the cymbal is huge and clunky to work with from what I am used to. I buy my sterling in small sheets that are 6″ wide, and easy to balance on the bench and handle. A whopping 18″ of heavy gauge bronze is another animal altogether, and unwieldy to say the very least. I somehow managed to wedge it between my knees and the drawer of my workbench so that it would be stable enough to saw with my little handsaw. I’d be lying if I said the studio was curse free that afternoon, and I did snap a sawblade (maybe 2 while trying to balance everything) but in the end a simple little circle was cut.

The above pic is of the cymbal with all of the tools that were required in order to get the piece to the next two photos. (left to right: gauge measure, compass, centre punch and scribe, hand saw, #2 swiss file, grinding stone for the flex shaft, different grits of sandpaper on rollies for the flex shaft)

I filed the edges down to size an then put the grinding stone on my flex shaft. My client wants the piece to have a smooth finish in the end, with a mirror polish so that it will reflect stage lights. That meant that the grooves that are on the cymbal currently needed to be removed, and the fastest way I have found is with a grinding stone. They came off quite easily, though an echo of them still remains that I will continue to sand down a bit more. The next step will be to chemically etch a very simple design on the front of the pendant, and stamp a quote into the back, and then finish with more sanding, polishing etc. as well as attaching a bail. It will be a very simple piece in design, but should be stunning in its simplicity. I’ll post more pics when it is farther along than just a circle.

The inspiration for this piece in particular is the necklace that Keith Moon wore in the Isle of Wight festival. The stage is where it will really come alive. You can see a video clip here. It is large enough that it can be seen while he is on stage, and as he moves it picks up the stage lights and reflects them back like crazy at the crowd. It makes for a really impressive effect.

I am also working on several new clockwork pieces today. I love clockwork piece days, they make me feel like a little girl sorting through a box of junky treasures trying to find the exact piece that will work. I like to make each one slightly different, so although there is a bit of a formula for the record player pendants, I purposely choose different embellishments and configurations of gears and metals. The backings I am working with today are sterling silver.

First step – the sorting. So much fun!

I cut, filed, drilled, sanded and did a quick polish on the sterling backing already, in preparation for the riveting of the watch pieces. These are the parts that I chose…and below is how I will put the parts together. I will post pics in the next day or so of the finished pieces – I am making two for different clients at the moment. The backing will be antiqued and lightly brushed in the end – not shiny at all, as it is now.

Aside from work, today is pretty cruddy. My iron levels have dropped again, and I am feeling pale and dull. When I look in the mirror, it seems to me that I have faded somewhat, like an old photograph left in the light too long. And my brain is a bit clouded with fatigue. So back on the iron pills that make me feel almost as cruddy as the anemia – but at least they will keep my body relatively healthy and eventually perk me back up again.

My cleaning lady today suggested that I eat liver – which is a normal enough suggestion for someone who is looking pasty, tired, and faint. But being a vegetarian for 17 years, not really an option (and no, my anemia is not a result of my diet, but another problem altogether). So I thanked her and told her that I can’t eat liver because I do not eat meat. To which she replied “Liver is not meat. It is an organ.” with an expression that could only be interpreted as “duh!” Which I thought was a strange and curious notion. Still, I’ll pass. The last time I ate meat by accident, is not something that I would willingly attempt again. I awoke in the middle of the night violently ill, as it has been so long, my body no longer knows what to do with the stuff. Ouch, and horribleness.

Yesterday was insane and horrid. Bean (the wee chihuhua girlie) was out playing fetch with Molly (the ginormous black lab)…Usually it goes like this. The stick is thrown, Molly chases the stick, Bean chases the Molly going “yipyipyipyipyipyip” the whole way and both girls come in tired and panting, and then have a nap. Yesterday Molly went to fetch the stick, but fetched it by ploughing through little Bean. She hit her so hard as she ran by that she knocked Bean right out. We thought she was dead, her toungue lolling out the side of her mouth, and all limpness in the grass on her side. When we picked her up her little heart went bump……long pause……bump……bumpbumpbump…… I cannot describe the horror of that moment. Little sweet Binoo in my arms and dying. Except that she wasn’t dying, I just thought she was, but she was in shock. I scooped her up and into the van on my lap and drove the 25 minute drive to the vets at 120km/h the whole way on highways that are meant to be driven at 80km/h. Probably not the smartest thing I have ever done. Partway through the ride she started to sit up and regain her consciousness and shake a bit. She would just keep looking up at me with such pained eyes…By the time we actually got to the vet’s office, she was much better, and mostly herself again – except all cringy and sad looking. Poor little Bean. She has a concussion and must be kept quiet – which is not easily done. She is a little terror most of the time. But she slept a lot today, and seems to be a lot better…poor wee puppy girl. She had a steroid injection to treat her shock, but not much else can be done but rest.

Lou,
You never told me about this,
never warned me that a heart could crack
wide open, as fragile as eggs,
as messy, as raw.
You never warned me, Lou,
that it could be my heart that
did the cracking.

The corn has grown tall now, Lou
it stretches for miles, ripples in waves
when the wind blows, a massive green tide.
I could lose myself there, walk straight in
and never be seen again.

How
could I know the danger of watching
those green waters deep
before me, how they could steal the air
from my lungs and leave
me gasping?

There’s no returning to a moment, Lou,
it’s there, and then it is gone, only
a piercing echo in the emptied chamber,
pins through atria, ventricles struggle,
ache

the slow drowning
of memory.

The cymbal arrived from Paiste/ Yamaha Canada. It is, in a word, gorgeous. I do not know too much about cymbals (though I am now much inspired to research and learn more), but I must say that this one is so lovely. The craftmanship, the work that goes into making such a thing. This one has a small crack – which is why its life as a musical instrument has ended, and its new life of being sawn to bits and pieces looms before it.

But before I get my saw out, I wanted to be inspired by this piece in its wholeness. So I played around with banging it quite a bit to hear its sound, and I spent a while exploring its texture with my fingers, and examining it with my eyes. And the weight and thickness of it was much greater than I expected, and a wonderful surprise… And then I took it for a walk.

???

Yes, I know. It sounds a bit crazy. Mostly I took it for a walk because the hay field is a lovely backdrop, and I wanted to photograph the cymbal  for the sake of posterity. I also took it out to see it in a different light. There is nothing like taking an object and putting it in a situation vastly unlike its usual context to jump start the imagination. You do not generally see cymbals out for walks in hayfields, so I figured it might start something…

Mostly it was fun. Molly ma Gog (the black lab) running joyously around whilst I balanced the cymbal on this or that, scaled rusty old farm machinery and scaled decrepit falling down farm buildings. Not only did I start to look at the cymbal differently, but also at the hayfield differently – noticing colours, textures, and settings that I ordinarily overlook as just part of the field.

I returned from the walk, clunkily heavy cymbal in hand, full of energy, joy, and the swelling of ideas.

Here are some of the photos. I will post the whole series later in my gallery.

The nice fellow from Paiste/Yamaha Canada also packed a few Paiste t-shirts in the box for me, on which I think I can make out the visage of Miss. Meg White – one of my favourite musicians, which I thought was very nice of him. I think they will end up as jammies though, as they are an XL and a M (and I am an XS, lol). But pretty cool all around. I have been very impressed with how supportive they have been of this little project…I never would have imagined, and am thankful. It has made the whole thing even more fun.

What a funny few days…I have just been in a great mood, and full of mischief and a tricksy type of humour. That feeling of life being fun. It’s fall, so maybe that is it. Or maybe the few things/people that I have been following online that have made me giggle. Moustaches have been an especial cause of the giggles.

I feel all itchy toes and dreams of adventures. Not that I have anything particular in mind at the moment, but I am going about getting my passport. Somehow the idea that I cannot leave the country if I wanted to now irks me, That if I wanted to fly to Paris, like my ever recurring airplane dream, I could not. Not that I would, or could, on a whim, fly to Paris – but the idea that if something incredible presented itself that I would not be able to… It irks me. So the passport ordeal. What a pain in the butt it is to get a passport. I have to find somebody who has known me for at least 2 years and has had their own passport for 5 years to vouch for the fact that I am actually me. Sounds like it might be easy, except for the fact that I don’t think I know anybody who has a passport. So now I have to go through the (not very extensive actually) list of people on this tiny island who I have actually met and would say that they have known me for at least 2 years, and see if any of them do in fact have a passport. frustrating. But worthwhile in the end.

Just when I worry that I will have no more nifty things to work on, another few tumble into my lap and suddenly I have a very busy few weeks ahead of me. Which is good. I thrive on this constant pace, the birth of new ideas, the buzz of seeing them come to fruition…and then back to the beginning. And oh, the beginning is the best. That sense you have of a new thing stirring just below the surface of consciousness, like a seed, an unseen quiver before the sprout emerges green and reaching towards the sun.

Last night I took Miss Molly ma Gog (my ever loyal Lab) for a walk way out back through the meadow and the hayfield. I will have to get some pics of the hayfield and post them. It is absolutely stunning with the vivid green of the mown grass with the stark barrels of the haybales scattered randomly over the rolling hill. And then how the field suddenly hits the corn rows, a solid impenetrable wall of corn at least 8-9 feet tall.

I was super brave last night – the sun was setting and casting ruddy pink twilight shadows everywhere – and I just slipped into the corn. Stepped several rows in and walked down them like a great living corridor. But then the breeze would blow, just a little, just enough to rustle the corn stalk leaves. And then I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as I remembered horror movies of my youth and quickly departed back to the (relative) safety of the mown hayfield. And then had a snicker at myself. I was gone maybe only 45 minutes – but what a walk! I picked a large woody weed and brandished it like a sword in front of me, to and fro, whacking spiderwebs out of my path, and feeling like a child…I ran, and laughed, and stood still as well – just breathing in the field, the scent of crushed grass and ripening apples…

A parting moustachioed pic that made me laugh today….

First things first, forgive the cheesy title…I am overexcited.

Sometimes birthday wishes come true with an alarming swiftness. The wish I wished on the stars and the moon on mine was that I remain healthy and strong (so far, so good, knock on wood and all that jazz) but also that I get to do new and exciting things with my work. And that is where I am at right now, looking forward to the arrival of my mail with childlike anticipation. Waiting, waiting, for the cymbal to arrive. Cymbal?? Yes, a cymbal. Let’s go back to the beginning of the story.

I have a client who contacted me to make him a custom pendant, who happens to be a drummer in a band from Chicago. He requested that the pendant be made out of bronze. Easy enough at first glance, I have sheets of bronze ready to work, BUT then he requested a very specific alloy of bronze.  

So the research began, and apparently this alloy cannot be purchased anywhere on the planet but, of course, from Paiste – a leading manufacturer of cymbals. What to do, what to do? So I checked out their website (which is an incredible read to both metalsmiths and musicians alike), and then got up the gumption to send them off an email asking if I might purchase a small piece of sheet or if they might be willing to sell me a damaged cymbal to make into a pendant for a drummer client of mine who had requested that it be made out of their specific alloy. A week went by without an answer, although I did notice that someone from Paiste USA checked out my gallery during that time. Thinking it hopeless,  I started to look into purchasing a cymbal (ouch! those are expensive!), and then looking into where I could get a broken one.

But on Friday, I came home to an email in my in-box from Yamaha Canada! It was from a fellow from their drum marketing department. Apparently they were contacted by Paiste to send me a cymbal to be made into art. To say that I was excited is a vast understatement. (I was fairly buzzing with joy and inspiration, and actually danced all over my living room.) And have spent every moment since dreaming of what I will do with the rest of the cymbal – all the pieces that I will make – and dreaming of a possible series that will all be connected with a common theme. So many ideas.

But I want to see the cymbal first, to hold it in my hands, feel the texture of the metal, see its sheen, be inspired by its shape and sound, by the craftmanship in its creation- all of these things first – before I settle on any idea. The nifty thing also is that Paiste/Yamaha Canada is interested in seeing how this all turns out too – so I will be photographing and documenting the results to send to them.

I will be also be documenting this new project here, so check back often for updates…and if you are a drummer, and would be interested in having a custom piece made in this very nifty and unique project, EMAIL ME! I am eager for this to include many drummers, of different traditions, and varying skill levels, all tied together by this common cymbal (symbol).