Month: January 2014

January reveals… the AJE component of the month

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(Please feel free to read the AJE post where I introduced these Mixed Media pieces, and discussed their construction.)

Jan CoM

January. Beginnings. Resolutions. Blank slate. Fresh start. Intentions. 

1:  a determination to act in a certain way :  resolve

2:  import, significance

3 a :  what one intends to do or bring about

   b :  the object for which a prayer, mass, or pious act is offered
 
4:  a process or manner of healing of incised wounds
 
When I designed this piece, I wanted something I could wear often, if not everyday. I had chosen a word for myself that was to be a talisman for the upcoming year. I wanted to wear it and be reminded to be present, in the moment, and to live with intention.  
Jan CoM collage

 

“Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen Hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.”

 Mary Anne Radmacher

The piece was in olive polymer, with accents of copper and teal. The teal was so subtle – I wanted to enhance it with gems. Here its apatite. The greens are green garnet, long a favorite of mine. Copper chain, bead caps and wire are the metallic notes. The jade? jasper? beads on one side in the back are sprinkled with apatite as well. The pearls on the other side do have a coppery sheen. 

I am deeply satisfied with the focal and the necklace overall and have worn it many times this month. I do have more of these mixed media pieces in the works – and will have them at Berks Bead Bazaar March 1-2. 

I look forward to exploring the creations of my AJE colleagues and the guest bloggers this month. Plese join me? Links are below. 

Guests:

Hope of Craftyhope –

Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry


AJE team

Jennifer Cameron

Diana Ptaszynski

Lesley Watt

Susan Kennedy

Caroline Dewison

Linda Landig

Melissa Meman

Keirsten Giles

Rebekah Payne

Kristen Stevens

For the love of lino…

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 This week is brought to you from the Dining Room table, my new temporary studio. I am tending a furry kid, who needs darn near constant watching… as he worked long and hard, in stealth, to remove his sutures. He is an angel IF I am in the room. 

DR studio

I have been working on my daily art journal cards – the ones to fill my vintage Rolodex. And I have been carving linoleum. 

Lino desk

There are new Celtic and mythic designs in the works. These lino blocks can be pressed into clay to create a detailed, low relief tile. Perfect for painting! There above – the Uffingtom horse, an ancient chalk figure from Britain. Below: previously carved Celtic knot, swirly cresent moon, with a test print of sorts, and a small triskele, perfect for pendants. 

Love Lino collage

I have always loved linoleum printmaking. And this was a focus of mine in San Diego when my ceramcis studio access was severely limited. I have been incorporating linoleum carved designs into my beads/pendants for a while, but I had a wonderful lightbulb idea… to create prints and tiles in tandem. My original drawings, whether my designs, or historical references; pressed into clay, printed onto paper. Working in a series, different colors, maybe some hand tinted prints. The idea is very exciting to me! (I wont be able to take these to all my shows as some jury processes are more limiting than others… )

Pendant designs

A trio of Celtic designs, all under 2″. I want to test them in clay today! 

Uffington stamp

Working in parallel series – the Uffington horse. Pressed into clay the horse design will be raised, allowing me to easily glaze the background and keep the horse white. 

 

Ok – off to the studio, I mean the dining room. I love my job! Stay tuned for test prints and test pressings on the FB page ASAP!

 

Marking time… a mark in time

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2014

I have a tendency to hibernate a bit at the beginning of the new year, write in my  journal, and make lists. I review the goals from the previous year. I write new goals for the current year. I browse the year’s worth of sketches and doodles – taking a walk back in time, and evaluate what ideas are interesting and inspiring to carry over.  So many marks in time, marks reflecting time, marks to allocate time. 

This January I made a different kind of mark. 

Making marks

January 4th was the two year anniversary – to the day – of major surgery. While that wasn’t the inspiration behind this design, it was an appropriate date to select as a celebration of health, happiness and moving forwards. 

The symbol is my adaptation of the Chalice Well lid – at Chalice Well in Glastonbury, UK. The design was adapted by my friend Kimberly of Goblin Bazaar – as she could get in my head, when I was in my own way… to simplify and clarify the design, and make it uniquely my own. 

Here is the actual Chalice Well design – in a painting by another dear friend, Jane Star Weils. 

Jane Star Weils Chalice well

 

 

Chalice Well is a holy well that sits at the base of Glastonbury Tor… ( I am finding it very hard to put words to the intense personal meaning that this site holds for me. Pardon me if I keep this a bit factual for now. ) 

The facts: 

  • Archaeological evidence suggests that the well has been in almost constant use for at least two thousand years. Philip Rahtz found several dozen flints from the upperPaleolithic and Mesolithic, and a sherd of Iron Age pottery nearby. Roman and medieval sherds were also found in more recent layers.
  • Water issues from the spring at a rate of 25,000 gallons per day and has never failed, even during drought. Iron oxide deposits give water a reddish hue, as dissolved ferrous oxide becomes oxidized at the surface and is precipitated. Like the hot springs in nearby Bath, the water is believed to possess healing qualities.
  • In addition to the legends associated with Glastonbury, the Well is often portrayed as a symbol of the female aspect of deity,  As such, it is a popular destination for pilgrims in search of the divine feminine, including Neopagans. The Well is however popular with all faiths and in 2001 became a World Peace Garden.
  • Wells often feature in Welsh and Irish mythology as gateways to the spirit world. The overlapping of the inner and outer worlds is represented by the well cover, designed by the church architect and archaeologist Frederick Bligh Bond and presented as a gift after the Great War in 1919. The two interlocking circles constitute the symbol known as the Vesica Piscis. In the well lid design, a spear or a sword bisects these two circles, a possible reference to Excalibur, the sword of the legendary King Arthur, believed by some to be buried at the nearby Glastonbury Abbey. Foliage represents the Glastonbury Holy Thorn. 

The lore: 

  • Legends link Glastonbury to Ynys Afallon, the Isle of Apples, also known as Avalon. Here resided a sisterhood of priestesses/faerie queens/healers… and it is to Avalon that the fatally wounded King Arthur was spirited away. 
  • Legends also relate tales of the Sidhe, or Fair Folk living in “hollow hills”. Glastonbury has always seemed to be a very fae place, where the veil between the worlds is thin. 
  • Legend says that after Jesus death, Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail to Glastonbury and that it was biried in Chalice well. The Glastonbury Holy Thorn is said to be Joseph’s staff, taken root. 
  • There are actually 2 wells at the base of the Tor, one red and one white. Symbolically these can represent blood/female and semen/male or, as I prefer – the milk and blood of the Earth/goddess/Gaia…

The symbol ( known as the vesica piscis ) itself appeals to me – as a representation of two worlds overlapping. Artist and teacher. Inner and outer. Personal and private. Body and spirit. Human and fae. England and Avalon. Above and below. And yes – its rather ironic that teachers all over use it as a Venn Diagram to illustrate commonalities between two seperate things. 

The design has elements that repeat in threes – three circles, sets of three dots, three swirls per side. Three is a powerful number in many spiritual traditions. Mind/body/spirit. Maiden/Mother/Crone. Earth/water/air. Youth/maturity/Age. 

Chalice well collage

Chalice well and Glastonbury Tor resonate with me on a deeply personal spiritual level. I was there on a pilgrimage of sorts in 1989, aged 20. I climbed the Tor every day…  Another visit at age 28. It seems I am overdue to return…

More information: 

Chalice Well Trust

Chalice Well wiki

Glastonbury

Avalon

Vesica piscis

 

 

Art Jewelry Elements – December “CoM” reveal

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How do you choose? When Rebekah of Tree Wings Studio revealed the December CoM to the AJE team – it was like Wall St. trading; talking over each other, debating, back and forth texts. A frenzy.  There were so many fabulous color palettes, some subtle, others bold, warm vs cool… Let me show you: 

Treewing Studio beads CoM

See what I mean? I fell in love with #1 right away. The high contrast of the dark blue and the white isnt my normal design preference,  but the subtlety of the green/aqua in the swirls/sides of the bead was so awesome. 

I wanted to accentuate the aqua which I love, and the rust, as I like the two together… 

Dec Com bracelet

Focal: Tree wings Studio

Beadcaps: White Clover Kiln

Ceramic rounds: Blueberri Beads

Gems: amazonite, pearls, goldstone

Misc: copper wire, daisy spacers, suede lacing 

Dec Com details

 

Now – this focal screamed bracelet to me because I wanted it to be center stage. While that could be a pendant too, I heard bracelet… The beads from Caroline/Blueberri were sitting on my work table at the same time and were the perfect muted aqua. Once I saw them together I could not seperate  them. I tried. They had former a bead gang, and were insisting on being linked together. 

Don’t you love it when the beads gang up on you? 

Thank you Rebekah for a wonderful bead! 

Please take a look at the other members creations, and those of our guests as well! 

 

Guest Designers:
Ann – Bead Love
Melissa – Bead Recipes
 
 
AJE Team:
Kristen – My Bead Journey
Susan – Sue Beads
Rebekah – Tree Wings Studio
Caroline – BlueberriBeads

 

 

 

Starting anew…

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Happy New Year! 

Meditation table

Yes, its the 2nd, and I am still honoring feelings of fresh starts, cleaning out the old, preparing for the new. Last year was a hectic mad dash to the holidays.  A mad dash that I felt was my state of operating – for the entire year. Many things DID get finihed, many loose ends neatly tied off and trimmed before December came to a close. Others? Well – January is the calendar’s Restart button. So I feel the slate is clean, and I look forward to the new year, its offerings, its potential, and its promise. 

Having said that – I dont do resolutions as much as I do “new beginnings”. I wanted to share with you a few things I have begun and will be endeavoring to continue as the calendar pages flutter by, as the wheel of the year spins… 

I am a collector of Tarot decks, and have probably a dozen. I tend to use the same few decks most frequently. I like to draw a card for the day, sit and ponder the message, sip on my coffee… It is the closest I come to meditating, but a few minutes of stillness to start the day is so beneficial. I was inspired to create wool/felted/embroidered/beaded bags for each deck. And then that grew into working with a deck a month… This month its the Druid Animal oracle deck, looking at totem animal, and animal symbolism from the Celtic/Druidic perspective. Written by Phillip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, it is exquisitely illustrated by Will worthington. In the back you see the bag I have started, upcycled from a felted wool sweater with a needle felted white horse ( ala Uffington) I still need to do details. 

Worthington's deck

The daily practice thread continues – into an art journal idea. A Rolodex card-a-day art journal. I can see the finished Rolodex in my mind’s eye, filled with color and texture, snippets and memories. The cards are so small – 4″ long – easy to travel with, and I am allowed to catch up if I miss a few days from business, sickness, etc. The idea to do a piece in 365 parts was inspired in part by Kirsty Hall.  Kirsty Hall is a British artist who did a 365 jar project.

Kirsty Hall Jar 365 in situ  KHall jar 365 detail

The 365 jars project has its own website. The project was interactive – jars were found, recorded on the site and adopted by their finders. Sadly Kirsty is in the UK, or else I would have been searching for a jar myself. It was fascinating and very inspirational to travel the year with her. While this is much smaller in scale and definitely more personal – I have to tip my hat to her! I have ordered a vintage metal Rolodex card file… but started on New Year’s day regardless. 

Rolodex sketchbook

Rolodex sketchbook2

One last venture – The Empty Shelf challenge. The idea of author Jon Acuff, the idea is to fill an empty shelf with the books you read over the course of the year. Well, I have no empty shelves, and read many things on the Kindle. So I am translating this to Instagram & Twitter, where I will be posting pix of finished books, and tagging them #emptyshelf. I have meant to do this many years running, and with the ease and fun of editing pix in Instagram – I may just achieve it. Many thanks to Jess of Rosy Revolver for bringing this to my attention! 

 

Please feel free to follow along – my Instagram ID is “jdaviesreazor and my Twitter ID is “JDRshrineart” 

I’d love to hear what you are reading, planning, or resolved to do in 2014!