my savior

i would like to introduce you to trevor, who has become a savior to me. he lives next door; his grandparents are my dear neighbors, mike and jane. he is a high school student who attends a remarkable alternative school nearby.

when i started to feel overwhelmed with preparing for the moab show, i had the idea to ask him if he could help me out a bit. i am friends with the guidance counselor at his school and i inquired with her about getting him school credit for being my "apprentice". so the arrangement is beneficial for both of us.

he is a really cool kid. what i did not expect was for him to turn out to be such a, pardon my french, badass! having him around is like having three assistants. he has totally saved me.

for example, today he buffed almost all of these earrings (on the buffing wheel, which is very tricky)

he cut out all of the circles for my lantern bead caps, punched holes in them, domed them, ground them down with the foredom, and even soldered the posts, so that all i had to do was assemble them

he also cut and ground on the grinding wheel 6 pairs of large spirals, and cut bars from 6 gauge square wire for pendants. all today, while i worked on necklaces. i truly do not know what i would do without him! what's especially cool is that the other day he told me that he thinks he may want to pursue jewelry making as a career. (i was his age when i took my year-long silversmithing class at the local community college and vowed to do it for a living.) thank you, trevor!

the above necklaces are an example of some of the more simple pieces i have been working on for moab. and i made the below necklaces because the stones are so "desert-y", don't you think?

and hello from miss isobel!