inspiration

I am constantly inspired, by so much - looking around nature, cool iron gates. I really love rocks - especially the tiny ones from Baker Beach, shells, flowers, succulents, pods - I'm lucky that I can find inspiration almost anywhere if i take the time to slow down and look around and observe.

I find Andy Goldsworthy's work amazing. Its beautiful, surprising, and fleeting. His works of nature within nature are incredible and awe inspiring to me. Lucky for me - a small art studio in my alley feels the same - they created a piece that is obviously Andy - and seeing it inspired me to want to make it in silver, in my current obsession with cuff bracelets.

The original inspiration comes from a piece that Andy does where he suspends twigs from each-other using only the thorns and tiny branches from the twig itself. He does a piece with his signature circular design and also does entire walls as an installation in a museum.

One of the things I love about art is the suspension of belief, the tricks the eye can play on you or even the mind as it struggles to comprehend the complexity and beauty of a piece of art. To me that is what makes a great artist, or at least what I am drawn to ...beauty and surprise together make my mind swirl and swoon. That's what I hope to convey in my pieces as well..Something of interest yet beautiful, something that makes you wonder - how did it come to be?

I'm starting with my wire again. This is the last of the wire that I originally pulled from the ingot I made from melting down all my old silver scraps in my first session back. I started by sawing roughly 15-20 1-1.5" pieces. Using the building picture as my guide,I slightly bent the pieces and started to play with their placement. I thought soldering 2 pieces to eachother at a time and then putting them together would be the right technique. I now have a quite a few clusters done and I think the challenge with this piece will be to be able to piece these disparate clusters together in a way that keeps the entire piece in balance and while this piece does not have the same symmetry as my last one - I think aesthetically keeping it balanced will be important. Another challenge I see with this piece is perhaps its functionality...I will need to work on smoothing the edges with a file and hope that they will be comfortable on a wrist...also Adam pointed out - it will be a sweater snagger..oh no!