Light Years Jewelry

I'm excited to announce that my work is now available at Light Years Jewelry in Chapel Hill, NC. It's a wonderful, locally-owned shop that carries a lot more than jewelry (although that is certainly a focus)-- all sorts of giftware. They have three locations-- one in Cary, one in Durham, and of course the original Chapel Hill store.

My first show of the season (the Nashville Spring Blossom Art Fest) is in three weeks, and I have officially entered freak-out mode. I slog along in a leisurely fashion through the late winter months, feeling like I've got it all under control, and then BAM! suddenly I realize just how much I have to do. But since my creation process requires patience and focus, I end up putting myself in a state of calm on a daily basis anyway. I have to slow down to keep things going at the right pace to actually get things done. Ah, contradictions. Of course, all of this hits just when the weather is geting really nice and I want to spend the daylight hours rolling around in the yard. Trying to work outside with little bits of paper flying everywhere is NOT the solution, alas. Go ahead, ask me how I know.

Here's another of these new pendants of torn paper and resin. I haven't decided what to call them as a group, yet. I like "Ephemera" since they look so spontaneous and delicate, but since they are just as long-lasting as my other pieces, I'm not sure that has the right connotations. I'll keep thinkin'.

Because the wire is visible on the back, I wanted it to be attractive, too. The photo below is of the reverse. Still no text, but that''ll be coming soon.

I like how these really show off the paper-ness of the paper. What makes them appealing is not that they look like wood or porcelain or glass or whatever (though that might be true to some extent), but that mostly they look exactly like paper--a surprising, self-contradicting sort of paper.

New torn paper pendant-- this one I made just for me. Balance is a big theme in my life-- gotta work to keep it. The others I've been making don't have text, so far. I'm not sure they will, at least not on the front. I am playing with the idea of text on the back-- snippets simulating ephemera or snatches from personal letters or diaries. Informal, vernacular, somewhat decontextualized. Making the pendant a sort of simulated palimpsest. Palimpsest, fragment, artifact, treasure.

That's Mars Orange on there-- what did I ever do without iron oxide pigments? Oh, and raw umber too, but I feel far less passionate about the umbers. Raw or burnt.

Just finished a batch of these little guys yesterday. I was going for an elegant look with these-- elegant, a little conservative, yet still organic, earthy, and off the beaten track. Green and blue pigments dusted onto textured cotton paper, accented with 24k gold leaf and floated atop a layer of resin that integrates the hammered wire loops. Handmade ear wires.

I've got all kinds of different colors of these, but this shade is my favorite.