New Year - goodbye to 2011, hello 2012

"Once I was beset by anxiety. I couldn't tell right from left or orient myself. I could have cried out with terror at being lost. But I pushed the fear away - by studying the sky, determining where the moon would come out, where the sun would appear in the morning. I saw myself in relationship to the stars. I began weeping, and I knew that I was all right.

"That is the way I make use of geometry today. The miracle is that I am able to do it, by geometry."

-Louise Bourgeois
New York, 1977
(her work)

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May we all find our geometry, our moon, our sun, and each other, and know we're all right in 2012.


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Not so fast...

Over on the bg site I frequent, they are already shouting "HNY!" Happy new year, in case you can't figure it out :)

But... It's December 27th. There are 4 days left. Inside my head, I am screaming, "Nooooooo, waaaaiiiitttttt! It's going too fast!"

2011 was a hard year. It was hard, financially. I'm just not very good with money, and the recession hasn't helped.

It was hard, personally, emotionally. I took some risks and they have paid off, my life is richer for them. But there were also some losses and disappointments, which I took very hard. I keep looking at my heart charm and seeing that little heart, ripped open (see Shambhala) and trying to remember that's how it is supposed to be.

It was hard, healthwise - but not really. I'm fine! A little anxiety as frosting on top of the already-overstuffed anxiety layer cake - but I'm fine! Except for the bills... Too low levels of thyroid medication, as it turns out, didn't help much either. But I'm fine now! Almost.

And it was hard, creatively. Or rather... it was very rich creatively, almost too rich. I have way more ideas than I have time, and this year it wasn't just my own natural procrastination that got in my way.

When I did make time for it, it was very fruitful. The Radical Jewelry Makeover was RAD, a tremendous blessing, a very healthy kick in the pants. I need to write my thoughts about it, for it changed my creativity and thinking profoundly, and I want to complete that writing before the year is out... 2011, SLOW DOWN!!!

Overall, my creativity was fruitful and fitful, lots of stops and starts.

2011 was just so full of clutter.

Here's hoping that 2012 is more fruit than fits!

But please, please - can we wait until Saturday before we begin?! I'd like to get through this year in one piece first...


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It is

It is perfect to exist...

It is Perfect to Exist...





Try to exist today. Somehow.



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Perfection

In class a week or so ago, the teacher said, "Nature is perfect."

That phrase stuck with me - is nature perfect? With storms and falling leaves and cycles and death?

Is that perfection?

A few nights ago playing backgammon with a group of friends, someone was shellshocked by a diagnosis she had heard about - a person back East who was vital and in "perfect health" who started experiencing a problem... which turned out to be Stage 4 cancer. My friend kept repeating, "How can the body betray you that way?"

I related the "nature is perfect" phrase, trying to bring her comfort. "Nature is perfect." Meaning, it's not a betrayal, it's how it is. Looking back, I'm not sure how very comforting that is...

In any case, my opponent, a nice and usually quiet man, pipes up,

"To exist is perfect."



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I am working on prayer wheels, beads, recycled jewelry, and myself.

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rafting

I woke up yesterday with the image in my mind of a wobbly raft out on the ocean. I thought, perhaps meditation is the raft that keeps us afloat.

Then I thought, perhaps meditation is supposed to help us get rid of the raft, help us be in the ocean, one with it, one with life with all its saltiness, endless horizon, the overwhelming reality. Learn to float.

I don't know.

I'm going to start reading Shambhala again.


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I'm back...

and being creative again! woo hoo!

I had a bit of a cancer scare. I went for an annual physical, and my doctor found that my thyroid was enlarged, and all the test results kept coming back indeterminate. Given that my mother died of cancer when she was five years older than I am now, there was a lot of anxiety, and a lot of emotion, and not much room for creativity. I realize now, I should have made room for it.

Along the way we also discovered I have an abnormal EKG, so that was a concern. More anxiety. It turns out that it is "abnormal" the way a head of red hair is "abnormal" - meaning just rare, not dangerous. My heart is good to go.

After six weeks of testing, I finally had the thyroid out. The surgery itself was quite easy, and I am now fully recovered. Well, almost fully, there are still some calcium issues, but we are hoping they will resolve on their own.

And the final word is - no cancer. There never was cancer! It was just lumpy and large, and the surgeon took it out simply because it was so lumpy, it would be difficult to track in the future.

No cancer, and significantly in debt due to medical expenses.

In the midst of all this, I also moved my studio, taking the smaller guest bedroom to sleep in, and moving all my creative stuff into the larger bedroom to work in. I had been thinking about moving for a while, but it seemed overwhelming and I wasn't sure I would like it. Someone came to help me, so the overwhelming part was diminished (thank you!), and I like this new art studio very much! There is so much space, and light. I now have different work surfaces available so I am not constantly moving one project aside and putting one set of tools away, in order to work on something else while waiting for the first thing to dry or cure or pickle.

However, I have spent several weeks not able to find anything! My methodology, I'm afraid, is a little bit cluttered. I think it requires clutter, to a certain extent. I'm a bit of a sifter when I am working. I need to see things, rearrange them - bead colors lined up next to each other for example. So I take out 30 tubes of beads and move them around. Then there are 27 tubes of beads lying around, after I have picked the 3 I need and start to work. At least now, I have the space to let them lie around for a while, I don't have to immediately put them away.

Because all the things were moved, I would be looking for one certain thing, and it was in a new place in a new room. It has taken several weeks for me to adjust my thought process about where that one tool that I KNOW IS AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE might be.

I work mostly in the center of the room, and have all my creative inspiration and tools and intriguing STUFF I have collected orbiting around me. I am the sun, and they are my satellites, and sometimes I finish something and it shoots out like a comet into the universe! The air conditioner is in, the cats come in and sit in this one area of sunshine, which luckily is out of my way when I'm working, so I'm not rolling over tails with the chair anymore. I should take a picture of the room, it's wonderful.

I finished my school project, a version of a prayer wheel based on the Tibetan tradition. I am very pleased with it, as a prototype. It will serve as inspiration for something else, eventually. But now I am back working on seeds. The prayer wheel incorporated seeds. Then with sterling silver becoming so ridiculously expensive, I started working in polymer clay. I had signed up to take an enameling class, and was looking forward to working with color this summer, but the teacher bailed and the class was cancelled. I am getting my color fix from the clay instead. Inspired by the watermelons of summer and their seeds, I have made a set of beads, and am working on ways to mount them for earrings. That is today's project, I hope to have them on etsy by this weekend. I need to start creating and selling, to help with these bills.

I want to get back to the wax carving again soon. I need to make a butterfly to commemorate the thyroid experience, and I have a feather idea....

It is SOOOOOOOOOOOO good to be creating again!

Creating causes and conditions

Spring is springing!

I'd like to say that there is a lightness in my step, but that is not really true.  Some business troubles, some emotional issues, some health concerns, the fighting in the Middle East, the tragedies in Japan...

Causes and conditions.  I wonder if it is correct to think of them as opportunities.  In these times, it is very difficult.  I am not sure.  I am just barely scratching the surface of the Lam Rim in my classes and in my life.  Much of it remains a profound mystery to me.

But recently, as I sat in class on the pillow on the floor, the copied text laid out in front of me, and listening to my... (teacher?  is that what I call him?  We have no formal relationship, he is just there when I show up!)

... listening to my teacher...  He was talking about causes and conditions, we are reading Lama Tsongkhapa's commentary and it is so analytical and straightforward - for this reason I enjoy it immensely!  The clarity!  I hadn't really understood that there is a point to being a Buddhist - this is going to sound silly and naive, but it's true.  I had thought it was a viewpoint, but there wasn't necessarily a direction.

But there IS a direction.  There is a GOAL.  There is a TASK at hand.  It is very, very clear.  There is something to DO.

Or, as I like to think, something to DEW...

See, this is where the name "beeanddew" came from.  One day, 3 or so years ago, I was feeling overwhelmed (as I frequently am) and I needed to calm down.  I set the mission for myself, that all I needed was to be and do.  Nothing else was required.  I am enough, as is.  Being springtime, like this time of year, and gazing out the window at the joyous greenery, the buzzing of the insects and the song of the birds, that transformed into "beeanddew".

In any case, I have been searching for a clearer direction for my artistic life, and I was sitting on the pillow, lounging really, my head in my hands, looking up at Don over his little table with the yellow flower prettily sitting there.  We had been talking about causes and conditions as described by Lama Tsongkhapa - Don makes this material so accessible! - and then somehow, someone asked about the Buddha.  I think the question was if one who reaches Buddhahood (Buddhaness? hahaha) is subject to causes and conditions.

I don't remember the answer.  Because listening to Don give the answer, I heard the phrase "creating causes and conditions".  There came an image in my mind to go with this phrase, and Don's words, something about the Buddha is in that place where positive causes and conditions can be constantly generated.  Something like that.

To be honest, I'm not sure this is right, in terms of the Dharma and Tibetan belief system.  But what came to me out of it was an idea of what my artistic life could be like, could accomplish.

I have been working with the ideas of seeds for a long time now.  I am currently working, in class, on a prayer wheel, similar to the Tibetan prayer wheel, but with an emphasis for sowing the seeds of creativity.  Each time the copper wheel is spun, thoughts of support and positive energy towards creativity - my own and everybody's - are released into the air to float around the world.

Committing to that idea, having my artwork pursue these principles, those of working towards creating the causes and conditions for creativity itself, and the Dharma in general - that's the direction that came to me.  Applying myself to furthering the causes and conditions necessary for positivity and creativity through my artwork. Each piece a spinning prayer offered to the world.

That's what I'm going to dew.


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Olive Oyl Zapatos de Terciopelos

This is Olive:

She is feral.  You will never see her.  She only likes me.

Today I was sitting in the chair in one room, and I heard her start crying in the other room, as she sometimes does.  All I had to do was lean forward, look out the doorway and say her name.  She looked over, brightened like the sun as if she hadn't seen me in weeks, and tail up dashed over to jump into my lap.

Oh, that look she gave me.  She is my Valentine.

Google Art Project

I noticed in the NY Times a critique about the Google Art Project. When I go on vacation, I try to plan my adventures around what painter I am interested in or what museum have I not been to, or not been to recently. (Philadelphia and Duchamp is next!)

I am enraptured now with this painting of Joseph Roulin by Van Gogh. The project allows me to do digitally what I long to do in person with a great painting, which is to get up very close, poke around a little with my eyes (and yes, I do long to touch it with my fingers! but I won't!)  to see the artist's hand and mind at work.  Look at Joseph's eyes - the remarkable shapes of the lids, that pinky-orange outline.  Compare the bluegreen of the irises to the deep blue in his beard and mustache.  How is it that the background looks so natural, unfractured?  Is that the canvas I see on the cheekbones?  I could spend hours looking for where the paint is transparent and where it is impasto...  Oh, and the greens, the greens.  What genius.

Van Gogh's work is full, very full and rich.  I have a watercolor sitting on my easel right now, based on a pinecone, and it is looking a little forlorn.  It needs more, I need to fill it up!

Thanks for this, google :)

New Year, New Beginnings

The school year has begun, and I am building a version of a Tibetan prayer wheel for the class project. I am reinterpreting the idea of a prayer wheel, using western influences. I have settled on the form - I have not yet settled on the content. I was thinking of incorporating some Interfaith references, but then my teacher suggested I continue working on my seed theme from last semester. I haven't decided yet.

My friend Carlos brought his iPad to class to show us - very snazzy! - and told me that my rowboat had been featured on the college website. You can see it here. The prototype is now on sale at etsy.com

And... I had a fantastic time at the 3rd New Mexico State Backgammon Championship. I have become a little bit obsessed with the game, and to have the privilege of sitting at the boards of some very nice people, and some master players, was very fun! I think I'll try to enter and play a tournament soon.

Plus, now there are all these ideas for backgammon jewelry floating around in my head.





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Jack's Rowboat

I listed the prototype of the rowboat for sale at etsy.com today.  I stated in the description that I had a number of associations with it, and that I would write them here:

• As I wrote in the description, the morning at 3am I woke up and had this powerful vision in my head.  A little rowboat, heading out into the ocean.  It was too far out to sea for him to hear me calling to him from the shore.  I started making the rowboat the next day.

• A separate association, there is a lovely old song, maybe Irish?, called "The Water is Wide" - here is a lovely version by James Taylor.  Part of the lyrics say,

"Build me a boat, 

that can carry two, 

and both shall row, 

my love and I..." 

• Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, there was a... what would one call it?  A story?  A fable? I'm not sure.  But it goes like this (this is how I remember it, it may be different in its original form):

A storm is coming.  A man's neighbor knocks at his door, "I have a car, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The neighbor leaves without him.

The storm arrives, and the city is flooded.  Rescue workers come in a small boat, knock at the door, "We have a boat, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The boat leaves without him.

The flooding worsens, and the man climbs to his roof to escape the waters.  A helicopter arrives, and the rescue workers shout down, "Grab the rope, let's go."  The man refuses - "No worries, God will take care of me."  The helicopter leaves without him.

The man drowns.  He stands before God.  "God, please, I was counting on you to take care of me."

God replies, "I sent you a car, a boat, a helicopter - what more did you want?"

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A Ramble from White to Whitney

So, just when I write a post about fashion and white coming back as a trend, I see this column by Linda Yablonsky in the NY Times entitled "Damn White".  This actually covers a topic I was thinking about at the time I was writing about fashion.

My art studio setup is atrocious.  I have far too much clutter, and not enough room to function efficiently. Most artists have too much stuff.  The real problem is the size of the room.  It is the spare bedroom, and it is small.  In order to switch from wax carving to metal finishing, for example, I have to put an entire set of tools away and pull another set of tools out.  Sterling silver charms and wax carving do not mix - one is supposed to keep the work areas clean.  It is very difficult to do in a small space.

I was at... class?  practice?  at the Tibetan meditation center last night, which is located at the Second Street Studios here in Santa Fe.  My mind wandered - it counts as meditation if I see my mind wandering, right? I hope so - towards two topics while I was in their space.  The first was the color of their walls.  They moved in recently, perhaps a year ago, and the main space has altars and this wonderful Tibetan artwork, and the background color is a delicious saffron yellow.  We were talking about dependent arising, and the teacher was using a flower on his desk as an example.  A lovely little daisy, and it too was the same sort of saffron yellow, slightly paler, maybe less orange.  I wondered in my mental wanderings if that yellow had any sort of symbolic significance, as it seemed to be present in the paintings and fabrics also.

Back to white... I also remembered that white has a spiritual significance, because that space is chilly.  I have taken to wearing a scarf - but I almost, accidentally, pulled out a white scarf to wear last night.  Then I remembered, a white scarf may not be appropriate, since this is a token?  talisman?  gift? that the Dalai Lama hands out.

Haha, this made me laugh - I went searching for a picture of the Dalai Lama with a white scarf, and the first one I see is with Arnold Schwarznegger.  I wonder if there is a certain white for scarves the Dalai Lama prefers?

My mind also wanders to using that space as a studio.  From what I have heard, quite a few artists and creative types live and work in the Second Street complex.  It would make a wonderful studio, the windows and the rooms are large.  There is lots of space for cabinets and tables and work areas.  I imagined a wax carving station over there, and a polishing station over there, and rows and rows of cabinets to hide away the clutter.  Or, at least to put the clutter away once in a while, I always seem to be working in clutter.  And multiple simultaneous projects.  There's a painting leaning up waiting to dry in one spot, piles of inspiration from magazines in another, the silver charm carving of the moment on the jewelers bench....

This column in the New York Times talks about what color white to view art in.  It is also important to know what color white to create in.  One of my first art teachers, Brett Barker, advised me to use a grayish white when I moved into this house.  I look at it now, it is fairly neutral, but perhaps a bit yellow more than grey.  I can't even remember if I painted it, or if it was this color.  It hasn't distracted me or thrown off my color sense, though.

The column "Damn White" agrees - gray would be better.  Some white is so blinding, and the light streaming in the studio, especially when combined with a snowfall, makes this room a little too bright sometimes.  The Denver Art Museum has some of their art hanging in rooms that are painted in the rich jewel tones that I love.  Ooooh, they have a bamboo exhibit - I might have to try to get to Denver.

That article covers an art exhibit I would like to see.  That looks very interesting.  I just finished a "treasury" at etsy.com about tiny things, and here is a selection of tiny things at the Whitney.  Be sure to look at the Whitney site to get a sense of the size of Charles LeDray's work.

Well, this post is quite the ramble - I hope you enjoy it!

Fashion

It is awards season again. As much as I no longer pay attention to the movies and television shows that seem to come and go like gossamer clouds, I do enjoy looking at the fashion of the red carpet the day after. I was delighted to see that this year, jewel tones are back! My favorite!

I had read in Vogue that bright colors against whites are the trends for the season. As a jewelry designer, this pleases me a lot. I always imagine my pieces against a white shirt. Katherine Hepburn's style is a favorite of mine - a crisp white collar, long flowy pants.

And I like to imagine my jewelry as the pop of color or organic shape to complete the outfit. But then, who needs jewelry when you have a face like that?





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011111

I saw the date yesterday, and thought it might be auspicious, so set to work - finally! - opening my shop on etsy....

Etsy beeanddew

The photography, as I have expressed before, was a painful process.  But the sun was shining brightly, and once I came up with a "scenario", a style, it went very well.  I am pleased with the results.  What I did was open up a book - in this case, Julia Cameron's The Vein of Gold - and stood it up, holding the pages open with rubber bands, and then used a knitting needle across the top to hang my work from.  So, the book pages are the backdrop.  I had a bit of trouble with some of my pieces, the camera would focus on the words behind the piece instead of the piece itself, but overall, it was very successful.  I am quite pleased with myself, and looking forward to the adventure.

I really like having the book as a background.  When I started thinking about opening a crafts business, I thought about doing bookmarks exclusively.  I love books, and my mother was a librarian.  I may still do bookmarks, even though books themselves are becoming obsolete.  I think we will always have books.  In any case, as something to set my photographs apart and distinguish my style, and as I am starting to think about branding, it is nice to have books included.

I do not yet have any of my silver work up for sale.  I took a small break over the holidays, and now as I approach my work I have found myself very attracted to the colors and varieties of beads.  Also, I made a few gifts from beads for Christmas, which were very successful.  But I am heading back to seeds soon, and beads will be incorporated in that.  I am also thinking a lot about future projects, and how to make components that can be used with beads.

Oh!  Over the holidays I received two requests for commissions!  A pendant to commemorate an engagement (there are some lovely romantic fellows out there, ladies!) and a cross for a friend for her teenage son.  It's very exciting.  I am wrestling as well, in part based on one of the commissions, about which class I should take this semester.

And... I am now studying lam rim, going further into Tibetan Buddhism after taking the meditation class.  I would love to talk more about it, but I have only had one class, and although I am very intrigued, I have to admit that I am puzzled.  I am starting the class in the middle, and the text is very dense.  But the teacher is wonderful, so I am sure I will learn.




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