The Art of Thinking

I've been having a good solid chat with Kim over the last couple of days about the creative process, and understanding time within that context. (Oh yeah, we are soooo elite.)

Kim was beating herself up about not getting enough time to create (something I've been fretting over lately as well) and that once she gets done taking care of house and home, there is precious little time to sit in the studio. She said 'I only have a few hours each day to grind on the shit and by the time I get concepts or sketches (in my head) down the time to make is actually gone.'


I think a lot of us suffer this problem- by the time you sit down, get grounded and relax into it, seems like you get about 2 minutes of solid crafting done and then someone somewhere expects something of you. (It's a curse born by women throughout time, so don't feel special!) I know as an Etsy seller there's a huge pressure to update your shop regularly and provide as much as you can for people, and we can worry ourselves threadbare providing a regular supply of inventory.


I used to harass myself all the time that I wasn't making enough work- I could sit at my desk 3 days in a row and still not have anything finished, and some stuff I even wanted to pull apart or throw straight in the bin. Meanwhile I would log on to my Etsy and see my shop front, shaking it's head disapprovingly at me because the latest listing is 5 days old.


But those days of tinkering and taking stock are not lost time. You need those times to think and experiment and move things around. Even 'organising' your space (and by organising I often mean 'looking through random boxes.') is good work. Playing with your materials and supplies is as much about communicating with your muse as actually making a piece is. Even when you make something and it doesn't turn out, it's still valid time spent. (The art of failure is a whole other post.)


One of the most important things in the creative journey is the thinking. Physically making and (gasp!) finishing something is grand and seems to be the golden fleece we all lament not holding on a daily basis, but you need that thinking time to feel out your materials.


There's a Carl Sagan quote: 'to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe'. And I LOVE that quote because it speaks to me it's about setting the foundations, feeling out the landscape. You can't make something until you have the energy of it around you, you need to create the world in order for the creature to live there. So all that time spent thinkin' and dreamin' and shuffling beads and string around the desk is all crucial to the process.


It's going to happen whether you like it or not, this tinkering. In fact it HAS to happen to get good work, so you might as well either square with it or consign yourself to the easy path of making frivolous trinkets. (And you know what Dumbledore said about easy choices.)


I've illustrated this post with random shots taken through my studio in the last few days. Every now and then walking around with the camera and snapping away at various things is helpful to my thinking process. This is just as valid as actually making something. Taking photos, observing, playing... it's all seeds for the harvest. So stop beating yourself up, and find validation in every minute of creative time you're blessed with. No matter how unproductive it feels.

tinkers tagalong

Putting things together, taking them apart, getting cross, getting excited, getting bored, getting ideas. There's been much movement on the work desk this week but nothing actually finished. Quality takes time, I always say.

Handmade elements - carved wood (new thing), painted bits, antique tin cut-outs


The long stick is windfall Japanese maple from the garden, I carved it to resemble antler and painted it with a wheat/leaf pattern that I've been transfixed with since high school.


Awesome woven mats found at the thrift this week, they bring instant jedi zen to any surface.



Some earthy bits I arranged on the table- I like to do this when gathering thoughts. Sticks from the garden, wonky ceramic beads, bone charm, hemp rope, heishi that are sort of bone, sort of celluloid (jury's out), and some crusty shell squares Dad found in a pot in his shed, and assumed they were mine- they are now!

stuff and things

bloggin bloggin, I ain't no good at it lately! My head's full of higher things. Here's some new shop stuffs!

Patience - this sold about 10 minutes after I listed it, I kinda knew it wouldn't stick around. Such gorgeous soft colours and every stone is just beautiful.

Serenity - painted tin, bone and sandalwood. These feel really calm- I had a total zen-out while making them. I think it's the carved sandalwood beads, they have a wonder about them; imagine the process involved in getting such a tiny thing to look so engineered.

Good fortune - mismatched central! These are so different from each other but because of the shape and the colours, they work. Also they have that unifying element in the bead stack.

Universal - nice and wonky, with a couple of Victorian buttons in the mix. Buying buttons is a sort of mediation you know, it's easy to zone out with a mug of earl grey in one hand and the scrolling function enabled on your mouse. And with eBay's option to list 200 results a time, scrolling feels endless! It's lucky I have the supply shop to put the unwanteds in cause no one wants to buy cruddy buttons (sellers assume) so they hide them in mix lots! Silly sellers.

Also I've started listing some pendants I made a million years ago (approximately). They no longer suit the style of work I'm going for, but since they're all so nice and tidy it seems silly to undo them all for supply destash, so I'm listing them as ready-to-wear pendants. You can even buy them to use in your jewelry projects!

All the names are coming from keywords of recent lessons and themes - patience, serenity, good fortune, universal... connections and observations. I'm an artist, I can do that.

odd socks

Trembling earth - mismatched earrings with shell and clay. Love the mismatched look, it's got a lot of that whole 'found bits' thing I need to have in order to be vaguely satisfied with my work.

poetic spirit - more mismatching, this time only in the middle. Lately it's more about getting similar elements to co-exist in my work, rather than match neatly. I have some earrings to put up later tonight - or your morning...

...that have a great sense of co-habitation. It's all about the colours and the shapes- if you can get those things in line, it really doesn't matter what else you use to build it.


tribal echo 3 by Mia Montgomery, who is probably the queen of mis-matched earrings on Etsy (certainly the prettiest photos of such, too!) You can see in these ones above by keeping the circular shape to the elements and the colours down to two-and-a-metal, it works really well. Also the little bead in the ring on the right echoes the pattern of the large bead on the top left.

These fabulous creatures are by rockdarbi - another really simple method of mis-match; using two exact shapes in different colours, just highlighting each with the other.


Fanci of course is always coming up with the goods on the unexpected- these glories echo each other by having one chandelier crystal match the other's rosary medal.

pretty mis-matched china votives by BlondieBlu

There you go, there's a quick lesson in getting mis-matching right. Didn't expect that huh? Me either! And because I didn't expect it, I couldn't plan it, and I couldn't get anal about it, and have it end up taking me 39389 years to do, which my upcoming (oh God not that again) photography tutorial is clocking up in a similar time scale. It is coming, I promise! Along with the props tute. I'm trying to fit them both in the same post in an effort to stop me going on and on about them and providing many deliriously interesting details you don't really need.

Strolling through

Memory - crochet wrapped crystal cuff

Dear me, I do leave such gaps between my postings! I am quietly working away (mostly in my own head, though I do spend quite some time on Pinterest lately, as it suits my style of mass input of imagery with little communication involved. I'm not a shy person, just recently not very...communicative. I'm sure by this time next month my brain will have adopted a completely different method and you won't be able to shut me up. In the meantime, my mind boils and bubbles. Ideas. Thoughts. Theories.

Object - hammered 14g wire and mis-matched beads

Attempting to combine my photography style and my jewelry shop for a more cohesive look. As my pieces become more and more organic they sit better in a background of simple props than on layers of romantic paper. This is spoiling you somewhat for my coming-soon-er-or-later post on using props in your work. Hopefully I can get most of that written this weekend while I'm spending some time at a friend's house.

Prairie walker - reclaimed metal and magnesite

I've been feeling the fire engine red lately- just small nods of it; I find it gives a liveliness next to the sun faded colours I usually prefer. These earrings above have cotton wire on them, found in Jardindepapier's shop; I'm assuming it's old milliners wire, but it's perfect for getting that 'painted sketch' look I'm after. I've used it in other projects to a more obvious effect, but those still lay half thought out on the desk. Bubbling away.

More pretties

Painted desert - painted wire and pink missfickle hoops which I squashed about a bit for a more organic shape. Kiwi jasper is so pretty, like turquoise and jade mixed together.


Pale Venus - missficklemedia rings (hammered slightly), painted vintage copper stampings (also hammered) and the most delightful little spiral shell beads that I found at the thrift. I can't help thinking of them as mermaid breasts!


Aztec Gold - vintage copper bezels, hammered flat and punched. Hammering does so improve things...


Light Warrior - the pendant on this was wrapped in wire and then -taking the basic principles of fanci's headpin tutorial- I dipped the top in UTEE to keep things all sealed up and pulled together, and detailed it with pigments and paint.


rust and rain - here's some more painted vintage tin; I love that the rust came through on this like speckled bird's eggs! These were so pretty all they really needed was a simple stack of 3 beads to be complete.


Here's a shot of some more painted tin pieces- it's very meditative making these, not just the cutting and sanding, but painting the tin before hand and watching the little speck of rust come through as the paint dries. I'm cutting them wonky on purpose; I want them to look like little watercolour drawings.


Oh and some of you want me to share the cookie recipe from an earlier post, I shall do that later!

Sale away sale away sale away...

If anything in the above graphic takes your fancy, then you're in luck! It's been put in my clearance sale- just follow this link to shop. All the prices have already been adjusted with the original price displayed in the listing body, so you can see how much of a bargain you're getting!

Sale goes till whenever I decide everyone's had a good chance, and I take down the stuff and violently sacrifice it on my work bench and turn it into something else. You wouldn't want that to happen would you?

Shop Update - more soft shade lovelies

More lovelies available in the shop:

love token - bohemian bridal earrings with vintage chain, pearls and lampwork drops from numinosity.

fire seed - orange bohemian earrings with lovely vintage beads and Bollywood bangle scrap


Prairie - vintage doily scrap brooch and an age-worn antique button


ice and snow - vintage tin earrings - these are two of the beads I got from shipwreckdandy, paired with some antique tin I've painted. I've been doing a lot of that, I shall blog about it later.


pink salt - organic metal earrings; more painted tin and some gorgeous ceramic beads from potterygirl1 - it's been a long time since I've made something I kinda sorta don't want to sell!


Star - another doily scrap brooch - found a bunch of these bases in the bottom of a box, so I finished them up watching after-dinner TV. I can't just sit and watch TV, I got to have something else to do otherwise I feel like I'm wasting time!


Unicorn blood - some more of my large double hoop earrings, this time in pretty sugar pinks.

---


I've also been putting as much time into the antique/vintage supply shop as possible- I'm on a mission to get all my excess things cleaned out by the end of the year, so i have to list list list! Thankfully in weather like todays (grey and rainy) it's not too much of a burden to sit at the computer with a nice big cup of earl grey and make beautiful photos. Especially with a few homemade cookies in the deal!


mmm toffee oat crisps.

pretty junk

Painted - using raw amethysts sent to me by Corvid, these earrings show my very first attempt at punching my own bead caps! I'll show you more of them in another post, but I left em not-so-dapped in these earrings so they'd stand out.

faith hope love and luck - using a beautiful ceramic pendant by boonepottery. I love the colour scheme in this one, sage green and wheat.


Insignia - pink Peruvian opal, another gift from Corvid. I painted the red bits myself! Gosh I'm clever. The purple n white ones are from missfickle who really gets a huge credit for sending me some extra stuff, it's been the catalyst for my new style.


Rainmaker- earrings that came out of my head that are very Fanci. She laughs when I say stuff that cause she usually says she got the idea from me! So they're inspired by what fanci makes when she's inspired by me. Like Chinese whispers but with metal. Yeah.


wonkaville - brooch using one of the mysterious buried buttons.


love token - super-pretty shoulder dusters with stick pearls and numinosity's pink lampworks.

----

In other news, my Dad (65) has discovered the internet, and of course- eBay. He's been ringing me up constantly giving me item numbers to look over and bid on for him. I've expressly forbid him from bidding on his own because it's dangerous- he can't even work emails yet! But he can search ebay and talk to my brother on Skype. He is a bit over-excited at 'how much stuff the Americans have' and how cheap it all is- yesterday's bargain was kerosene lamp parts that would've cost him a couple of hundred here, but he got 'em for $30. So you can see, I have to keep an eye on him. He did get me to buy him some reproduction advertising signs which lead to me buying this:

So now I have to keep an eye on me as well, because we tend to both like the same stuff, and I go to things to bid for him and then I see things and it's all downhill from there. I need that sign though, truly. It will keep me motivated to knock off the waterworks, suck it up and just get on with gettin' shit done. Everyone needs a sign to mentally kick them in the arse. Plus I like wartime stuff.

Also today my 'mature age' postmaster was wearing a t-shirt with a dragon on it, and a bow tie. Which is awesome enough, but he also sports a huge white handlebar moustache and is the most flamboyant straight man I've ever met. I think he's a wizard.