Being Brave

I've said before that I have a million fears. I am getting ready to leave my life for 2 months to do an artists residency in Holland. I leave in a week. I am full of fear. Now that it is here, now that this is happening I think it's all a little nuts. I'm actually stepping away from my everyday routines to live in another country for two months.......in hopes that I will create new art.......this is hugely scary for someone who is scared of everything......I don't want to feel scared, I soooo want to be brave, but my instinct, my comfortable place is to go to fear.

Why is being brave so hard for some of us? I look at the amazing people in my life. My mother, left her whole entire family in Australia, including a twin sister to move to Canada to be with my Dad. My friend Amy does a backpacking adventure on her own every year, my friend Julia has picked up her whole entire life a couple of times and started over in a new country. That's some freaking brave shit.

I want to be brave. I want to take risks. I want my art to take risks.

"I want to hear jazz with my eyes closed, and dig my toes into the sand dancing. I want to climb to the summit and yell and sleep under the stars. I want to laugh my head off and play marbles and sleep in and eat croissants in bed with butter and marmalade and spill coffee and wear lace and trip holding your hand because I am listening so closely."
-Sabrina Ward Harrison

The next time you read this I will be writing it from Holland.......

Blue Path, Kukenoff Gardens, The Netherlands.

I want my love to make me a better version of myself....

I've said many times that for me Jewelry is about love. It has a history, it has an intention, it has a story.

I try very hard to walk through this world keeping in mind what really matters and asking myself, What do I want my love to look like? How do I want to give love and to be loved in this world?

This year I want love to be honest, the type of honesty that takes away your fears. I want my love to have good intentions, I want to see past what's in front of me and see what's really there. I want my love to have no expectations - it's here in front of me, in front of you right now, right at this moment and that's all I know. I want my love to make me a better version of myself. I want my love to build something amazing. I want my love to be brave. I want my love to let go of all of the hurt from the past. I want my love to trust. I want my love to fly.

I've been collecting public declarations about love............If you find any in your world send them to me and I'll add them to my blog.

Artist Residencies

I'm preparing to go on my first Artist Residency this spring. Since deciding to go, I've had lots of questions from people about the why, what, who, and how of of it. So, I'm going to tell you all more about it here and hopefully inspire some of you to start looking for your own residency experience.

I first really learned about Artist residencies last spring when I attended my first Society of North American Goldsmith's conference in Seattle. We heard an artist named Heidi Schwegler speak. She talked about her experience of doing 4 residencies in 1 year. I remember feeling inspired. How blissful it sounded to travel to another country to make art. She said she wasn't sure how she would be able to do the residencies financially and work wise, but she just started applying. When she got accepted to 4 in a 1 year period, she said everything just started coming together for her. This got my mind ticking a little.....

When I got home from that conference I started to look into residencies. Being a Jewelry Artist, I have always had some trouble calling myself an "Artist"........ I didn't go to Emily Carr, I don't have my Masters in Fine Arts....... I went to VCC a local community college and earned a Diploma in Jewelry Art and Design, I've taken numerous art and jewelry classes from other local artists, I've participated in national and international exhibitions......but still I have some trouble calling myself an Artist, weird yes. So to even look into artist residencies I felt somehow like an impostor. I found some really great websites, (listed below) that had tons of information on them. I was excited to see that there are residency opportunities all over the world and that they all have different requirements. For some you might need your masters in fine art, while others really want to offer space to emerging artists. Some are communal experiences, some are more solo driven. Some you can go for a couple of weeks, others can be months or a year.

After finding a handful of residencies that interested me I asked my beau if he would be interested in applying too and going together to one if possible. His response was, "But I'm not an artist, only you are", hmmm, interesting. My response to him, "But you've made a movie, and you have played and toured in bands nationally and internationally, and you haven't worked for anyone but yourself in over 15 years"............So.......we started applying...... two "non artists" started to apply to artist residencies, submitting proposals of work we wanted to create while on the residencies. And we started to get accepted.

We are now getting ready to go to Renkum, a small town in The Netherlands. Where I will create 30 (gasp) new one of a kind pieces of wearable art, using various types of metal wire, fabric, and found objects and he will write a script for a new movie. You know non artist type stuff!
This amazing opportunity is through an arts organization called OBRAS. They have residency opportunities in both The Netherlands and in Portugal.

The most comprehensive list of artist residencies that I found was this:

www.resartis.org
You have to just start looking through them to see if you want them and if they might want you. Some of them do require a lot of experience, and some prefer that you are emerging.


Here is a video that Heidi Schwegler made during one of her residencies. It was really this video and hearing her speak that inspired it all for me.

Wrest 01 from heidi schwegler on Vimeo.

And........There's still time to help me make the most of this experience. I have a little crowd funding project going on Rocket Hub right now. $20 of support gets you a hand written post card from Holland, and who doesn't want that?

An Incredible Opportunity

I am constantly humbled by how quickly life can change.

How suddenly we can lose someone we love.

How much time can pass before we realize we've forgot about our dreams.

Which is why when offered the the opportunity to do a 2 month artist residency in Holland I said yes, even though I had no idea if or how I could make it happen. So here I am launching a fundraising project on Rocket Hub to help me raise some money to make this incredible opportunity a reality.

For those of you not familiar with Rocket Hub it is a platform for Crowd funding. The idea is that a bunch of people give small amounts of money to help someone reach their dream. A beautiful concept! In exchange for your support I am offering some really great thank-you gifts like post cards from Holland, and of course jewelry.

Please check out my project through the link below and if you can offer any support I will be very appreciative, even the smallest amount helps greatly.

Alchemy Exhibition

I wanted to share a couple of my favourite pieces that are currently in the exhibition "Alchemy - Transformation in Contemporary Enamels". I received the exhibition catalogue in the mail a couple of months back and danced around with excitement while looking through it. My Wedding Cake Ring is included in this exhibit and is in the company of some amazing enamelists!

The Alchemy Exhibition is put on by The Enamelist Society. Averill B. Shepps the President of the Enamelist Society opens the catalogue stating "The exhibitions are integral to the Society's principal purpose to promote and encourage enameling because they represent much of the best work that was done in the medium in the last two years. The Board recognizes the importance of producing the catalog because it represents a permanent record of current work in enameling in any given year."

Alicia Boswell - USA
Ossify
Brooch
Champleve. copper, enamel, sapphire, paint, stainless steel


Jessica Calderwood - USA
Conceal
Wall Panel
Limoges. enamel, copper, laser-cut steel, brass, resin


The Alchemy Exhibition Schedule:

• September 9 - October 29, 2011 at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN.
  
• November 14, 2011 to January 13, 2012 at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
  
• March 9 to June 3, 2012 at the Metals Museum, Memphis, TN

You can feel the past in precious metal......

Jewelry has a history. It has a past. It has experienced love and hope. It has experienced heartbreak and painful endings.

I often have people asking me if I can make something old into something new. I get it. We have jewelry that once was and now is not. We have jewelry that just sits somewhere dusty.

I appreciate the desire to turn it into something we actually want to wear. But I also appreciate the history of a piece of jewelry. You can feel the past in precious metal, it has an energy. Even the pieces that ended in heartbreak once experienced the energy of great love. And heartbreak also has a painful honest pure energy that is beautiful.

So, I'm mixed about turning our history in jewels into new pieces.......

Here are two pieces of my history in jewels. These are my two earliest memories of jewelry. They were both given to me by my Nana and Grandpa, who lived in Australia. The brooch was the first piece of jewelry I ever got. It is hand engraved. It is not perfect, which makes me love it that much more. The bird necklace is enameled, some of the blue enamel in the middle of the bird has chipped off, but I would never try to fix it because that chip is part of my history.

If you have something to say.........

I've been playing this song on repeat these days. that's what I do when i don't know what to do. i find a song that reaches me and play it over and over again. there is something soothing about it, like rocking in a rocking chair.