soon to heal

i've recently been given some incredibly gorgeous raw amethyst beads (i'll give you three guesses who gifted them to me. oh, did you say patty? you are correct!) i came up with a simple, wire-wrapped design for some less expensive necklaces and earrings to sell at the upcoming pub show. i love how they turned out and decided to go ahead and list them on etsy as well.

there is no purple like the purple of raw amethyst. it's a sunset fading, it's windows closed and evening setting in, children fidgeting around the table as god puts his paint brush away, returns it to his cup of water to start the night and our canvas of dreams empty and black. purple is a bruise, proof of injury and healing, the pain of getting better, the under skin sensitive, a telltale sign that you will make it through this, no matter how grandiose and magnificent you've made it to be, how bold and italicized the set back, it's merely that, a slight bump in the road, a diversion.

like the times you'd take scraps of paper as a child and put them in the center of the road where the rain made rivers and you'd follow your boat, straighten it's path, remove obstacles that threatened the integrity of it's hull, occasionally cheating and picking up and moving down and away from shallow waters, a thought and notion followed until the river ended and you were left to walk back up the hill to the beginning, to yourself and thoughts left waiting to be picked up and combed through all over again. you always have to go back. you always start again. you will heal.

amethyst is a stone of healing. like the bruise that you can watch fade away, bit by bit each day, it will help you to know that you are getting better.

i also redid the chain on my california necklace. my little idea with the discs with lyrics on it didn't really work. they kept flipping over and wouldn't lay right. (see it here.)

so i did bars instead. now it is perfect!

today we went for a lovely desert hike.









i will be out in the shop all day tomorrow and will have some new pieces to list for you!

heaven help us!

are you aware that the cost of silver is up to $28.57 (per troy ounce) today??? this is outrageous! when i very first started silversmithing, about 3 1/2 years ago, it was around $11. here's what i just found out when i did some brief research:

The extraordinarily bullish fundamentals of the Silver Market suggest, at current prices, that investing in silver could offer investors one of the single best long-term investments today. It is no secret that both gold and silver are recognized as a store of value. What is not so well known is that while gold has demonstrated a solid trend of price appreciation since 2001, more than doubling in price, the price of silver has recently outperformed that of gold.

In fact, between July 1, 2003 and November 30, 2006, the price of gold increased approximately 84%, while the price of silver increased more than 200%. In addition, there is a compelling argument for silver investing because the economic and monetary fundamentals in place today are even more bullish than the conditions of the 1970s when the silver price exceeded $50 per ounce. Yet today's market prices, at well below the $50 level, are a mere fraction of levels projected by silver industry experts for the future.

i am very afraid.

raise your head high

i completed a new piece today.

the "raise your head high" necklace

with rutilated quartz

labradorite, prehnite, aquamarine, moonstone

and ostrich

with a hook.

(this hook will be showing up again in my designs. it is to assist you in attaining those things you are trying to grasp that are just out of your reach.)

as a totem animal, an ostrich is said to help with grounding.

this particular ostrich (let's call her olive) is struttin' her stuff, with her head held high and a sweet little moonstone soul

this labradorite marquis is to die for.

"may you be grounded and rooted in love"

(Ephesians 3:14-19)

i also made another new design, the "temptress twig" earrings

in botswana agate

freshwater pearl

peridot

and amethyst

all of these pieces will make their way to the shop tomorrow!

saturday in dolores...

so that indian summer i was talking about is back again it seems. we've had the most delicious, beautiful, scrumptious weather again. i had sort of a strange injury happen this week, an all-of-a-sudden excruciating pain in my leg, (which, according to my fantastic massage therapist, turns out to be an extension of my problems with my back, which stem from an old injury, which all is connected to how i treat my body while i am out in the shop) so i couldn't do much in the way of outdoor activity. we decided it would be a good day to take the girls to visit lowry ruins, an ancestral puebloan site nearby.

we had a lovely picnic

and the girls found some kind of strange teepee to play in

then we dressed up for an all girls, fancy dress up martini party

(this is one of those photos where you really lament that it is out of focus)

there was a "photobooth" set up there, by a very clever local artist.

i can't wait to see her shots!

my gray dress that i bought for the durango show is about as fancy as i get. when we got there, and hazel saw all of the fancy shmancy ladies in their vintage best she said "mommy, you're really not that pretty."

speaking of shows, i will be doing the local dolores holiday show this year. it is a fabulous annual event, held at the local brewery. everyone in town comes to do their christmas shopping, drink beer, and hang out. (here's a photo from the show two years ago.) i need to get busy making stuff for it!

it will be a huge help that hazel has gone ahead and decided on full-day kindergarten. we sat down and made a pros and cons list. it turns out that the only two cons were "i will miss mommy." and "mommy will miss me." but there was a long list of pros, so we decided to give it a shot. it turns out she loves it. i am so happy for her, and i have to admit, i feel a sense of relief that i can have more time out in the shop. my time out there is so very important to me for so many reasons. most importantly it allows me the time that i so desperately need to connect with myself, to feed my spirit, and to recharge my battery so that i can balance my life and be the best mom i can for these guys.

on my way out there now!

who knows how to make love stay?

i have recently come across an old cache of my books and have been re-reading them. it is delightful! you know the heraclitus saying, "you cannot step into the same river twice"?, well i now believe the same is true of books. this may be the very same book that i read back when i was 17, but it is not at all the same experience reading it today. now i want to go back and read all of my favorites again.

anyway, if you've read this book, you know that one of the themes is "how to make love stay?" i thought that question deserved a necklace.

the book also talks an awful lot about the moon, (in case you do not know tom robbins, he says things like "inessential insanities get one in trouble with oneself. essential insanities get one in trouble with others. it is always preferable to be in trouble with others. in fact, it may be essential. inessential insanities are solar; essential sanities are lunar.") so i thought that maybe a moonstone was appropriate.

a lovely, plump, teardrop shaped one

the chain is sprinkled with all sorts of fun nuances, just like the story. there are moonstone, rose quartz, and smoky quartz briolettes and beads, and all kinds of fun dangles. i've also thrown in an assortment of hill tribe thai silver beads to mix things up a bit.

according to mr. robbins,

1. tell love you are going to junior's deli on flatbush avenue in brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake and if love stays, it can have half. it will stay.

2. tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. burn the hair in a dime store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. face southwest. talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. tell love you are someone new. it will stay.

3. wake love up in the middle of the night. tell it the world is on fire. dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be alright. fall asleep. love will be there in the morning.

how about you?

do you know how to make love stay?

please share.

this here is the "truth. clarity. recognition" necklace

with rutilated quartz, prehnite, and whiskey quartz

you know those times in your life where you go deep and you re-evaluate and you really look at what's going on in your life, what things mean to you, what you've lost, what you can let go of and what you need to recover? when things become clear and you recognize what is real? i am having one of those times right now. that's what this piece is about.

truth. clarity. recognition.

or nrecognitio if you would prefer

or even onrecogniti i suppose...

and a new "tranquility" ring

with the last of my beautiful big kyanite cabs

(the source that i was so excited about didn't really pan out.)

this one is amazing!

for some reason it seems important for me to tell you that i am suddenly obsessed with saladette tomatoes. junebug and i have been eating them like candy all afternoon...

and, the decemberists have announced that their new album, the king is dead, will be coming out january 18th! you can go here to download a free track.