Friendship...always an inspiration

The best kind of friends are the ones that uplift and inspire - they see the best in you and want to help you bring it out more.

I experienced that kind of inspiration this Sunday with one of my oldest and best girlfriends - and together look what we created. This painting was at the SF MOMA behind a glass frame. Immediately we were drawn to it - it had a feeling of serenity and beauty in spite of the encompassing feel of a dust storm. We placed ourselves within with the scene with the vibrant butterflies serving as our guides. A fitting picture for a friendship of so many years..transformation, beauty, and love.

From the young mischievous girls we were together to the independent strong women we are today...so nice to know that the dusty past and vibrant future can co-exist as we still gain so much from each-other and our friendship.

I remember passing through the day - thinking "I am thankful for these moments - the closeness of a true friend, the possibilities of what we could explore together, the warm sun, the moving art, and the laughter......such is life!"

i want to

Lessons in staying true to your creative self from a master

Just got through Hugh MacLeod's book Ignore Everyone - it is filled with wisdom, inspiration and truths that resonate. And it will have you LYAO.

Some particularly poignant points for me:
- Good ideas alter the power balance
- The sovereignty you have over your own work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will
- Doing anything worthwhile takes forever (have learned this many times from the hours I put in to making each of my jewelry pieces)
- 90% of what separates successful people from those who fail are time, effort and stamina (interesting to note how talent doesn't necessarily factor as much as tenacity)
- Pillars are a hindrance
- Never sell anything you love (this is hard for me because I LOVE everything I make)
- The more you need money, the more people tell you what to do, the less control you have, the more BS you have to swallow, the less joy it will bring
- The creative urge is a primal calling- (now that I am back to making jewelry again, I know this to be true... I must create)
- The best way to get approval is not to need it
- Power is never given, but taken
- Beware of turning hobbies into jobs (since I've tried it, I can relate to this point...my goals this time around are much simpler, to simply fund my habit.. materials and class costs)

The book like all of Hugh's work is exceptional - brilliant, hilarious, and insightful. The "Ignore Everyone" Limited edition print you see below is available for purchase on his website.

Keys to creativity by Hugh MacLeod

collaboration

Obviously inspiration comes in many forms, but at its base it is a re-interpretation of nature, objects, feelings into a different medium such as painting or in my case metal-smithing. One of the things I find exciting about my art, is the ability to transform something that currently exists in one form into something new. One of the ways I like to do this is through collaboration. Not that I've done much, but I definitely find much inspiration in other artists' work and love to share in the creative process with others.

A few years ago, I was able to collaborate with my friend Sirron Norris on a ring that I made for my brother. It involved etching his design onto a piece of metal and then forming it into a ring. It turned out amazing and its a shame that it got lost. But that experience has always stuck with me as a really fun and unique way to find inspiration from others and give their artwork an extension by transforming it into a different and utilitarian form.

Stay tuned, I have some ideas in mind for some collaborative efforts and eventually perhaps working with other artists more regularly in this way..if you know of anyone who's work could transcend other mediums - let me know.

Goldsworthy Inspired Cuff

My cuff is coming along - this week, Adam introduced me to a nifty tool called a cup burr that I used to round the sharp edges of my bracelet. Here, I thought I was going to have to file each of the sharp edges down using a file or sand paper. Which would have taken hours on each point. With this tool, I was able to round the points in a matter of 1-2 minutes.

I'm liking the progress but realized when I went to shape the cuff around my wrist a couple of issues...
1) its not lengthy enough and
2) the edges around the inside of my wrist are quite sharp...so I guess I'll need to add a few more pieces of silver.

Slow going - but it looks pretty cool. Kind of like Japanese writing or calligraphy - also has kind of a retro 80's feel. I like it, just hope its functional. Another challenge, striking the balance between form, beauty and intrigue.

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!