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.