fanciful devices: Sunday's Makings.

A Stone Is Nobody's

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it.
Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old. The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.

Russell Edson

FAQs

1. Are you a Southeast Asian dancing girl from the 1800s?

No, sorry to disappoint. My avatar and banner images are from an ancient book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cabinets. More on that here.

2. How do you make everything look so old?

First, you need a good oxidizer to brush on every bit of metal you can reach. I'll tell you all about it here.

Then there's this wax. I first mentioned it here. You'll have to scroll down a lot.

3. How can you be so productive?

I'm insanely obsessed and I have no offspring. I do nothing else- I don't have a day job, I don't clean my house or cook, I spend all day in pjs, often completely abandoning personal hygiene... I only interact with other humans when I walk my dog. And I like people! But I prefer dogs.

And I'm sloppy- but I make that sloppiness work for me.

4. Any tips you'd like to share?

No! Except for these 16 posts about techniques and this one about how to find your aesthetic.

5. Would you be offended if I took some inspiration from your designs?

Well, I'd be happier if you outright copied them.

No really, imitation is how we learn. I have enough ideas to go around. And even if I don't- please. No one's going to do this obsessively enough to threaten my business. (Probably.) I learned by copying others and I've seen others copy me as a step toward developing their own voice. So feel free. (I'd love if you tossed me a link in my comments, so I can feel like a proud momma.)

6. What do you look like?

Why, what have you heard? Really? Wow.

9/12/10

Sunday's Makings.

Did I seriously just spend an hour trying to make these scanned images look decent because I'm too lazy to take pictures? That's not right.

I made a bunch of stuff today. Like these earrings which I thought I could just whip up quick 'n' dirty, but of course ended up taking forever. I had to get the beads in the exact right spot then hammer everything, especially right before and after each of the 8 bead caps so that everything would stay in place. Something kinda different for me. Inspired by Sparrows new round shapes, yet not really imitative.

Another thing that's different is that these will hang parallel to the plane of the ear wire. Parallel to your profile? They won't face you in the mirror? Any of those make sense?

Now these tigereye are crazy simple for me, but I was enjoying the geometric impact of the fat wire. See, I could totally rock these. Hmm, maybe I'll keep them.... Aw, who am I kidding?

And on to the fossils. This one consists of slightly smaller fossils, Ethnic, ornate metal rounds, huge gold stone babies that have both blue and gold mixed along the glittery surface. Those are in big ol' caps, and then redish rudrakshas in a more normal size. The dark violet silk has seed bead wraps along it. It's meant to loop around the neck in a big circle, as opposed to hanging down in front between your boobages.

Same for this one. It uses larger fossils and Indian clay beads which I darkened up with paint. I still have enough fossils for maybe 2-3 sets of earrings. I still have to add links to my book board solders. I 'still have to' a lot of things. But it's such a relief to get things made. Now I do a happy dance. (And wait and see if anyone says they like them. And if nobody does, decide they suck and do a pathetic dance.)

3 comments:

stregata said...: These pieces rock! Seriously.; 9/12/10, 11:58 PM
Penelope said...: Ok, I'm really going to have to ask you to stop being so awesome. It's one thing to be inspired by me, but you can't be inspired AND be better than me, it's rude. because those hammered tear drop earrings are so effin' cracktastic I might have to abandon this computer and just go make something. DAMN the 4 year old is asleep, I can't hammer things.; 9/13/10, 8:27 AM
fanciful devices said...: oh you!
i'm gonna have to use 'cracktastic' with my boss today....; 9/13/10, 12:47 PM