asymmetry

I don't know who started the asymmetric trend but I see it every where from Martha's clustered collars on Castle to the DIY kits at Michael's. I hate asymmetry!!! I'm a type A person that likes Martha Stewart balance: two lions on the steps of the NYC Library, a topiary on each side of an entry at Christmas, an even number of columns in the Hypostyle... what is wrong with symmetry?
Nothing. I say that and immediately I think the Sphinx, the Giza pyramids, Washington Monument and, that if you do it right, there are some really amazing pieces of jewelery that don't follow the rules.

This piece is another one of my favorites. The chain is new but it feels like something from the days of dragon battling knights of any shaped table. There is a chain of linked bars that I scavenged from one of mom's mineral drop necklaces that I never saw her wear. The Fleur focal point is actually a pin of Gramma Ada's with a natural, polished citrine drop. Everything else is new. If it were not for the faceted stone in the center of the Fleur that dictated the use of other faceted elements this piece could have gotten visually heavy rather quickly. This was going to be an organic piece for a gypsy costume; just the chain and the two large spacers at the top. But when the Fleur fell out of the box onto my work space as I was digging for findings... well literally the pieces of the concept fell into place.

It goes great with jeans and every cool color article of clothing I own. It is longer than I tend to wear, measuring in at nearly 36 inches, the citrine falls to my belly button. It would be awesome layered with more silver strands of varying patinas.

still waiting

This is what I do while I am thinking about how to solve the painting problems. I take myself out of the equation by putting my mind on a different problem.
And believe me, designing jewlery even with someone elses metalwork is a problem. But the resolutions are easier to come by.

So do you remember when I told you (over at Geekdom) about being in the jewelery making aisle at Michaels and feeling like gramma Ada was with me? This is the result of that trip. It's taken many months to get to here from there as I've been scavenging bits and pieces to go with the store bought stuff. These three pieces were made by deconstructing and reassembling parts from a variety of collections. I really love the medallion. I don't know that green and purple together would have excite Gramma A. But the style is certainly up her alley.

The 1st photo shows a heraldric symbol indicative of the bavarian style. To me it almost looks like a doorknocker. But these elements were often used in pediments above doors or as a kind of finial on above crenellations. There are not many of them that I can find on old buildings in Germany. Delicate pieces tend to succumb to the elements and battle. They do frequently appear on sheilds and as main elements in family crests.

The second photo is my favorite party piece. I wore this to the Christmas party with my eggplant gown and got tons of raves from the gals who are big into this kind of thing. Of all the pieces I've made, this I would have the most toruble selling. The third photo shows the same necklace with a choker I made almost 6 years ago. Everytime I am able to match colors so well over any expanse of time I am reminded of something Mrs. Kozlowski said in art class. "Mix more than you will need because you'll never match the colors exactly again." is it wrong to relish proving people wrong to the degree in which I relish that?

new work

The urn is contrusted out of several layers of preprinted paper. These papers are thin enough to manipulate and provide me the oportunity eliminate a couple of layers of painting.
The second step is to apply thin washes of color to manipulate the tones and establish the shadows and highlights. Then I wash those with colors to blend into the background layers. The third photo shows a detail of the cutout and a little of the sketch for the shield medallion.
By now you should know that I hate having plain vases. When I look at the knick knacks that gramma Ada had, I see that there is yet a Bavarian influence in my work. Since the urn is the representation of myself, going a little heavy on the German isn't a bad idea. As the theme is a fortress around a heart (thank you Sting for the imagery and the song) the germanic overtones dovetail nicely with the work I am doing in other areas of my life; genealogy, german heraldric devices, translating Rammstein lyrics, et all. But the sheild medallion, beyond aesthetics, reinforces the feeling that I need to protect myself. Of course the crack in the vase runs behind the sheild, giving the impression of a band aid and thus illustrates closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. Classic me.
I don't have all the pieces put together yet. I am stuck. With every layer I seem to be obliterating the distinctions between back and mid ground. It is not muddled. But it is not right. The vase needs to stand out from the background in color as much as in motif. Not sure how to resolve the issue. I am considering applying a MW techinique but so far nothing is really coming together.
And this, people, is the difficulty in pricing artwork. Straight formulas either undercut the effort bby only considering materials or they inflate the value based on standard time. How do you justify the thinking part of the process with a dollar value? Sometimes art is not play but provocation to do bodily harm in the form of a pint of ben And Jerry's in one sitting.

NEXT!!!

Do you ever click on the tab on the header that says next blog just to see what all is out here on the wwweb? About a week ago, after we met a new follower to the Geekdom blog, I went for a joy ride in the blogosphere and found two more blogs that I really enjoy. I haven't listed them on the right hand column where you find Wil and my friend Michelle. They are on my Blogs I Follow list on my dashboard. Both of them focus on anthropolgy. And I am following them here because they are recently tackling topics which I am trying to define for myself.

Archive Five and Eidetic Illuminations are very good. Both of these guys are students and they are trying to figure out what work is and why we do what we do. I answered a survey on Archive 5 which led me to Eidetic Illuminations. I went because his answer to the survey was so intriguing. That led me to post an answer to his question "What is work?" And.... we still have no clear cut answer beyond what Webster's would classify. Though there is a physics equation that I would like to cram down someone's throat.

Click on the next blog button sometime and see what you find. It is an amazing world out there and each of us has a part in its representation and creation. Yes, this should have been on the geekdom blog. I realize that now that I am looking at the labels for this post. [headdesk: need more coffee]