Dragon Scales

One thing I love about this material is its allusiveness.

First it reminds me of scales – lizard scales, or dragon scales – cool at first then warming to the touch; next those shimmering flakes of sunlight that dance upon a lake when the light dazzles one’s eyes on a summer afternoon or clear, moon-lit night.

There is a sense of delicious, sensual weight. I can’t help but think of Milan Kundera’s words in the beginning of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The densely-woven silver feels so pleasurably heavy and at the same time gleams and flows so fluidly, utterly responsive to the slightest dip, hollow, or bodily movement.

I weave this metallic fabric weaving one bead at a time into every other bead, yet it acts as a whole: Many into One. The meditative attention spent in this manner infuses the material with a kind of energetic resonance so that it becomes a sort of aesthetic armor with the feel of elemental Fire, Water, Metal and Earth.

When I patinate the silver the fabric takes on a wondrous dark hue with great depth and a subtle gunmetal shine. Left bright, the facets catch the light with purity and read bright white.

I then match my hand-woven silver fabric with the earthy brilliance and sparkle of natural druzies so that they really come alive: Modern Talismans for this age of challenge and change.

Showing Up Every Day

I read something today written by Michelle Skiba, whose finely crafted and presented hand-bound journals with beautifully organic wooden covers I have admired for several years. It is:

Craftsmanship is something that develops slowly over time through years of steady practice. It is about showing up everyday and doing the same thing over and over.

I especially love the part about doing the same thing over and over, every day. It is the zen beauty of simple repetition that builds the hand skills and mastery of tools and techniques so that something effortless can flow from the beyond and illuminate one’s craft and art in those moments of non-effort.

Really, it means making things isn’t difficult. All you have to do is have passion, and show up.

Black Gold Mod Pods

Wearable Weaponry

I’d often admired those great honking wooden earrings that seemed they would gauge a big hole in your ears with a wooden stick that you pushed through your earlobe to attach the two parts making it look sculpturally-fantastic and painful all at once. I’d also often wondered how they’d look in metal, being a metal-head myself. Wonder no more.

These babies look so slick and ultra-modern with their hole-y gold and their gunmetal-blue patina you can’t wait to stab them through your tender lobes. All sterling silver and 23 karat gold, and the modeled little silver spear-points are a nice touch. I guess I was thinking about javelins along with stabbing and wearable weaponry. I had also been itching to use the gorgeous scraps left from other, more rigidly controlled Keum-bo projects – Thus the hole-y gold, which I love. Since they are irregular, the hoop/posts are reversible and present differently from each angle.

It does take a bit more mindfulness and presence to put these pieces on, one must admit. And for that reason they are not for everyone, but for those who don’t mind tweaking their jewels/armor/adornments and like that bitter edge with their morning coffee. But once they’re started they’re easy to finish fastening and the nicely-finished metal posts must feel so much smoother and sleeker than their wooden counterparts. Maybe: Pistol meets bow-and-arrow?

Love for Certain Work

Traveling is as refreshing for some as staying home
is for others. Solitude

in a mountain place fills with companionship for this
one, dead-weariness

for that one. This person loves being in charge of the
working of a community. This

one loves the ways that heated iron can be shaped with
a hammer. Each has been

given a strong desire for certain work, love for those
motions, and all motion

is love. The way sticks and pieces of dead grass and
leaves shift about in

the wind and with the directions of rain and puddle water
on the ground, those

motions are following the love they’ve been given.

– Rumi