Kuriosities

I have finally added a new image gallery/ portfolio to the site. There are a bunch of metalsmithed pendants uploaded already today, but I have soooooo many more pieces to add to the galleries, but very limited time at the moment. I will be adding new photos to it daily, so check back often. Most of the photos will also have descriptions that will give you a little bit of insight into their inspiration, the techniques used, and the meaning and symbolism behind each piece. I will also be getting the new collection together as a cohesive group very soon, with a new webstore. In the meantime, just email me if you see something you like in the galleries – or better yet, contact me about making a custom piece just for you. I am working on many, many custom pieces at the moment – some of them quite exciting. I am always amazed at what people come up with, and it is a joy to be able to transform those ideas into the tangible. I can’t wait to share them with you!

I was working on a new necklace today with antique keys and such, and was quite pleased with it. But I wanted a photo of it actually on a person so that it would show the way that the necklace fell. Me being the only female type person in the vicinity I elected myself as model with the caveat that no faces should appear in the photo, just my neck and bosom. My elected photographer, G, had just returned from a day of errands in town and was a little less enthused with the photography project handed to him upon his return. I was less enthused with the sun beating down on my head and didn’t think that my face was showing anyways – so the end result was a very grumpy and impatient looking bunch of pictures that were not as artfully wrought as they could have been had either of us not been moody as hell. They also do not show the necklace off at all either. We’ll try again another time. In the meantime, you can enjoy my scowls…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dream again. The plane as it lands slowly, the overpass climbs outside the window as it descends, the skid and the bump, the roar of the engine. A twilight street, stones underfoot, and someone familiar, yet also unknown, blurry around the edges. The ocean this time has turned blue. Was it always blue? Was I remembering wrong? Did green somehow distract me? A blanket, and a nest to rest my weariness in, to keep me safe and warm. And a longing for that (what? I don’t know, is the thing…) that could break my heart upon wakening – just – that feeling the same as the others, that there is something in this to know. If put to music this dream would be of Angels and Angles, that is the feeling of it – that space between time, “the purr of a pigeon to break the still of day” , “here’s a hand to lay in your open palm” as on we go drowning…But still, just a dream, that lingers long into the day and then fades out. One day I will stop its dreaming, or one day I will know where it begins. I hope the latter.

Yet another clockworks piece… This one entitled “Lost Time is Never Found Again” , a quote from Benjamin Franklin. I stamped the quote into the back of the pendant. It is all riveted together with sterling. I think my next pendant I may rivet with copper. I like sorting through all of the gears to find ones that may be pieced together, the contrast of metals, and working with areas of different elevation. I have tried to take photos that show these depths. Ta-da!

  

I have altered the pendant slightly from the next photo, I managed to carefully overstamp the letters where the rivets are, so now all parts of the letters are present in the engraving on the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am waiting for only one more shipment of supplies to arrive to finish my necklace with the little Robin. Hopefully within the next couple of days. I am selling more and more gold pieces – which has been lovely. I love working with yellow gold, the way it feels under file, and the sheen when I polish it is just unrivaled. I hope to do more and more…Also was contacted by another large organisation to design custom pieces for them, which is lovely. They will also be carrying my retail lines in their different branches and storefronts – which is exciting. What also excites me is that I have never sought any of these clients out to date, they just keep finding their way to me…

Guitar playing is going along slowly but surely…though I am practicing like a fiend. I am determined to present myself this week at guitar lessons much improved over last week. I noticed a marked improvement today in my finger picking, which I have been practicing. The scales are helping my fingers to know more intuitively where to go. I played “Of Angels and Angles” today for th first time in a while, and because of the scale practice and the finger picking in House of the Rising Sun, I played it better than I ever could have dreamed of after such a long time without. It was like I had been practicing that particular song, when really it was just that my fingers are FINALLY becoming more educated and less ignorant and clumsy on the frets.

My fingers hurt though. Really hurt. I know I sound like a sissy, and maybe I am a little (then again not so much, I have a 6 inch diameter deep purple bruise on my thigh from my giant beastie of a horse wrestling with me while I was trimming her hooves, and I didn’t complain about that at all, and I didn’t complain when she slammed me accidentally into the fence either so…in fact, I went back and wrestled her again until she behaved herself, so there!.) So I have taken photos of my poor fingers to show you that there is in fact something somewhat worthy to complain about. They are, in a word, yucky. All blistery and calloused and seemingly perma-dented. I am hoping this will go away and I will not be left with horrible fingertips forever (please tell me I will have nice fingers again, even if you have to lie).

 

 Of Angels and Angles  by the Decemberists

There are angels in your angles
There’s a low moon caught in your tangles
There’s a ticking at the sill
There’s a purr of a pigeon to break the still of day

As on we go drowning
Down we go away
And darling, we go a-drowning
Down we go away
Away

There’s a tough word on your crossword
There’s a bed bug nipping a finger
There’s a swallow, there’s a calm
Here’s a hand to lay on your open palm today

As on we go drowning
Down we go away
And darling, we go a-drowning
Down we go away
Away

There are angels in your angles
There’s a low moon caught in your tangles 

I feel like the title of this entry. Full of just…bluck. That residue that lays thick like sludge on your skin after interacting with a not nice person. The kind who smiles a too bright smile, who makes their voice all insincerely sweet, all the way making sure that even though they seem to be being pleasant, that you leave feeling like poo. My daughter B was with me for this particular meeting, and picked up on it right away, and so keenly. And if an 11 year old child can pick up on the fact that your social interaction was anything but kind, then why bother with the pretense of niceties? Why bother at all? Anyways, I wish this person well, and told them so. Sincerely wished them success and congratulated them on their accomplishments, not because I had to – but because I meant it. The work they had done was impressive. But that being said, I’ll not be going back for more “pleasantries”. And although they were interesting to work with in the past, that is where that will be staying. Adieu, sans regrets. But it did remind me of why I love art – there was so much that was beautiful and inspiring there – but not the art scene. I’m not made for games of one- upmanship, they rub my heart the wrong way, and leave it bruised. I go in open and full of hopeful possibility, and leave feeling closed up tight. Just blargh.

New song this week at guitar lessons, House of the Rising Sun,  and a nifty pentatonic scale to practice. And practice this week I shall, as life got in the way this past week and I did not practice the much needed time and have become clunky and awkward. My teacher showed me all sorts of nifty stuff that can be wrung out of that one scale so I am inspired to learn it, and give it the time it deserves. Listening to someone play though…it just transports me. Sometimes during my lesson I want to close my eyes and just listen – really listen- but then I would miss all those tricks and watching fingers, and how they move, and how to make those sounds myself. And that is what I really want – to make the sounds, to be a part of those sounds. I want that very badly, so instead I stay very focused. There is a blues fest in Ch’town this weekend which I will be looking up and see what I can see. And that will be when I can close my eyes and just listen, not my lessons!

A silly little song for an eleventh day, which means very little if anything at all, but I am reading Alice (again, outloud to my little one) and very much in the mood for riddles and nonsense rhymes- and maybe this will actually become an odd little song. I will go fetch my guitar now and see if it can wash this blucky feeling from my soul, return me to where I was before I walked through the door, return a little song to my heart so that maybe I will sleep, and dream of oceans, green and deep (and pure), and me in their midst, afloat and intensely content.

A Waiting Song

Eleven boats will sail before
grounding on this shore, eleven
days I hold my breath until my
heart rubbed sore, will see you back again.
Will see you back again.

The eleventh day will find me
gazing at the sea, the waters blue
then green, then black by turns, reveal
a truth to me, and I will wait till then.
I will wait till then.

Hmmm….also another clockworks record player pendant sold, and before they are even on sale yet! Hopefully this bodes well of things to come…

Some pics… rustic talisman bracelet:

I was shown these this week, and thought them beautiful. When erotic images left something to the imagination, and held something left of the romantic…also, the girl in the picture’s feet are smudgy with dirt, which is somehow so human and tender to me, and infinitely endearing.

 

 

PS: If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog, don’t bother. Most of it is incredibly dull (although the stanza from JW’s poem is lovely), but I am leaving it there as a marker, that some days are dull, some days I completely lack in anything interesting to talk about, or I am prone to talk about interesting things in very uninteresting ways. More likely the latter. I am imperfect. (which is good – my feet are also smudgy at the moment, which means that they have tread places today and felt the earth beneath their soles - all good)

PPS: Tomorrow I will also FINALLY write about my visit to Toronto, and the adventures found there, and the lovely people met, some infinitely more so than others (lovely, that is). But tonight I am too tired, and soured from that earlier encounter, and the evening of tomorrow seems a better time somehow. A new evening not yet traveled and waiting for a tale…

Not too much to write tonight. Life is exceedingly busy. Lots of orders and chaos with some supplies mix ups, where I was sent something that was inferior to what I had ordered, but already had about 25 customers waiting for. I somehow magically (read with some diligent sleuthing) found a new better supplier within an hour of the supply crisis, ordered new pieces and had them shipped speedily and averted  a disaster. Hurray! The previous supplier apologised, and will take back the crummy pieces too. Stressful yes, but fixed in no time flat. And now I have another supplier to add to the list -AND even better they will do small run custom castings for me (as well as large runs) so I am set for some future projects that I have.

Also, the van died. It didn’t die a nice slow death where I could go out and buy a new one. It just died, suddenly and altogether. The transmission has cracked open. <sigh> I do not like cars much, and I like car shopping less. And worse is that we now have no car to shop for our new car in. Luckily  friends have come to our rescue with the offer of their van for the day. So hopefully, we will have a new van tomorrow – but a lot of pressure for one day’s shopping. I am not looking forward to it at all.

Some photos to post and then I am off to beds…

 

It’s all about the skirts and the boots…oh, and the sexy dodge ram pick-up! (nothing is hotter than a 20 year old farm truck. seriously. nothing.) I love this picture.

 

Laughing on the truck…

 

 

I think I am getting better at jewelry photography…I am liking how these are turning out lately – and the fresh flowers from the garden are so lovely. Just a simple silver ring with a tiny little rustic heart.

 

 

Home is where the heart is… (or alternately ”just looking for a home” ) copper bird’s nest pendant with blue lace agate eggs and a sterling silver heart bead.

 

 

 

 

Some pic’s as promised of my little bird. I thought that I had taken pics of my wax in progress, but cannot find them at all now. I spent a long time carving all his little feathers. Oh well. I do have a wax from casting – maybe I’ll take pics tomorrow.

Here is a Robin fresh from being cast. They alway come back white, but this will polish to silver easily. They also come with a big annoying chunky thing called a sprue, which is how the molten silver flows into the mold to make the piece. I have to first saw off the largest part of this, and then file the piece until it is the right shape again, and then sand it. In this photo one bird still has its sprue, the other does not.

 

 

After I de-sprued the birdie, I tossed him into my centrifugal magnetic tumbler to rid him of the white and polish him up a bit. I didn’t leave it in there for very long, because I don’t want it to have a high polish, I want a more antiqued look… This is also why I did not hand polish it with tripoli as I usually do with my small run pieces.

 

I wanted to add a patina to bring up the details, so into the Liver of Sulphur it went, resulting in this bluish black finish…

 

After the bird was oxidised, I brushed it with a steel brush  to give it a satin finish. It removed the oxidation from the high spots, but left the crevices with the patina. The light was not with me at the time of day I photographed the next two, but you get the idea…

 

 

And now it is ready for the finished pieces that it will be a part of! It is fairly tiny, though hard to tell in the photos. It measures 17 mm head to tail.

 

All jewelry designs on this blog are copyright Kuriosities.com 2008. My jewelry and my writings are  how I make my living, and put food on the table. No stealing of ideas, svp.! I hate to hire lawyers, but I will.

Here are a few more record players that I have made! These things are addictive in their one of a kindness, and little gears. I love the gears, and the tiny little rubies. The first record player from my previous entry is sold, lickity-split just like that! , and one of these is likely as well, though I am not sure which one has been chosen yet as the details are still being firmed up. I am going to make a few more for my grand opening of the Kuriosities line, maybe with some custom stamping, maybe some with more intricate gearworks. In the meantime here you go!

Record player pendant #2  – I found this lovely engraved little gear for a turntable and used a contrasting gear for the centre The engraving gives a kind of steampunky country vibe to it, I think anyways. Should maybe put a nice swirly R in that corner. hmmmm Or leave it as is? I like how this photo turned out. 

 

 

Record Player pendant #3: A Jack White record player pendant with the mythical number three stamped in one corner. Minimalist, stripped down and simple.

 

 

 

My little birdie came back from castings today. Oh, she is sweet! She has a whole series of pieces devoted to her lovely self, or is it his lovely self? I’ll have to look that up in the story…Which story is it from? – it’s a secret, today anyways, I may tell you tomorrow when I post pictures of it being carved, the wax, the unfinished castings, the in process casting and the finished charm. The final pieces will stay under wraps though until the launch…

I am so excited about the Kuriosities line – a total departure from my current work, but very much me. I am hoping it will be like a visit to an enchanted junk shop, full of oddities and whimsicalities that spark the imagination and lead you to believe that magic may still exist. I hope it will be the perfect mix of child-like innocence with just a little hint of the sinister to keep you on your toes…

This was the view out of our kitchen the other day…does having a beat up old junker Dodge Ram and a pet pig in your drive mean you are a red neck? Yikes. I hope not, but it was the perfect redneck scene that’s for sure. A big fat pig napping in the shade of a pick-up. But just so you do know – the pick-up is just for picking up round bales for the horses (not for gadding about town in), and the piggie is a fancypants vietnamese pot belly pig, and a fully housebroken trained pet, not the kind that you eat. He comes when you call him, goes to bed when you tell him to, and will sit on command. And his name is Mr. Portobello. Do these details make it any better?? Secretly I love to sit behind the wheel of that pick-up, though it is monstrously too big for my petite statured self. I have to shove things behind my back to be able to reach the pedals!

 

 

I have developed a passion for sundresses, now that the warmth is upon us. I wore my vintage inspired purple flowered one yesterday, with the swirly skirt. I felt the most childish joy in it, twirling so that the skirt flew wide and pretty around me when no one was watching. I even wore it to the barn with my rubber boots on, which made me even more exceedingly happy. I felt a proper country cowgirl miss with my swirly skirts and my muck-a-luck boots, tossing hay and rounding up restless ponies (well horses too, my biggest girl is a full 16h1h! huge!). I love moments like that, when I first looked down at the contrast of purpley skirts and black rubber boots, and my eyes grow wide and a smile spreads across my face. I did those chores with a bounce to my step!

Two old but recently found poems:

#1: 

i left you at the doorstep
with a touch of fingers,
you staring at ribbons on the sidewalk
gifts you had given to someone else,
i would have worn them in the purple
medecine pouch next to my heart. 

#2: 

Gently, the pushing
of your hands upon my back
and your breath alive in
my hair. 

the background of
drums beating Indian rhythms
into this embrace,into this
silence.

Let me go , I beg of you. 

 

PS. Who ARE you faithful readers, who read, and read, but never write? I am dying of the mystery of it! But maybe that is more inspiring? Maybe I will just imagine who you are…make up imaginary occupations, imaginary lives for all of you! This Gentleman wears a top hat and sports a dandy cane, this Miss also adores swirly skirts and has a parrot named Esmeralda, and perhaps you are a street busker taking tea in a cafe in London…OR you could leave a comment every blue moon <hint, hint> 

 

 

 

Sorting through all of my little watch gears and parts last night, I suddenly saw this piece in my mind’s eye – a little steampunked record player pendant. I love it! If you move the large gear in the centre, the two little gears to the side move. The little hand on the needle arm moves to on a little gage that shifts from F to S. I hammered in two tiny little gears for volume and speed dials. Every thing was riveted together with sterling silver rivets, onto a copper base. These gears have so thoroughly captured my imagination, and that no two pieces will be the same…

This particular record player may be spoken for (details are not firmed up yet at the moment), but if you want one of your very own I can make another similarily inspired , just email me- but the pieces will be unique antique watch parts from different broken watches, so no two will be exactly alike – which is their charm , I think. It certainly is for making them!

 

 

 

 

I’ve been listening to the Decemberists quite a bit, as of late, and am so inspired by their music – but mostly by the writing of Colin Meloy. What a brilliant lyricist, and storyteller. He has the ability to transport the imagination to a completely other realm. I can get lost in his songs…and his use of language, his poet’s heart. I watched some videos on youtube of him performing solo - which was really incredible – and informative. Last guitar lesson we were talking about hand positioning for different styles, using the thumb for muting the low strings and to enable different hand positions – and it was neat to see Colin Meloy doing exactly this. I also found it incredible his ability to command a performance – that he can stand alone on a stage with his guitar and you are so absorbed in his performance that you don’t even miss the presence of other performers – bassists, percussionists, keyboardists, all a vague and distant memory. His performance just shines that bright. There was a video in particular where he performed in a record store alone, The Island,  accoustically – which he said he had never really done before – and it was so impressive.

There is one warning that should be attached to the front of Decemberists albums though…At the outset, they may seem a bit mellow in their storytelling folkiness – but do NOT listen to them before setting your head on the pillow for the night. Eegads. The Shankhill Butchers (one of my favourite songs by them…that line alone “if you don’t mind your mother’s words, a wicked wind will blow your ribbons from your curls” Ah! so lovely, and the melody…) is in particular not before bedtime fodder. Yikes. The dreams that followed, the horrid scene of  evisceration will haunt me forever. Stuff it back to nightmare land, and quick! Not for the faint of heart or the over imaginative (ie. not for me).

I have a few pieces at casting right now that I am waiting for on pins and needles. My sweet little sparrow that I wrote about weeks (months?) ago. I have plans for that little sterling sparrow, her little magical hearted self shall be planted in several designs, I cannot wait for her return! And also the tiniest little sterling band, with the tiniest rustic little battered heart.

Several metalsmith ideas in the works…continuing with the keyhole pendants, and a new crow. Have started a copper heart pendant “she dreams of green”, with a dragonscale hued labradorite bezel set in the centre…something like this one below I made quite some time ago with the garnet, but a more elongated heart, and it will attach with a riveted bail, two actually, to an oxidised sterling chain:

  

Also…steampunk! I have been reading about this strange thing, and looking at photos of fantastical creations, and so inspired! I have a huge bag of watch parts that I have two ideas for: a steampunk timetravelling heart. I think I already have one of these inside me ticking away, all wild and wrong, sometimes here, sometimes in far off places – so I thought I might construct one from metal. And the other steampunk-ish clockwork time traveller piece is a secret ( i love small secrets, it makes the pieces better, imbues them with a certain intangible quality of enchantment!). I will share it when it is done…maybe.

Hmmm…was just contacted by a highscool friend on facebook, that strangest of social creations. I have no great fondness for facebook and its posturing, like an extended really awful reunion where everybody posts only photos of themselves before they gained that 40 lbs, and try to make themselves out to be happier, smarter, swankier, wealthier and generally more important than they really are, But this time, it is actually somebody that I am happy to hear from! In fact I have googled him before but came up empty. So maybe facebook isn’t entirely without its merits. But that’s about all that I will begrudgingly give it.

Reading poems earlier today, Rilke, mostly because the greening field outside my studio, with its distant trees always reminds me of the bird in the evening and the fragrant meadows. These are two of my favourites…they take me breath away, fill my lungs with something other than air – something more expansive. 

Woman in Love by RM Rilke 

 That is my window. Just now
I have so softly wakened.
I thought that I would float.
How far does my life reach,
and where does the night begin

I could think that everything
was still me all around;
transparent like a crystal’s
depths, darkened, mute.

I could keep even the stars
within me; so immense
my heart seems to me; so willingly
it let him go again.

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold.
Like something strange, undreamt-of,
my fate now gazes at me.

For what, then, am I stretched out
beneath this endlessness,
exuding fragrance like a meadow,
swayed this way and that,

calling out and frightened
that someone will hear the call,
and destined to disappear
inside some other life. 

You who never arrived by RM Rilke 

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening… 

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!