Motifs

I am really loving stylized nature motifs. I have never been one for realism (probably because I'm not very good at it! And also because I think sometimes the feeling and spirit of a thing is lost in the effort to reproduce it in a realistic manner). Some artistic traditions excel at this sort of stripping down of the object to its most meaningful parts. I recently have become enamored with Persian, Turkish, Islamic designs/motifs. Thanks to the glory of the interwebs and used books and I am now well supplied with research material:

Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate new ideas into my jewelry.

My poor fingers

Wow. Not the best day in the studio.

More Old Stuff

What do I love about this? Well, I'm not so hot on the floral applique pieces on the upper twisted part. It looks a little cartoony to me. But I loooove the egg noodle twist going on there. The main attraction here for me is the enameling right before the knot. That overlapping blue and green scale type pattern just hits a sweet spot for me. I love blue and green (those two shades particularly). This pattern haunts my thoughts. And then of course the reef knot. I'll try to show you another example of a fantastic reef knot later. I'm pretty sure that interlocking curved shape will show up in my work at some point.

Next,

Swoon. Everything about these rings is awesome. The construction (check out the crazy shanks!) to the gold (yellow!) to the interesting stone setting choices. I love the flat sort of tiled look to the big round one and the crazy intricate urn set with a flat (semi-rounded?) stone. So much presentation! Sometimes a ring just becomes a vehicle for a stone, but these all have stones, but that isn't their raison d'être. The ring part isn't just there for the stone. The are a cohesive unit. The stones might even be sort of an afterthought really. But I love it.

Solitaires go marching one by one

Okay, I know that bright orange wax is probably not the best thing to give the idea of a white metal (or maybe 18kt yellow?), but I wanted to run this by someone (anyone?), it is just a simple solitaire, but the band is slightly thicker and carved with facets. Into the facets I see tiny stones. That is what the black dots are. Haven't quite decided to follow through, but that is what is hanging around on my wax table. I also have this giant blingy thing that I am wanting to get out soon. I bought these GIANT cubic zirconia, and they are so fun and sparkly that I am working on a big costume cocktail ring. :-)

Have a great weekend!

What I am loving at the moment

I love old jewelry. I love it with a passion. I love the way it isn't perfect, I love the way it is unabashedly about the materials and the beauty. It's not self-conscious, it doesn't need a reason for existing. It is its own reason. Art jewelry is fun and sometimes thought provoking, but to me, the point of jewelry is primarily about the beauty. I'm sorry. I love art. I'm an illustrator in my spare time, but seriously. Jewelry to me is precious metals and fantastic stones. It is about the aesthetic value of the object and about what effect it is trying to have on the wearer. Jewelry can be a form of body modification to me. Adornment. Beautifying. When something becomes more about the idea than the object, it ceases to be jewelry in my mind. It might have the physical form of jewelry, but it is now a piece of wearable sculpture or something like that. Some pieces can be both, and I have great admiration for the jewelers/artists who pull that off. Until I reach that level, I will continue to worship at the altar of yellow gold. ;-)

These pictures are all taken from this fabulous jewelry book called 7000 Years of Jewelry. Expect to see more of it in the next couple of weeks as I work my way through it (over breakfast every morning. Nothing like crazy gorgeous pictures to get a person off to the studio in a mood for creating!)

Fancy Shindig

So we got all dolled up ( and by we I mean the shop monkey and I. He looked so hot! I wish he would wear fitted pants more often! Maybe I should make that part of the Shop Monkey uniform?) and headed downtown. It was boiling hot and I was wearing a tight black dress, so not really dressed for the weather. But the place was nice and cool and they had fabulous eats and drinks and we met the Shop Monkey's brother there. My studio mate and former studio mate were also there, so that was fun, seeing everyone looking nice, instead of covered in shop dust!

Finally got a copy of the current issue of Oregon Bride (they were giving them away on the way out). It was very exciting to see my jewelry in print (is that what you say for photographs?). But they, of course, photographed the male ring with the solder seam facing towards the camera. The seam never shows in most lights, but whatever they were using to light the jewelry for the photographs made it glaringly obvious. To me anyway. I hope most people wouldn't notice...:-( But it was awesome anyway! Yay!

I have returned

Well, my last two weeks were sort of restful. Even though I was still working in the studio, the psychological relief of having my Etsy shop closed was nice. But I am ready to be back. I've reopened on Etsy, with a few changes. Also some new designs, with more to come. I have some blue diamonds on the way, and I really hope to have something new and different ready for the end of the week. So stay tuned. Until then, I have this new eternity ring finished just today to share. I'm not sure what to call these new eternity bands. It is easier for me to remember a design when talking to someone about them if they use the name. A description like "it was a white metal with small diamonds" all around doesn't really tell me exactly what they are talking about. But a name for each thing really helps me to identify just what piece they mean. What should I name this?


And what about the other two new ones? There is one with 5 diamonds all in a row, and then one (soon to be a set of three) with six diamonds spaced asymmetrically around the band. I think I will call that one the scattered band? No? Diamond scatters? Constellation bands? Coming up with names is the hardest thing to do, without sound pretentious and/or ridiculous. Help!

Mini-Hiatus

I don't know if any of you readers (if there are many?) have been by my shop, but it has been closed for the last two weeks. I was just a tad overwhelmed and I was starting to have work nightmares. Those of you who make jewelry can relate, maybe? The kind of dream where you are working on something and then you make a horrible mistake and the piece just crumbles to dust (or something equally horrible). Am I the only jeweler/metalsmith who has these dreams?

So, these last couple of weeks I've been steadily working away on previous orders. I think I took on too much and just couldn't handle it all. It is hard to gauge what exactly I can do in a day, and I'm always a little overly optimistic. Everything seems so easy, until I am actually doing it. This job requires so much concentrated attention. When you need to focus, only 100% focus will do. It can be draining, for sure. So, for mental health reasons I decided to take a personal day...or, um, week...two weeks. It hasn't been totally complete, since I have still been working and trying to answer emails. I even took a few orders each week, but I think I should have waited on those. Summer is just so hard, since so many people are getting married and they NEED jewelry by a certain date. I always feel so bad. When someone has their heart set on a certain piece for their engagement/wedding, I feel like I should do all I can to get it to them. So I end up saying yes, when I perhaps should say no, since it stresses me out. But I just can't!! People are so nice, and I always find it so flattering when someone wants to buy my stuff that I just can't tell them no.

___________________

Well, I am getting ready to reopen. There will be some changes, new designs etc. I will also be discontinuing some items. Mainly my silver wedding sets and other silver jewelry. I will still be offering silver items, but mostly pre-made bangles, simple rings and earrings etc. Those will be first come first serve and I won't be taking custom orders in silver at all. If I have made something is silver for a mold, I might offer it as a sample sale. New items in palladium will also be available as sample sales. I will also not be making the eternity rings anymore (I don't think). I will have eternity rings, just not the ones I have been making. I had come to dread it anytime someone ordered one of those, since the stone setting was quite laborious and time consuming. I have to do this because otherwise I will be too busy to do things that I really enjoy doing, like designing, drawing and carving new stuff in wax. I know that some people will be disappointed about this decision, but I have to do what I have to do to maintain my sanity. I can't keep working at the pace that I have been in the last year, it will burn me out. I would like to continue loving what I do.

___________________

The fall/winter issue of Oregon Bride magazine comes out this month. A wedding set of mine will be featured in it. It is very exciting for me, but I'm not sure what effect it will have on my business. But exposure can't be bad. :-) The Shop Monkey and I will be going to a fancy cocktail party thing next week that the magazine is sponsoring (?? I'm actually not exactly sure who is holding it, but we got the invites through the magazine). I'm not exactly well versed in fancy parties, but I think I will like dressing up. And seeing the Shop Monkey all spiffed up will be super awesome too. :-)

___________________

I'm still experimenting with taking photos of my rings on people. Mostly just myself at the moment, since my lady friends are scattered all over the place (Alaska, Thailand, Arizona). But I am sort of planning (she doesn't know yet) to use my one Portland girlfriend as my model. She has gorgeous hands (tiny!), and is gorgeous in general. I think using someone else will make it easier to have a model, since I feel too self-conscious about myself in pictures. I don't want people to think I'm self-absorbed (although, I probably am! Aren't we all to some extent?) And it is really hard to take pictures of yourself anyway. See below. I feel all myspacey.

Okay, well, I've got to get to work to prepare for my "grand" (re)opening. I've also got a stand alone website in the works, but I had underestimated how hard it is to build one of those things. Anyone know of a good webdesigner? Recommendations would be much appreciated!

Finally!

I posted about this a little bit earlier this month, but I have finally finished the project, thank goodness. Sometimes a project can really take it out of you for various reasons. I was telling my sister the other day that running your own business is like being in school perpetually. You always have something unfinished hanging over your head....lingering in the back of your mind....spoiling your weekends. Just like the guilt I used to feel about papers I needed to finished (or start!) writing.

But now I can put this one to rest....finally.

Still loving the palladium

It is much harder to clean and polish, but I just love the feel and look.

Old style, new metal.

And the 2nd

Also pure palladium and diamonds. I liked them stacked together, but I have a vision of the bottom one stacked with two others just like it. I wonder if the top one would look good as a stack of 3 as well? I am really loving the palladium, it seems to be awesome for the actual stone setting, but drilling the pilot hole is going to kill me. It's terrible. Like the metal is elastic or something. Argh. Nothing is perfect, I guess and I will just have to get adjusted. Of course, I will be making this in other metals as well so I won't always have to be breaking tiny drill bits.

Update (7/5): I got some fancy new drill bits that are made for harder metals and they work fantastic. Having the right tool makes all the difference.

Working out the kinks

(oy vey)

Things are going well in the shop of Bean (also known as singleB studio, sometimes known as the B painbox)....but I am having a very frustrating jewelry week. Let me explain.

1) I had a casting company cast a couple of pieces (my casting operation is on hiatus for the time being...when things slow down I will start casting again. I think I've figured out my issues. My sprues were too circular, they needed to be more elongated. Anyway, that's neither here nor there). That would have been awesome, except that the alloy that they used (named 14kt palladium white gold) was way yellow. Not at all the beautiful color of the normal palladium white that I use. So, I had these two giant gold rings of a terrible yellow gray color. I freaked out because, one of them is already late (yes, I'm sorry potential customers, sometimes I am behind schedule. I don't think I've ever missed anyone's wedding date however!). And what to do with these two ugly rings!?!? And I was so disappointed because I was really hoping to use this caster in the future for some more things. So I called them and it turned out that the alloy they used was from Stuller (great for stones, not so great for metal), not Hoover and Strong. But they were totally great and told me to send them back, along with new waxes and they would cast them again in the Hoover and Strong alloy and also that they would keep that casting grain in stock for me. How great is that?

2) I've been working on a gold version of this ring:


I'm very exited about it. It involved a multi-step process in order to get it going. First, I had to create a model in silver, then I had to have a 3 piece mold made, then make a wax from the mold, and then cast the piece in the final metal (in this case 14kt palladium white gold). Unfortunately for me, the shrinkage in size caused by the wax shrinkage (when shot into the mold) and then metal shrinkage when is is finally cast made the setting for the stone in the final product a bit marginal. The height of the setting was just .50mm higher than the height of the stone. This meant that the stone point (the culet) would possibly touch the finger. Suck. So now, I have this giant and heavy gold ring that I can't use. Fortunately, it is an easy fix if a little time consuming. I just added a little bit of wax to the setting on a new wax shot from the mold I had made (I also altered the ring on the inside to make it smooth instead of triple banded, still maintaining the 3 bands on the outside), and then send the current ring to the refiner. There is a bit of loss to me, but better than eating the entire cost. It was just really frustrating. There are so many factors that you have to take into account, and that I just couldn't foresee. But now I know, and I will never be caught like this again. :-)

I also finally have some of the stones I need for a few new designs, and I hope to have those out this week. There will also be a ring with blue diamonds, but I have yet to get those, so that one will have to wait until next week. So excited. This is why I got into doing this. I love making jewelry in general, but there is something so refreshing about working on a new item.

Dental Tool Redux

Finally. It took about a month to get these, but I think they are worth it. I get my dental tools from Interguide Dental, a company in the bay area.

Doot Doot Doo!

I'm in love this ring (I'm wearing it right now! Diamonds and palladium). I'd been hesitant to work in pure palladium....I don't know why. I just didn't know what to expect. Well.....it is a freaking stone setters dream! Oh my goodness. I can't say enough good things. It just feels so different for some reason (probably all in my head, but it feels smooth and soft). This is just one of my new designs (there are 6 in various stages of doneness currently). It's so exciting to have new things to work on. It's also a little nerve-wracking since I've never put out so many new things all at once. What if they all tank? I won't be heart broken, but I will be disappointed since I think they are all lovely (and they all fit me! hehehehe..).

The one above is meant to stack with at least two other ones just like it. One is sparkly, but a stack of them would be super sparkly (expect pictures of that next week). I also think a stack in different colors of gold would be fantastic. I'm toying with the idea of offering the first of new designs as a sample sale. No resizing, no alterations, you just get the item in the photos for a screaming deal....

Ok, this is just one of the new items I plan on putting out this week and next. Very excited!

New Stuff This Week!

At least one new ring coming out this week. I promise! I am so excited for these to be finished. They are a bit different from my current stuff, so I'm nervous too. They will all be in pure palladium, but I will be making them in white and yellow gold as well. Stay tuned.

(Yay!)

My poor finger

I am always doing this. I guess I get a little eager with the saw. :-(

Studio Thursday

Does This Float Your Boat?

I get excited just looking at this picture. Seriously.

The right tool for the right job. Wow. What a difference a good tool can make. When I first tried carving wax, I made the mistake of using the crappy, awkward, clumsy things that pass for wax carving tools in the jewelry supply catalogs. What a waste of time and $$$. It's like they were made for hacking at a large block of wood or something. You know those plastic tools that they make for children? That is what the general quality/usefulness of "wax carving" jewelry tools are compared to dental tools. Oh, shiny, pokey, beautiful dental tools! I can't get enough of you. There are so many shapes! Almost all of them fantastic!

Dental tools. I love you.

Here are a couple of tips for making jewelry, but that I also think apply to life in general:

1) Use the largest tool possible for the job.

2) Do things in order (i.e. don't skips steps. You will just have to start all over again.)

3) Things take time. Small steps lead to progress. Almost nothing can be made/done in one swoop.

Ok, that is all I had to say. Have a great Friday everyone!

Man Hands

(I especially like the stunned look on my face!)

I think I might need to find someone else to model my rings. I have giant hands. Way out of proportion to the rest of my body, and I think someone with more regular lady hands might be able to provide scale for the rings better than me. Really, look at my hands in comparison with my face. I wish I could take a picture of my hand next to a regular sized woman hand. I'm not being weird here, my hands really are large. (I love my hands and I'm not imagining things.)

And now that I'm 30, how long will my hands look good? I mean really, I work with them all day long and they are bound to start looking like older lady hands at some point (some point soon?).

Well, that was all I had to say. I was photographing a set of rings this morning and the largeness of my hands struck me (not for the first time. I would say my hands have been larger than at least 96% of all my past boyfriends hands, truly).

Sneak Peek

There are 4 waxes of new designs, ready to be cast. Here is quick look at two:

I'm visualizing the bottom band as a stacking wedding ring, with 3 or 4 stacked together. I'm going to do it in pure palladium, and set it with diamonds. But I can see many different combinations. The top band I think would look great stacked with another like it, or alone. I'm super excited for them to be finished!