Rebirth of Creativity

Lately I've been bemoaning the loss of creative time that I don't have any more. So in a desperate attempt at soothing my soul, I spent some time crafting jewelry with my newest obsession, handmade ceramic beads made in 1973 and reprised anew with fresh designs by the same artist. Just looking at them organized in my segmented drawers puts a smile on my face!

Well, one thing led to another, and I found myself making up stories to go with the jewelry I was creating. Here's one of those stories, accompanied by the jewelry that was inspired by it.

11/12/2012

It's a miserable day, a low-sky kind of day blanketed in fluffy gray clouds, like so much laundry dulled from years of washing. The wind is howling through the house like a freight train. The rain is beating on the roof like a fist hammering to get in. It's so miserable out that I'm engaging in creative procrastination, anything to delay venturing out into the world to face my daily routine.

I look out my studio window. The long yellow leaves of the willow cling to their branches for dear life, long beyond what the other trees have accomplished. And then I see it: a small volunteer tree, nearly a half mile down the driveway, at the end of the scrubby line of wild growth that separates our little patch of earth from Farmer Bob's soybean acres. A cottonwood, perhaps, or maybe a crabapple. I can't see anything from the warmth of my creative space except for its perfectly symmetric form and its brilliant salmon and yellow leaves. I know what I have to do.

This necklace is comprised of a triplet of red bronze leaves complemented by the old and the new: vintage 1973 handmade ceramic beads and new beads made with those very same hands nearly 40 years later. Coral and copper lend their bright voices to the composition. An unending 30" or so circle to slip around your neck when you need to escape a miserable day.

So then what? I've been wanting to open a store called "A Field of Beads" somewhere: on the web, in the world, on Etsy. Etsy was the path of least resistance, so I opened a store for only my handcrafted jewelry. You can see other shots of this piece plus another story with another necklace on afieldofbeads.etsy.com.

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who may be reading this.