EtsyMetal Blog Carnival - 7.11.11 - Artist Inspiration/Influence

This month's EtsyMetal topic is:

Artist's Work That Has Influenced My Own

It is a really interesting topic - particularly because I've tried to not be influenced too much by anyone and really prefer to try to find my own way. For a long time I didn't want to look too closely at any other jewelers' or metalsmiths' work. Going through art school - we were often assigned projects where we had to choose another artist and base something off of their work. I generally tried to pick artists far away from metal! For years I did a lot of mini nude female pendants and rings inspired by Gustav Klimt. I loved the flowy nature of their bodies in paintings like Medicine and Philosophy - which are a bit different than the standard you think of when you hear the name Klimt...

medicine

philosophy

You can read more about these paintings - on wikipedia of course!

Though to look at my work now, you probably wouldn't see the influence so much, but I know it is there.

Another artist I love that I think has influenced me on a deeper level is Andy Goldsworthy. If you aren't familiar with his work, you should check it out! His connection with nature is truly incredible as is his way of looking at patterns and attention to details.

Make sure to check out all the other participating EtsyMetal bloggers!

Theresa - http://tkmetalarts.blogspot.com
Kate Jones - http://www.katejonesdesign.blogspot.com
Fluxplay Jewellery (Maria Whetman) - http://www.fluxplay.blogspot.com
2Roses - http://www.jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com
Elizabeth Scott - http://esdesignsjewelry.com/blog
Andrea Ring- http://www.amuckdesign.blogspot.com
Nodeform - http://nodeform.blogspot.com/
Inbar Bareket - http://inbarbareket.net
Cynthia Del Giudice - http://cynthiadelgiudice.blogspot.com
Evelyn Markasky - http://markasky.blogspot.com/
AdobeSol - http://www.AdobeSol.com/blog
Quercus Silver - http://quercussilver.blogspot.com/

Inspiration

It's create your own quote day!!

Okay, so I doubt that is ever really a day... but today is mine!

I woke up super early this morning - feeling full of inspiration. So early, it was still dark and I was hoping to fall asleep again. Lots of thoughts were coming up, mostly about inspiration. Not just the inspiration for being an artist and being creative, but inspiration to DO things.

and the thought I had (here it is... my quote! and yes, you can quote me if you want)

Allow your inspiration to become action.

How often I am totally inspired by something, but nothing further than lovely and pretty thoughts. Which is great, the feeling of being inspired is wonderful. But it is totally another world to put that inspiration in to action and actually create something from it. Is there some sort of inspiration threshold. Something is SO inspiring it triggers some sort of action button in the brain? maybe... after thinking about it further though, I am going to work on it being an awareness - harnessing that inspiration and allowing it to come out.

What am I so inspired about... skydiving. Elephant Journal posted this video (loove the elephant journal) and it nearly brought me to tears (not so much the swimming w/ the sharks or base jumping from the Eiffel tower) as the gliding in the special flying squirrel suit - which after some reading is apparently called proximity flying. and the song is amazing - I bought the album and now I think about skydiving when I listen to it...



I've only been skydiving once (tandem, wonderful present for my 25 bday from my boyfriend/now husband), but it was possibly the most amazing feeling ever. My thought at the time was, "when I have the money, I'm going to take lessons." Then it was more like, "when I have the time, I'm going to take lessons." And that is currently where I am - finding the time to have a "hobby", much less a hobby that needs to be taken seriously. I can't even seem find the time to paint - which wouldn't require going anywhere or buying anything! But skydiving is something I want to do, not something I want to have only done once. So my goal - within the next year, go tandem again. Get that feeling back first hand, not just the fabulous feeling of watching an inspiring video. (which by the way, Roberta, the gal in the video, is only a year younger than I am) Then I'll talk to them about the specifics of taking lessons. Sounds reasonable right? Making a (very public) declaration I find is also extremely helpful in following through.

But even more than this one instance - it really has sparked this internal dialogue of what inspiration is. Not just what is inspiring, but what do you do with that inspiration? What do I do with that inspiration?

EMJC-PR6.11 - Create a Complimentary Look

I missed last week's challenge, which makes me sad, though I will go back and 'make it up'. This weeks challenge was to create a complimentary look for one of our best pieces. I was torn between the wedding challenge and the create a character challenge, but had a good idea of some simple and pretty complimentary earrings for the wedding challenge, so that is what I picked!
They are fused argentium sterling silver and 14k gold. I like adding a patina to the silver to high light the gold even more.

Make sure to check out the Etsymetal blog for the rest of this week's entries!

EMJC-PR6.7 - blue

EMJC-PR6.7 - blue
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

All done with this week's! It worked out great that a wholesale gem dealer came to the continuing ed jewelry class last night and I bought this huge piece of lapis for the challenge. I had other ideas of something I wanted to try, but it didn't work so well. So this is the piece! You can see a lot more photos on flickr.

check out the etsymetal blog later this afternoon for more blue entries - they are really fabulous this week!

EMJC-PR6.6 - Create a Character

This week's challenge was a fun one and something that is closely related to ideas of what I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Create a story that includes special jewelry pieces and then create the pieces to go with the story. I wanted to do something a little over the top this week and I think I might have succeeded. Enjoy!

The Story:
Ara spread out her hands, stretching and contracting them. She’d been sitting at her computer too long and her hands were going numb. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it again, the web, but knew if she tried to look at it, it would be gone again. So instead she just looked past the screen out the window at the city lights. How something could be so dark and lit up at the same time she would never understand and didn’t want to. New York City. It was not her city and it never would be. She’d been here a year, living in the cubicle called an apartment (which thankfully had a nice view) and she still didn’t know her way around. She doubted she ever would.

The buildings made her sense of direction completely off, cut off more like it. Cut off from nature, the trees, the sky, the sun even.

But being in The City, that was the dream wasn’t it? Every 20-something wanting to make it big. She’d been writing free-lance for the past 6 months and as glamorous as she liked to make it sound, the $400 a month it earned her was barely a drop in the bucket.

This latest article was for the blog World Wide Weavers - Spiders of the Interwebs. Lynyphiidae - Sheetweb Weaver Spiders brought in a whopping $50. The sad thing was that she had spent the last 3 hours staring at the computer screen or out the window and hadn’t written more than four words. At this rate she calculated, she would probably be earning less than minimum wage by the time she finished it. She sat staring out the window so long that the screen went its hibernation blackness, maybe it was time for her to go to sleep as well. It was 2:00 am after all and she had to be up in three hours for her morning barista shift.

The wonderful comfy rolling chair made it easy to glide over to bed, fall sideways, and just ease right in to sleep, she was practically there anyway.



Almost as soon as her eyes closed they opened again. Staring up at the ceiling as the Spider twirled down from its web towards her face. She’d named it Charlotte for fun, it seemed more magical and less frightening, except there was no talking pig here.

Ara kept her eyes opened and watched as Charlotte climbed back up the thread and continued her construction. Or destruction as Ara knew it to be. Spiders were the first defenders of nature. A corner sat untouched for too long quickly becomes inhabited by a spider, especially a corner in her home. She tried vacuuming a couple times a week and it didn’t seem to do any good. The fact that she wasn’t sure which ones were ‘real’ and which ones ‘imaginary’ didn’t help matters either. They were simply drawn to her. She was their queen.



The sound of her alarm soothed her awake, it was ‘jungle noises’ this morning. A harsh contrast from the city noises. Even the early morning city noises of the “concrete jungle” were a far cry from soothing.

A quick shower and light make-up was all she needed. She left her clothes at work, Ara couldn’t stand the smell of coffee permeating her home as well. Her rumpled clothes she fell asleep in would do just fine for the quick subway ride to work. She figured she looked better than the average homeless person, so that was probably good enough. No need to look in the mirror. What she saw wasn’t what the rest of the world saw, so it seemed kind of pointless. Every once in awhile she still caught a glimpse. Her friends had thought it strange to not have a mirror in a bathroom, so she put up a small one. The hardened web that formed the crown on her head was the most striking and borderline silly aspect of her ‘otherness’. She was glad no one could see it. Finding a job was hard enough and she doubted it would earn any extra tips from the groggy caffeine deprived patrons.

And also glad that she couldn’t actually feel it. The last time she had was about 30 seconds after she had stepped through the Door. So much felt like a distant memory or a hallucination. She knew it was safer to just stay on this side.

EMJC-PR6.5 - Newspaper

I'm pretty happy with this week, although, I kind of wish I'd started on it earlier. This was my original idea and I kept procrastinating as I didn't feel it was very creative. I played around w/ some other things trying to get a different idea and when at the last minute, nothing - I went back to this one! My favorite part about it is the view from the back - how you can see the silhouetted tendrils through the paper.

The sun is shining.

Yup. Thats it. And it is beautiful.

EMJC-PR6.2 - "Pregnancy"

EMJC-PR6.2
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

All finished finally w/ the 2nd challenge.
This one was rather interesting - a pregnancy challenge. For the show - designing clothes for a pregnant belly is much different - so the interpretation really opened up a lot more for jewelry. A lot of us were really inspired by Malvin's interpretation, which though he got kicked off, was the most artistic interpretation of the theme.

My piece is fused sterling silver - my organic vine pattern that I created a 'ball' out of. It also reminds me of a birdcage. I filled it with these gorgeous yellow flowers - 4 o'clocks. They don't bloom during most of the day and when they are closed up, the rather look like scrambled eggs - or just plain scrambled egg yolks.

The chain is all handmade fused argentium sterling silver also. There is no clasp - so it is super easy to just slide right over your head! A little symbolism w/ a little practicality.

flush set practice - reclaimed sterling and diamond ring - w/ patina

flush set practice - reclaimed ring - w/ patina
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

Out of need I finally did my first flush set a couple weeks ago. It turned out amazingly easier than I thought it would be. I wondered if it was a fluke though. It was a ring that I had cast the diamond in place - the diamond got a little burned, so I smashed it out and decided instead of redoing the whole ring, I would attempt to set the stone first. It worked great!.

I did a second one a couple days ago. Same situation - a ring that had two stones cast in place - one was PERFECT. The other... split down the middle and the metal cast through the stone. And the color of the stone changed. It was so weird. I smashed the damaged one out and and set another to match the one cast in place. I was extremely pleased and you can hardly tell any difference. (and if you are wondering how I am doing this smashing, a nail or chasing tool and a hammer. works great and is actually very fun)

So, after the two 'out of need' setting situations - I decided to do a few intentionally. Which meant practicing on a ring that was just hanging around - I 'reclaimed' it (filed, hammered, made it lovely and tough looking) and then decided i might as well set 3. In my attempt to unevenly space them - they ended up being a little more even than I had planned. Which I find very ironic - though its hard to photograph it so you can see all three at the same time.

I was really happy w/ how it turned out. I photographed it with a heavy patina, and w/ just a light patina - since it was practice, i figured I might as play w/ it.

Its not perfect, but thats why its called practice! I do have to say that my friends, Sara and Clare have been a big inspiration with their lovely flush settings. I've been putting it off for a long time as any time I read tutorials, it just seemed extraordinarily difficult. Once again, reminding me that just working it out on my own is a better way for me to learn that trying to actually follow instructions. Reading the instructions was good - but then forgetting half of them and just winging it is what works best for me!

I love the setting, all tucked away and kind of hidden in the metal - not sticking up or getting in the way. I love the action of the setting too, using the metal of the ring to hold the stone in. I love the look of casting them in place, like the metal grew around the stone, but these are a close second... if not a tie!

Signature Style - EtsyMetal Blog Carnival

This is the second installment of the Etsymetal blog 'carnival'. The idea is that we'll pick a topic every so often and anyone that wants to will blog about that one topic - then we'll all link to each other so you can see the answer from other EtsyMetal members.

The topic or question for this one is about our signature style and how it came about or was inspired.

Mine pretty easily came to mind as I remember the course it took. Though I feel I sort of have 2 signature styles, I'm picking just one - my Organic Vine Collection - It all started w/ this pendant.

I was still very new to etsy and it was the first thing that sold the same day I listed it. Within a couple of hours even it had sold. That said to me "This is unique and desirable and eye-catching" It was also extremely fun to make - its all about fusing - my favorite thing - using a torch AND hammering.

It evolved in to the more current style pretty quickly once I found how easily Argentium sterling silver fused. This necklace was one of the first of the recent generation of the Organic Vine Collection.



I knew that I wanted to find something that would create a style and a look that was easily recognizable, but did not involve making the same piece over and over and over again. So I developed this collection. It is always fun to make, the pieces never turn out the same and I know that all of my customers are getting something truly unique.

As far as the inspiration for the name of the collection - it reminded me of vines obviously! particularly vines that grow up and over fences, gates, walls, etc... nature taking over.



I want to continue to evolve the collection. I have visions of what sort of pieces I can create. I want to do some body formed pieces - similar to this ring. But on an even larger scale.



So that is where it came from and where I hope to be going! And make sure to check out the other EtsyMetal participants for this topic:
cynthiadelgiudice.blogspot.com/
andescruz.ganoksin.com/blogs
andescruz.wordpress.com
daniellemillerjewelry.blogspot.com/
sarawestermark.blogspot.com/
etsymetal.blogspot.com/
ashleyakers.blogspot.com
tangerinetreehouse.blogspot.com
ninagibsondesigns.blogspot.com/
discomedusa.typepad.com/
kerinrose.blogspot.com

new possible photo style??

organic vine earrings - large - new possible photo style??
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

I've been wrestling with my photographs, well, since I started on Etsy! I have pretty much been in a constant evolution of updating my style, background, etc. I've been pretty consistent recently - but with the addition of more and more wedding rings - which I use a white background for - I had to let go of my obsessive need for making sure the same colors weren't 'touching'. Regardless of the fact that I try to have a very controlled lighting situation - I still get variances in the white - even with the same lighting and same camera settings. I understand the mechanics of why it happens, but it doesn't mean that I like it! (and THIS is why I am much happier I became a jewelry major instead of photography major - but that is a whole other topic!)

So back to my newest idea... Instead of using a green paper background, using a giant leaf on a white background. I can never seem to settle on one single green tone that I like better than others - and the variance in using leaves I think might be just perfect. As there are just some pieces, like my organic vine collection, that just do not turn out on a solid white background. The white would end up looking gray in comparison to my other whites and well, it just wouldn't do justice to the jewelry. I'm going to experiment with some real leaves - this was one lobe of a giant fig leaf - I also have a catalpa leaf I'm pressing. I'm hoping that by pressing them, I can have them last in their green state for much longer. My other option is to look for fake leaves and see if I can find some that might look natural - at least to the camera! Then come winter time, I won't have to worry about my backdrops going away!

My main concern in getting consistent photographs is that I really want to get my website set up. And I don't want to have totally random photos all together on a nice new website. Maybe I should just start with the wedding rings anyway - as I love how they all look together! The look of the mix of metal and natural materials (sticks and rocks currently) - all I need are leaves and I think the look would be complete. I don't think I'd ever particular stopped to think about what I wanted from my photographs, but I have had several people make comments about them looking peaceful. And I really like that. Its how I feel when I sit in the woods, stare out at a lake or look up at the sky. Peaceful is good.

Inspiration cont'd

So last friday etsymetal folks were blogging about our inspirations. I wanted to take part, but was super super busy and felt my posting was a little lacking. So I snapped some photos of some of my favorites.

my favorite tree. the bark, the leaves, the flowers, the 'bean' pods - I love everything about this Catalpa!


their flowers


roses smell so good I want to eat them


and these are some of my favorite flowers - I don't know what kind they are! But we have TONS of them and they make me happy