Earring Challenge Reveal 20 - Weeks 41 & 42/52

Well here we are again with another earring reveal and on the home stretch of this epic year long challenge. Hope you've been enjoying doing this with us and will be here to the end...


In keeping with the season the first pair I'm featuring this week are from Monique of 'A Half Baked Notion". Lovely pumpkin coloured lampwork beads play beautifully on the dark chain and the flash of purple makes them really eye catching.

Next up another pair with a Halloween theme from Sarah Jo at SJDesigns Jewelry with lovely subtle pumpkin images that Sarah has set with Resin in brass bezels...perfect for the whole autumn too.

This final pair by Kiersten Giles also pick up the Autumnal tones but rather than Halloween, these remind me of an event we celebrate here in the UK n early November - Guy Fawkes Night, especially the smoky dying embers of the bonfires...

So that's it for this reveal and just 10 more pairs of earrings to make to see the challenge through...if your on track for all 52 pairs congratulations!

The next reveal will be on the 10th of November so do come back and join us then and don't forget to link your blog posts using the linky tool below...

Lesley
The Gossiping Goddess

Two Weeks in Review - In Tree Wings Studio

Alrighty… it's time to report in:

Here's my work table after two weeks of managed studio time. Yes, I did tidy it up a bit — things were more than a little messy!

Did I meet my goals? Not quite. But I made very good progress. For my shop staples, here are my totals:

I cast, shaped, and painted 24 Queen Anne's Lace beads and pendants, and painted 22 previously cast Queen Anne's Lace beads.

I sculpted 52 sleepy critters.

And, I started painting 22 sleepy owls (sculpted a few weeks back).

I didn't do as well with new bead ideas. But that's okay — sometimes new ideas just don't come easily. I did make some of my current beads in new colors though: 5 Queen Anne's Lace pendants, and 14 (soon to be) painted speckle beads — I'll be testing new paint mixtures on these.

And the sleepy fawns are getting ready to become reindeer for Christmas, 2 new sleepy puppy dog designs are in progress, and 1 pine cone became a mold for new beads.


Scheduled for tomorrow, I have new crackle beads — they are going to go with a certain pretty copper component from Kristi…



So all in all, things did not go as perfectly as I'd hoped, but they did go nearly as well as I expected. I'm about 2/3rds of the way to where I want to be and this was only the first two weeks. But, I'm encouraged and very excited about what I can accomplish in another two weeks! There will be some more schedule tweaking and possibly an adjustment of my completed bead goals.


And… I almost forgot to mention, my sisters and I had fun trying out a new brownie recipe on my "day off"! Yum!


Yes, it was a very good beady two weeks! How did you all do? Did you find/make more time for creativity? Did you create anything new? And most of all did you have fun? Do share!

Freeform Friday - Victorian mourning jewelry

I love Halloween. I love the dark and mysterious, cauldrons, witches, the wheel of the year turning to winter. We have discussed the Day if the Dead here recently and I decided to take topics a wee bit darker for the next two weeks - leading up to Halloween and All Soul's Day/All Saint's Day. 

The topic was inspired by a conversation I was having over at Art-Share.org, a podcast of which I am part. We were embracing the dark, maybe morbid topics for the month of October - things like momento mori, and ... hair jewelry. So I was inspired to research both Victorian hair jewelry and mourning jewelry styles. 

Mourning jewelry

Mourning jewelry provides the wearer with a physical object by which to memorialize a lost loved one; providing comfort and acting as a momento mori.  Some of the earliest examples date back to the 15th/16th century. Items found in Europe from this era include black and white enamel pieces, often skulls, set into rings and brooches. 

In the 17th and 18th centuries it became a mark of status to wear mourning jewelry for deceased loved ones. The height of the style came in the Victorian era. Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert died in 1861; she dressed in black for the remainder of her days. In the US at this time, the Civil War helped increase the popularity of mourning jewelry - as to be expected...

The five daughters of Prince Albert wore black dresses and posed for a portrait with his statue following his death in 1861.

Victorian mourning attire was strictly regimented: 

• "Full mourning"  - 1 year long. Full black, weeping veil. No adornment. 
• The transitional period allowed for minor adornment including mourning jewelry. This transitional stage was 9 months. 
• "Half mourning" - 3-6 months. Any jewelry allow. Colors could include grey, violet, mauve, deep reds... 

Types of mourning jewelry

coffin ring from 1715  - crystal coffin shape over skull and hair work. 

Rings and brooches were the most common forms of mourning jewelry, usually inscribed with the name, date of death and age of the deceased. Popular motifs included funeral urns and weeping women in a Neo-Classical style. Hair was often used, under glass, intricately woven... ( More on that next week)

Images from HistoricNewEngland.org

Brooches: 

Enamel brooch, jet and hair brooch, carved jet brooch. 

Jet

Jet is a mineraloid, derived from fossilized wood. It is ultra black, smooth and lightweight.  It has been used since Ancient Greece circa 200 BCE. The Venerable Bede says this about British jet: "Britain has much excellent jet... black and sparkling, glittering at the fire, and when hearted drives serpents away..." Superstition had it that jet was shiny enough to avert the evil eye.

The town of Whitby is known for its jet, although jet occurs in other regions. Whitby jet is from the Jurassic era - app. 182 million years old. Whitby was a popular Victorian seaside destination, and the Whitby jet trade started as a souvenir industry. After Prince Albert's death, Queen Victoria's mourning regimen helped to increase jet's popularity. The rise of jet's popularity saw shops carving and selling jet jewelry in town go from 50 workshops in 1850 - to 200 shops in 1873! It is currently illegal to mine jet in Whitby, as it has been over mined and the shale based cliffs are rather unstable. Contemporary jet carvers are working with pieces washed up on shore that have naturally sloughed off the jet lines in the cliffs.

Stay tuned next week for more of the morbidly fascinating, the dark Gothic, the hair jewelry... 

Jenny

www.jdaviesreazor.com

References: 

Morbid Outlook

Whitby Jet

Art of Mourning 

Historic New England

Seeds of Inspiration

http://www.angielewin.co.uk

I am currently at the mercy of two major infatuations which are gradually becoming intertwined - an intense and deepening devotion to all things clay and a love of botanical life in its seed dispersal phase. The image above is by one of my favourite artists, engraver and illustrator Angie Lewin who uses plants and their habitats as inspiration for her designs.

In my last post I unveiled my first pieces of ceramic work and as I've continued working with clay I've come to realise that it can be an incredibly relaxing and therapeutic medium to work in particularly when used sculpturally. In theory metal clay can be used this way but it doesn't have the plasticity of ceramic clay and dries out very quickly...not to mention the fact that it's expensive and the finished pieces would be very heavy. Rather than just transfer my bronze clay work straight into ceramic I wanted to try and develop some new ideas and this extra time is enabling me to do just that.

So were does the botanical element come in..? Well since I have no previous experience or expertise in sculpting or modelling I was looking for something fairly simple to start with and turned to one of my favourite forms - the seed pods of the Physalis or Chinese lantern...

Physalis

These have a beautiful, slightly ethereal equality so I thought I'd try and recreate one as a pendant. Mine morphed slightly into a Physalis/pumpkin hybrid but I like it never-the-less and just loved the process involved in the making.

Well this one sold and I had custom order so earlier this week I set about making another. This one hasn't been fired yet and as you can see it's developed a bit of a sexier shape...

Putting this aside to dry I started to think about how I could develop this further and began playing with a piece of clay - elongating the form and then adding some decoration...

I really like it - It has a lovely tactile feel and I'm really excited to see how It will be transformed with different glazes.

Now my head is bursting with ideas for a series of botanically inspired pieces so off I went to do a little online research and gather up some suitable specimens. And heavens, there are just so many beautiful things out there to choose from - mother nature really is the best when it comes to designing for form and function isn't she....

Sarracenia

Does this next one remind you of anything...?

Abrus

Lotus

Milkweed

I had a go at one more yesterday - a  bit more delicate in design and probably better suited to a stronger clay but it's all good practice...

 

So I hope you like this little insight into my inspiration - somehow I think there will be a few of these designs germinating pretty quickly so I hope you like them! If you know of any plants with interesting seed heads or pods do let me know.

Lesley

The Gossiping Goddess