About The Artist

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I am a jeweler, a potter...an artist I suppose. I have been creating hemp, glass bead and wire jewelry since 1996 but have only been throwing pottery since the Spring of 2008. I plan to open my own gallery and workshop within the next five years but for now I make my work out of my home and sell in galleries and online. I sell my work to feed my hobby and because I am running out of room for my creations in the house. My art, like this blog, is in it's beginning stages and I hope that as my reader you will join me in my journey as an artist and enjoy it as much as I know I will!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Find a Happy Medium

My mother is an extremely creative person. She's always learning new crafts and I swear every Christmas is a new handmade item from her. She has done photography, knitting, basket weaving, crochet, scrapbooking and felting; she has made me clothes and slippers, written and illustrated a children's book; she's amazing. She took a pottery class several years back too, and experimented with glass (that's where I got the idea) and now she's making jewelry. So obviously I got my creativity from my mother.
Mom and I have a problem though. We go to craft shows and walk through galleries and everything we see we say "we can make that!" So we make it and add our own touches, our style, we love it and want to make more. I want to do things a little differently from Mom though, I want to choose one or two mediums to be great at. Mom has never really wanted to sell her work so she has tried a little of everything and enjoys it all but I want to find a few things I really love to do and be great at them. And I'm excited now because I think I have finally accomplished that with jewelry and pottery. I have tried a lot of other things, like my mother, but these two mediums seem to fit the best.
Recently I have been engrossed in my pottery though, and jewelry has fallen by the wayside...until now. I finally sent my Etsy site out to everyone I work with and within the hour one of the ladies wrote me a check for one of my necklaces (the blue one on the right). So that's technically my first jewelry sale on Etsy.
I also started a Facebook group to get my Etsy and Blog sites out to friends. I invited all 507 of my Facebook friends and my group currently has 93 members. One of my friends, Chelsey, has even special ordered a necklace that I made last night.
She wanted a Superman charm, in memory of a friend of ours and a boy she loved. Its here on the left. I think I may still add yellow material behind the S, we'll see what she thinks once she sees the picture. RIP Phillip.

I also finished a necklace for Tenzie that I started a while ago and we've been continually improving. I think it's finally finished and I'm really happy with it.

So its been a productive couple of days with the jewelry and I'm happy about it. Now I'm off to work in the basement on some pottery I threw last night. I'll post pictures soon so stay tuned!

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