Lizards, Lizards, Lizards

 Drew this iguana like creature when I lived in Nevada City in the early 1990's. Don't remember what got me started on it, my fascination with textures maybe. The rock like forms it is sitting on were inspired by a trip to Joshua Tree and the amazing rocks there. After years of doing smaller drawings 8x10 or so I had started doing some larger ones, the iguana is 22x30 inches. The top iguana necklace was done for one of my best bay area customers who had a couple of pet iguanas. Took me about 5 years to get it done finally, I'm not very good at special orders sometimes. It was large and a little over the top but she loved it and said she got lots of compliments on it when she wore it. The bottom lizard shape was one of maybe a half dozen cousins I did between 2000 and 2010 I think. May make another one soon. Sometimes a series of jewels will go on for many years, each one at least a little different but related.

 

 A lot of our jewels are unique, one of a kind pieces but we create a lot of what we call developmental series. In this creating mode we start with a design and when it finds a home, we make another that shares aspects of the first design but changes in some aspects, size, orientation, gemstones, textures, metal mixtures, etc. Sometimes making these series goes on for a great number of years, even decades. Sometimes there are years in between designs in the series. The series I'm focusing on here is called Spikes. I've been making these designs for about 15 years or so, have probably made 12 to 16 or them. The original Spike was inspired by a number of martial arts tattoos I saw on the internet. I just sold the last Spike that I've made at the onlineVirtual Fair a couple of weeks ago. I'll be making the next one in the upcoming month or so, I haven't really started thinking about how I'll change the design but I will soon. View our latest jewels on our Eventeny page at:

https://www.eventeny.com/company/?c=11060

An interesting side note. We've sold our work at a very nice art fair in Salem, Oregon a number of times in the past 12 years. When we did it in 2013 I had just finished a Spike pendant that I was very happy with. The show went very well as it usually did and on the 2nd day a well dressed young woman came by our booth and spent some time looking at our work and trying on jewels including Spike. She liked several pieces including Spike as the last and I was surprised when I saw she was going to leave without buying one. After she had turned around to leave I said "that last one you just tried on I call Spike." I was just continuing our ongoing conversation but I saw her stop and turn around and return and say "I'm going to buy that pendant because it's called Spike. And she did. Below is a collage of some of the Spikes that I have made. 

Sun Bracelet

I've been making sun jewelry for a very long time but I think that this is the first sun that I have put in a cuff bracelet. Just finished it before we went up to the fair in Chico to sell our work on Dec. 14th and 15th. It didn't sell there but a lot of other pieces did. It will find a home on a wrist next year I am sure. Most of the bracelet is silver but inside of the silver ring on top is a layer of heat colored copper, the sun form is silver and the dome on top is 14k gold.

Bead Obsession

Back about 20 years
ago or so when I first
got into making cold connected mixed metal beads, it became an interesting obsession for a while. I remember once that I could hardly make any other jewelry form for 5 or 6 weeks which is unusual for me. I would walk around with 10 or 12 beads on a chain and show them to anyone who stopped to look. The first ones were just a bead on a chain like the one at the upper left in the collage here, but soon I started looking for other ways to use them because I liked making them so much. And also they started selling quite well at art fairs that I was participating in. I have sold hundreds of them at this point. I started putting them in earrings, bracelets, as parts of more complex pendants, even a couple of rings and anything else that I could think of. It was truly play time for me. These pictured are just a few of the pieces that I did. I still make a few beads now but not like before although, who knows, the obsession might strike again at any time.

Puffy Heart Pendants

These are two sided pendants, front on the left, back on the right. One could wear them either way though. I made a template out of plexiglass in the shape of the hearts on the left and then, using the hydraulic press raised it into a puffy shape. The textures are from pattern plates that I stamp on nickel silver and then roller print on copper. I sometimes enjoy creating a design on the back of pendants, you could wear it that way but sometimes it is just a private aspect of the pendant that the wearer can just show to special people. I did a series of about 5 or 6 of these a few years ago and just ran across the plexiglass template so am thinking of making another and seeing how I can change it some. Mixtures of silver, copper, gold and brass with fresh water pearls.

Sun, moon , star

It's sometimes fun to mix stars & moons with the suns that we often make. Here are some examples of that. Pieces made by both Carlie and Jima.

The Jeweled Sun

At some time around 60 plus years ago I started drawing flames and suns on the margins of notebook paper in boring junior high school classes back in Lawton, Oklahoma. This led me in two directions, towards doodling and drawing and painting art which I still do today and also to making a great variety of sun designs in jewelry pieces which I have done for almost 50 years. To the right is a collage with a small selection of jewels incorporating the sun motif in the design. This is still going on and I expect it will as long as I continue to make jewelry which will probably be as long as I am alive. Most of these pieces were made entirely by me but the long hinged pendant with the lapis at the bottom and the abalone shell at the top & the pair of earrings were a joint project of Carlie and I for which I made sun shaped cutouts for the top and Carlie incorporated them into her design. I'm currently working on the latest couple of pieces in the ongoing series of sun designs.

Collaborative Jewels

During the many decades we've been making jewelry we have mostly each done our own designs and finished pieces although at the idea level we collaborate a lot and inspire each other and share ideas and techniques. But 20 or so years ago we got into doing a series of collaborative pieces where each of us did part of the design and construction. Often one of us would make a piece that was to be part of a jewel and the other one of us would then figure out how to add other parts to make a finished piece. We played with this method for a number of years, never a lot of pieces but an ongoing game.

In this piece to the left I made the semi circular piece at the top with cut out and riveted pieces backed by a stamped silver background. Carlie incorporated that piece into a necklace that was part of a series of large pieces she was doing at the time. This piece is copper, silver, brass and yellow & rose gold. A large piece of lapis that I polished is at the bottom. Also fresh water pearls on the sides of the hinge mechanism.





At the right is a piece that I just finished.
2 or 3 years ago Carlie was making some butterfly forms into pendants. The basic butterfly form of this one she made but wasn't happy with, it had a couple of glitches so she put it in a box of probable rejects. I saw it at the time and found it interesting so took it and put it one of my many boxes of possibilities. As I've been working, getting ready for our Sacramento show coming up next weekend I was looking through some of these boxes and ran across it and decided to see if I could turn it into a finished piece of jewelry. Here is the result. I added the center piece and put black onyx and a copper disc and gold ball on it, added a bail at the top and lines representing feelers and added a garnet hanging from the bottom. I think it turned out kind of nice.

Solder Inlay and Flap Set Pendant

For 15 years or so I taught various jewelry workshops at the Mendocino Art Center near where I live. For a number of years I also hosted a weekly open studio where I assisted people who came with jewelry making and design instruction and did demonstrations of techniques. The copper dome in this piece was an example of solder inlay, where I stamped deep patterns in the copper, flowed silver solder over the surface and then filed and sanded it until only the solder in the stamped depression remained. The center of this one got messed up and I was going to reject it when one of the students said I should cut it out and do something else in the center. I worked on it that week and brought the finished piece back to the next open studio. I heated the copper to build a layer of oxidation to bring out the contrast in colors. I created flaps by sawing around the edge of the back silver piece and bent them up to hold the copper dome and created of sawed shape with gold circles riveted on it to inset in the center. I was pleased with the result as was a customer who purchased it at the next art show that I sold my work at. This points out one of the things I miss now that I have retired from teaching, how absolute jewelry making beginners can often have interesting ideas that are useful. I've been making jewels for over 50 years now but often found that one of these beginners without preconceived notions could look at a situation and have an idea about how to do something that was better than the way I had been doing it for many years. I learned to listen and often adopted new ways of doing things because of this.

Carlie finished this necklace a few weeks ago, it's the latest in a series that she has created over many years. It's actually the first in this series for a number of years. The series started 25 or 30 years ago when a good friend of hers gave her an interesting coat button and she decided to make a necklace with it. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that one as I wasn't consistently taking pictures of much of our jewelry work at that time. I only captured images of a few pieces a year to use as part of our applications to art fairs. Thousands of pieces in those early years escaped the camera. This saddens me. Now I basically take pictures of every piece that we make. I have a photo shooting area that is always set up and ready to go which makes it fairly easy. I'm still learning but i manage to get fairly good images of most pieces. I'm always excited when a customer wears an old piece to one of our shows and I'm able to capture an image of it there. This piece has a mother of pearl button set in a bezel with a copper dome covering the hoes in it. It was in a collection of various pieces of mother of pearl that I've collected over many years of wandering flea markets and yard sales. The necklace is made of silver, copper, gold and brass. Under the pearl are a fresh water pearl and a grey moonstone, grey moonstones also in the two necklace links at the top. The button is about an inch and a half in diameter. Below is a collage of other jewels that are in this series or were inspired by the series. I'm still looking for others in my files. My photography has gotten better since I took these.

Carlie's Post Earrings

These are part of a series of post earrings that Carlie created a few years ago. These are set with bullet shaped black onyx stones. The metals are sterling silver, with copper lines and 14k gold balls. Some texturing has been done to create contrast.

Sun Earrings

I made these sun earrings a few years ago, one of a series of 5 or 6, each set a little different. Different size, different metals, different stones. I first started my infatuation with sun shapes doodling on the edge of note paper in boring junior high school classes about 62 years ago or so. My love of the sun motif has led me to use it in drawings, paintings, larger metal work and jewelry since then. I wear a sunburst pin most of the time when I'm out in the world and I have sold dozens, maybe hundreds of pieces of jewelry that incorporate it into the design over the last 50 years. I don't get tired of making variations of it and people don't get tired of buying it. These earrings are made of copper and silver with black onyx tear drops and fresh water pearls.

Mandalas

I started drawing mandala forms back in the mid 1960's and later got into painting them, the largest one was about 8 feet in diameter on the side of a building in Ventura, California in 1970 or so. It was only natural that when I got into jewelry making that the mandala form would
spring up. This one was a pin/pendant made of silver riveted over copper. The bluish color on part of the copper is created by heating with a torch. It's set with a fresh water pearl in the center. It was about 2 1/2 inches in diamter.

Another Direction for Circle Wave Pendants

 This is a developmental series of circle wave pendants in which I set a cabachon behind so that I can do metal work over it. I started out doing patterned agates but have in recent time mostly used black onyx. I started this series maybe 25 years ago and it still continues. Each one of the series is at least a little different. It's  more interesting that way. I'm not certain how many I've made but I would guess at least 60 to 80. They all share genetic material like cousins. The scale varies from 3/4's of an inch in diameter to 2 inches. This series will continue as they have all found homes except the one that I just made.

The next step in Circle Wave Pendants Evolution

I get infatuated with spiral forms sometimes so it seemed a natural step to incorporate them into my circle wave pendant designs. I started doing variations of this particular design in 2013 I think and am still doing them currently. Each one is a little different, different scale, different metal combinations, adding textures, different stones. That's a lot more fun than making them the same.

Changing Circle wave Pendants

One of the next steps in the evolution of our circle wave pendants was to add double wave shapes that we cut out of sheet metal to the lines of copper and silver wire in the designs. Jima made the one on the left and Carlie the one on the right.

The Evolution of Circle Wave Pendants

I started making this series of jewels which I call circle wave pendants back in the 1980's when we were living on some property that we bought on the San Juan Ridge north of Nevada City in the hills just south of the Middle Fork of the Yuba River. We lived without being connected to the electricity grid for a number of years, at first making jewelry either in daylight or when working at night using the light of kerosene lamps. I did buy a generator to run the polishing motor and other electric tools but a lot of our work didn't take electricity. Later I put up some solar panels to power lights and built a studio with skylights. It was an interesting time. After we moved to the Mendocino coast in 1997 we spent a lot of time at the ocean and I saw even more wave forms beginning to find their way into our designs
These three pendants pictured are characteristic of some of the first wave of
this series although a lot at the beginning were even simpler than these. They have continued to evolve and change up to this day and have become a very integral part of our successful jewelry business. The series continues to develop and change which is typical of the way I make jewelry. I'll make a design and am happy with it but will then think about how I can make the next one at least a little different. Different metals, different stones, different bail, different size,  change the lines, add new elements. This keeps it interesting for me as opposed to making pieces that are the same and it also lets previous customers find something different the next time that they see our work at an art show. At most shows that we do, up to 90% of our sales are to people who have purchased from us before so it's vital that we have new designs and variations. In the next few days I'll post more images to show how this series has evolved over the last 35 plus years.

Multi Dangle Pendants

Sometime midway through last year Carlie started making some of these hanger pendants, playing with some of the ideas she had developed in making a series of asymmetrical earrings for the last couple of years. As often happens in our work, we play with each others ideas, throwing them back and forth between side by side work benches like we have for over 40 years. Carlie made the pendant on the right here. I made the one on the left. I didn't have a complete idea when I started, the design grew a little at a time, Changing several times in the process. Both are mixtures of silver, copper and gold, Carlie's with garnet and pearl, mine with pearl & carnelian agate.




Another hanger pendant by Carlie on the left with black onyx and pearl, mine on the right set with pearl, Mendocino abalone and a small green chrome diopside. We expect this design series idea to be in play for some time and it will be interesting to see where it leads us.

Spirals & Textures

Along with my fascination with texture goes an infinity of spirals which I've used in a great number of the pieces I've made. I suppose I'm infatuated with them. The piece on the left is silver and copper with a black onyx. The copper inlaid pieces are sheet metal that I have roller printed to get the texture using a sheet of nickel silver that I stamped a design on. I've made about 20 or 30 of these design sheets and always have several in the works since they take time to make. I think I'm working on three currently. Carlie uses these plates also in  her work. This piece is one of a kind at this point. The piece on the right is part of a series, number three at this point. Each one a little different as I like to make them. Sometimes the series will go on for years, but I only make one at a time. Unlike most of my current work this piece is all silver although the ball shapes are argentium silver, an alloy that I like to use for making balls because they come out perfect and smooth with no pits as sometimes happens when you melt sterling silver. Argentium is the best metal I have found for fusing also, one has a lot of control in the process.

Textured Metal Pendant

Jima made this pendant. I've always had a fascination with texture, both in my drawing and in my jewelry work. I'm continually looking for and trying to develop new textures and combinations of textures. The textures here on the top layer were directly stamped with a variety of steel stamps, some of which I made. The little copper circles are rivets. The back layer is brass, a roller printed sheet that also has a scratched texture. It was about 2 1/2 inches high.