...and yet I only brought cold food to the gallery today. What was I thinking??

Right now I'm thinking there's a Starbucks up the street with hot breakfast sandwiches...I may just have to put a note on the door and run up the hill!

Hope you're all keeping warm on this crisp, beautiful, not quite winter day!

 

Peace!

I guess it's safe to say I am not the most computer savvy person in the room at any given time, but this morning at the gallery I took some photos, managed to load them on the laptop, managed to find them again once I changed screens, edit a photo, and upload it to the jewelry studio!

Excuse me if I'm feeling a little pleased with myself right now. However, I also turned the stupid camera on the laptop on, and have not got a clue on how to turn it off again. Oh well, that might be a lesson for another day. Thankfully there is the Google, maybe there is an answer there, lol.

In the meantime, these chainmail earrings feature a captured 4mm Blue Adventurine stone bead, and sparkle beautifully in the light and in the shadows, and can be found at Joye Designs in Port Moody, where I'm hanging out today :)

Peace!

I'm working at Joye's (soon to be mine) Gallery again today. The debit machine stopped working earlier and after the initial panic I got myself together, called the vendor and figured it out. Voila! Back up and running. The funny thing is that I have many years of experience problem solving in very challenging and busy environments, and yet my brain went blank when I tried and re-tried to get the machine to initialize, before stopping and thinking, "what would you do if you were at your regular job right now?". Oh yeah...duh...call the vendor. My creative brain needs to remember that this is actually a place of business, even if I do spend much of my day here designing jewelry and selling beautiful objects to beautiful people.

In a way it reminded me of how much I have yet to do before all this becomes my responsibility! Insurance, business license, inspections, advertising, and on it goes! If you're like me, one of the most challenging aspects of being an artist is the business side of promoting yourself, staying organized, keeping track of costs, etc. etc. In a perfect world that would all take care of itself (including your work magically selling itself) but the reality is that the creative and the business aspect go hand-in-hand, and I need to get down to the business of taking over a business.

Oh boy. This is getting serious!

Peace!

Well, yesterday I bit the bullet and purchased a Pepe Tools jump ring maker. After over a decade of hand-cutting my jump rings it's going to take some getting used to! I'm a little intimidated by the thing, but broken down I still hand coil the wire, load it into the jig, etc, but a blade attached to the Foredom does the actual cutting.

Call me old fashioned, but I'm a tad skeptical. I hope to try it out today, and if I don't cut off any fingers I'll let you know how it goes :)

Peace!

 

 

I swear, I know my work space is brand new to me and not completely set up yet, but my hands keep reaching for things that aren't where they were, and I keep knocking things over that ARE there

On the bright side, I did some more unpacking today, and the familiar sight of things I've collected over a lifetime (not hoarded, as a certain someone in my life claims) did provide at least a small feeling of "It's getting there"...now all I need to do is not knock it over!

Peace!

Spent the last week trying to make some sort of sense of the new workshop space at the new house. After so many years working in the same space, I've got to say I'm feeling about as discombobulated as can be (and no, I don't know how to spell discombobulate but you get my meaning :) 

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Last night I was able to finally sit at my workbench and get a ring pre-polished and into the tumbler, and cut some jump rings to bring to the gallery today to try and get some weaving done. Small steps to be sure, but the first ones I've been able to make in what seems like a very long time (even though it really wasn't)  so I'll take it!

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I had (stupidly) promised the ring to a client for last week, not taking into account the never-ending move and the fact that my workshop was disassembled. it means going straight into the workshop once I get home from the Gallery today...and yes, I am 100% okay with that, and happy to be able to walk into that space and have at least some idea of where at least a few tools are, a chair to sit on, and a work bench to call my own again.

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And as an added bonus, I get to spend the next few days working at the gallery, which is always a good thing. Can't wait until January!

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Peace!

 

It seems like for the last few weeks I've either been packing boxes, loading boxes, unloading boxes, or driving those damn boxes to their respective destinations. At this point the house is almost completely dismantled, but the other one is nowhere near mantled! I've been putting off taking apart my workshop for obvious reasons...still have two commissions on the workbench, and yet now I have to start packing it all away, and hopefully setting it all up as quickly as I can again so I can continue working.

After 23 years in my home, there are obviously things I will miss. My son grew up in this house, though he's long moved on into his own place. This house has seen many friends come and go, new people come into our lives, people have moved on, I've lost family members, and seen my family grow.

I've grown myself in this house, hopefully matured as a person, but also as an artist. The workshop in the back has saved my life, literally, on more occasions than I can count. The workshop went from an empty room with some promise to the place where I created carvings, paintings, sketches, and of course, jewelry. Twenty three years of a simple room becoming a sanctuary. Now the trick will be to set up the new workshop to be as effective as this one has been. While it may have looked like chaos to those that visited, to me it was always just right. My hands always knew where to reach out for the right tool, the ever present stereo, files, saws, silver wire and sheet, along with copper and brass, and I could always find the ashtray without even looking, ha-ha.

The trick will be to create a new sanctuary as good as the old. Hopefully it won't take 23 years to figure it out! This weekend is the move to the new home. January 1st is the move to the gallery and another new and wonderful beginning.

Hopefully I'll be awake for it!

Peace!