Hello!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog! It's all very exciting. I'm not sure where to start; I was going to do a formal introduction of some sort, but have decided against. You, dear reader, will get to know me gradually through my posts, and that'll be better than a one or two paragraph attempt at a summary that no one will read anyway once I get going. I suppose that filling out my profile would help also.

For now, I'll just mention that I'm a jewelry artist/ paper artist. I'll be talking about my mad experiments here, updating twice weekly.

Last year (well, starting in midsummer really) was my first year doing this professional artist thing full-time and in earnest; I got to do some local shows and enjoyed getting to talk with people about my work. One question I kept getting at each show was whether my work was made from recycled paper. Well, the answer was no. I have a few styles of jewelry that I make, but I've been using brand spanking new cotton art papers for all of them, mostly because they stand up to the things I do to them in the way that my homemade paper just won't.

But it did get me thinking, and I vowed that as soon as the holidays were over, I'd work on incorporating recycled paper into my work somehow. I've just started (saving all my scraps and buying a new blender), but am already VERY excited about the results. I didn't want to just do recycled paper versions of my current styles, but to offer something different. Finally I came up with it: cuff bracelets (or are they bangles? Not sure about the difference. Anyway, they're wide and you slide them on over your hand). I'm in the process of applying the finish to the first two now-- I'll post pictures here in a couple of days. What's so wonderful about it for me is the sheer amount of space for text on them-- I can have some fun with layout and composition that a 1-inch square pendant just does not afford. My imagination is working quicker than the glue will dry. Stay tuned.