In praise of mystery and secret pleasures

Another blog post that's been a long time coming....

As I lurch around erratically from site to site on the internet, I find myself landing frequently on Pinterest.  I bet you do too....understandable really, because it's very seductive.  At first, I didn't see the point of it: but then it bit me - deeply!

The point of no return is reached when you create those boards that obsess you - the ones where you will search within and without Pinterest to create a collection that satisfies that hoarding, collecting, ready to be inspired soul.  Then you have be careful that you don't dive too often down that rabbit hole of your own creation!

Honestly, it's best that I don't collect too much at the moment.  I'm mainly interested in (as in - obsessing over ) 3 boards at the moment for different reasons.  I work a lot with colour, but am slowly amassing for myself a collection of black and white designs/drawings/images/doodles that reminds me that all that colour needs a 'skeleton' to hang on.  I am constantly amazed by what can be done with light and dark, pattern and texture and obviously need to be reminded of this daily.  Look here...my black and white board.

Black and white so much with so little

Bit of overlap here as you'll see later......      Minnie Pwerle

I also follow a number of people who have jewelry boards, but one of the people whose boards I look at most often are those of my friend Genevieve Williamson (Jibby and Juna on Etsy).  It's highly likely that anyone who reads this blog already knows her wonderful blog and shop, but hey, I'm not taking any chances here....

I appreciate her boards for their unwavering aesthetic, their curiosity and a certain sense of indefinable calm which makes me so receptive to their visual message. These boards help me a lot in my constant struggle to not complicate everything I make, something I battle with daily.  I am grateful for the amount of time Genevieve spends on finding and pining all these amazing artists, because I don't want to do it (there, I admit it...).  I just want to be wowed by them and - I am!  I also don't want to pin the stuff she's pinned, except in rare instances, because I can just go there and look at what she's done. I think I'm going to start a board called "Pins from Amazing Boards", or something like that. Go here if you want to see!

Genevieve Williamson on Pinterest

There were so many I could have chosen ....Lena Olson, Necklace 2009


When I want to be re-vitalized, overwhelmed, inspired, drowned, buzzed (all at once) and gone for a long time, I visit the boards of Kintsugi on Pinterest.  She has the most comprehensive and well documented boards on Australian aboriginal art -  art that I've been in love with for 4 decades, thanks to my Australian mother. Early on, I wrote to her to thank her for this wonderful cataloguing effort.  I was surprised and sad  to hear in her reply that I was the first person to write and thank her for these many, many pins!  Of course, we collect for ourselves, but there's no doubt that collections as extensive as these inspire countless people. Kintsugi has made it a valuable resource that should be remarked on!

At first I was curious about why this person - who was she? What is her motivation? Why this particular genre? Other websites, blogs - any information!  We wrote a little back and forth, and then I realized that I didn't really want to know and I certainly didn't want to tell.  I just wanted to preserve the mystery of this wonderful otherworldly art presented by someone I would never know (unless she wanted me to...)  All I can say is if you want colour and pattern inspiration and an awe-inspiring sense of the complexity of life, please, visit here and prepare to stay for a while.


Kintsugi on Pinterest.   To clarify:  this link goes directly to Kintsugi's aboriginal favourites board - only ONE of over a hundred different boards devoted to this genre - board devoted to individual artists, colours, and other sub-groups....the link 2 paragraphs up goes to her whole collection.  She has 261 boards and the aboriginal boards are the last 100(!) or so....I haven't even dared to look through the other boards!  Other art to discover, I'm certain!

                                               Maureen Hudson Nampitjinpa / Fire Dreaming

Betsy Lewis Napangardi ~ Jinti-parnta Jukurrpa (Edible Fungus Dreaming), 2005

                                                                                   Tommy Mitchell / Ngurra Pirni 2011 



Impossible to choose, you'll see....


As I use Pinterest more, I realize that I find and follow people who have a great eye so that I can visit periodically - the way I would a museum.  Not necessarily to pin vast swaths of their collection.  I can then focus on the one or two boards that really interest me and make those useful to me without feeling scattered.  So let's enjoy the mystery of why people are inspired to collect and catalog and I won't tell you how much time I spend looking.  I hope you find these boards as fascinating as I do!  Please write and tell me how you use Pinterest.....I've been out of the blog loop too long!

(Living amongst) Bead Table Wednesday disorder

I certainly didn't intend it to be this way.  I never do.

But the good news is that I'm walking slowly and steadily towards the light and tomorrow at 3 PM will be the first of 3 or 4 scheduled updates for my stores!  I never stopped working over the summer (can't break that flow of ideas, after all..) but the finished work just kept piling up and now it is an absolute priority to get all this work listed.  Closure, and perhaps some money…what a great plan. Just as long as that light I see is not the oncoming train!

  Of course not, it’s the blinding light of my computer screen!     (had to move to the desktop though, my beloved Blackberry is too slow for this!)
                                                       
                                                                                            

Such a familiar and comforting sight, along with the knowledge that I’ll be sitting in front of it for a good little while ahead.  Ugh… familiar to lots of you.

                                           

I’ve been trying to organize a way to make listing faster, but of course, while setting up any new system, there is a period where you are actually slower than if you weren’t trying to improve everything.  Most of my stuff is one-of-a-kind, but there are certainly groups and subgroups, so I’m trying to make as many ‘generic’ draft listings as I think might be useful in Etsy’s not very user friendly draft listing folder.  (You can’t rearrange them, unfortunately…)  Generic listings such as ‘pod’ or ‘Complex pod’ or ‘strata bead’.  These generic listings contain the basic information such as  basic tags,price, materials and how, in general, this particular subgroup of pieces are made or came to be etc. Then, in theory, you just plug in the information relevant  to the particular piece you are listing, plop in the photos and list!  All this works because the draft folder allows you to copy your generic listing and by so doing, allows you to keep it for the next time that you have a piece in that series! I almost cried when I realized you could do this. This saves a lot of either flipping around in sold listings, searching for sold listings ( I just know I sold one sorta like last year etc.) and copying and pasting.  In a lot of the generic listings I’ve assembled variants that I’ve written about the pieces concerned. SO easy to cut, rather than find and cut and paste.  But it takes time and thought to organize the generic listings to my satisfaction.  When I become that self-disciplined and organized person that I am so looking forward to being, you know, the one who does at least 5 listings a day come hell or high water, I know this system will work well.  It’s already working well for some lines!

                           
                                      

I’m also changing the way I store the work before it’s listed.  I recently scored a hit on Kijiji and bought for practically nothing lots of those plastic cases with dividers and transparent tops so you can see through the lids without opening them.  Some of them are double-sided, very neat! Thing is, I used to store all my finished work neatly and separately in plastic bags, but they sort of became invisible and I sometimes forgot what I had. Also, there was a lot of  mucking about with bags while getting the work out to photograph, and then a second lot of mucking about putting it back into the bag with my sometimes arthritic hands and fingers. This works better – I have a case devoted to holding what is going to be photographed that session and then after the photo shoot it goes into a plastic jewellery bag and stays there until it’s sold.  (Those tiny jewellery bags drive my hands nuts but they do present well…)


                                            

So yes, when I get through this shameful backlog of work, I probably won’t need all these cases.  But it was worth the $15 to have them!  Sometimes, I make work and I’m not sure about it.  It’s great to have a dedicated case for work you’re brooding about. Then, after a little time, ‘tada!’ You can open up the case and see how it hits you with fresh eyes – all in one place!  AND, I might add, without having to paw through those damn bags.

Back to the grind.  Tomorrow, going live!

Prosaic and ecstatic...

It's taking me a while to get the hang of juggling all this stuff. But when I read through other blogs, I'm convinced it's worthwhile. I think I'll start adding to my notebook of everything yet one more thing - the passing thoughts that are the germ of some good to write about. I do have a couple of things to mention today, starting with the prosaic one.

This is a tool that I have started to use a lot in my polymer work. I'm a bit of a freak/geek about tools which is definitely a hangover from my glass career, where having quality tools was sooo important. ( And a source of much attitude and snobbery, as well!) With polymer, what tool you use leaves a direct mark on the clay and is usually there for ever, so the marks you choose to make say a lot about your creative voice and ideas. This is a long way to say that I find this particular tool useful in cutting down on the stodgy look that polymer sometimes presents (think - the 'squished' look). Think of this tool as a trimmer. It's very useful in tight places, very helpful in refining a final, tiny form.

Ecstatically, Polymer Clay Daily's Cynthia Tinapple has gone to the trouble of making great thumbnail links to the 'Making Connections' show coming up at the Synergy conference in February, 2010. My necklace is one of the pieces in the show! There is some wonderful work by artists I've admired for a long time. Check it out here! Thank you, as always, to Cynthia.

Have to finish trimming the tree with a polymer ornament. I'm such a mean parent - every year I force my children to make at least one ornament with me for the tree. I will say though, that they love working with clay.