A Ring A Week Exhibition This Weekend!!!!!!!

5 Artists
28 Weeks
140 One of a Kind Rings

The Onion Studio Building 1103 Union Street

On exhibit and for sale at this weekend's Eastside Culture Crawl.

Friday November 18th 5-10
Saturday November 19th 11-6
Sunday November 20th 11-6

A Slice of Artistic Sanity

The Ring a Week project has turned into a little slice of artistic sanity for me. I have to make a ring a week regardless of how chaotic and busy my life gets. I have to sit down and stay still long enough to think of a new idea. I have to stay still long enough to connect with what I'm feeling, which isn't always easy. But my jewelry designs have always been inspired by a story - by lasting love, by painful heartache, by hopeful change.

So, what have I been feeling?...........Honestly my life has become a little chaotic. I have recently opened up a new store with two other artists. We have been thrown into a fire of change and we have to figure things out. It is craziness! For all of you who have opened retail stores on your own, my deepest respect for you! Our space is only 200 square feet and there is 3 of us to share the workload.....and it really has taken over our lives. Hopefully things will smooth out a little and become calmer for us once we get all of the start up tasks figured out.......I imagine those of you who own retail stores are chuckling right now as maybe things never get calmer once you have a store - and if this is true please lie to me, as I need to think that things will be tranquil in my life once again. ;)

My rings for the past few weeks have been twisty- like my mind, with glimmers of hopeful pink pearls - like my heart.

Week 8 Ring

Week 9 Ring

Week 10 Ring

Little Details, Little Moments......

If you know my work a little, you will know that I like lots of lovely details.

I like swirls and twists........


I like colour, texture, pearls, and patterns.............



I also like the little moments in life.........

I like the little glances, the small kisses, the fluttering feelings.

I like getting distracted while walking down the street by the deep fuchsia colour of a blooming peony.

I like the heady scent of the freshly watered marigolds that stops me in my tracks and keeps me from getting where I'm going on time.

I like to stop to pet the purring cat on the sidewalk.

I like to take a break from my run to watch 12 baby Canadian geese fall all over each other.

I take comfort in the little details and the little moments.

I have a lot of change going on in my life right now. Good change, great change, exciting change, change that scares the bejeezus out of me. So for my Week 7 ring a week I went back to what is comforting for me. This ring has lots of lovely little details. A silver ring shank that is hammer textured. I've added 24k yellow gold bits to the ring shank. Set in the tubing is a little pink felt "petal" and then stemming from the petal is silver wire dotted with pretty pink pearls.

Honey Bees, Flower Petals, and My Week 6 Ring...

There is a honey bee found in Turkey who builds a beautiful nest of flower petals to keep it's larvae nourished and protected for the winter. She flies in petals one by one from nearby fields and glues the layers together with mud, overlapping them in an exquisite loveliness. This process for the solo female honey bee can take days to complete. The result is not only a perfect protective home for it's offspring, but it is also an intricate, beautiful, colourful, magical work of art.


Ever since seeing the photo of these nests and reading about them I have been playing with flower petals. For my Week 6 Ring for the Ring a Week project I have made a little bead using pressed tulip petals and I have strung it on a square silver wire which I've then twisted and shaped to make into the ring.

Steel Wire, A Ring A Week...and What Happens Next.

What comes Next?

As an artist and business owner I never quite know what will come Next. I can write business plans and goals but they can change in an instant. Opportunities come up that I have to grab onto. Inspiration hits and a new idea and new direction unfolds. I've accepted this constant flux that my world works in and I'm always in awe of the new places that my art and business take me to.

For the past couple of weeks I have been playing with steel wire.

This is Next for me.

It is different. It is not what I expected.
It sat on my table for months.
I looked at it each day thinking about it, but not quite sure what to do with it. Then one day a few weeks ago I picked it up, I unraveled some of it and I started to see it differently. I have been twisting it, looping it, playing with it in my hands and with my pliers. I've been getting to know it. I've been letting it get to know me. I'm not sure what will come out of it exactly. But it feels right for this moment of my life and I'm willing to lean into it and see what happens Next.

Here's whats happened so far:

Week 4 Ring for my Ring A Week project.

Week 4 Ring Version 2.

Week 5 Ring for The Ring A Week Project.

I've fallen for these little wire wheels and I keep making them in different sizes. I'm going to try enameling some of them and turning them into a neck piece.



What is also happening Next for me is September Shop. September Shop is a Pop-up Retail venture for the month of September. It will feature my jewelry and the work of 5 other local female artists. You can join our Facebook page if you would like to stay in the know. I would love to see you at our opening Gala, it's going to be an exciting and playful September!

A Ring A Week - Week 2

Week 2 of our Ring A Week project.

Something fun and playful.

A lot of my time in my studio is now spent "producing" - making pieces to fill orders and get into more stores. I still love the process of making every piece, but I don't just get to "play" that often anymore. This Ring a Week project is giving me space to play and rekindle for me the magic that I feel when I am in a space with no creative limits.

This ring is made from sterling silver square wire, which I have blackened. I've soldered a piece of copper tubing to the ring shank and in the copper tubing is a flower that I've created using paper and pressed flower petals.

A Ring A Week

I'm very excited about a new little jewelry project that I am a part of!

Starting this week until the Culture Crawl in November I will making "A Ring A Week". Myself and 4 other jewelry artists at The Onion Studio will be participating in this project. Our rules are:

• We each have to make one new ring every week starting May 1st until the week of the Culture Crawl - all designs have to be one of a kind and something that we've never made before.
• They can be made out of any materials - not just metal. They crazy, bizarre, experimental, functional or non-functional- As long as they go around your finger.
  
• They all must be for sale during the Culture Crawl - This is the exciting part for all of you! I have to warn you though - that I will likely be making all of mine in my ring size, which is a 5.5 - 6.5 depending on the finger. I know this is slightly unfair, but getting to wear a new ring each week will make this project even more exciting for me. People think that I have a huge stock of personal jewelry, but I am always making jewelry for other people, so I really only keep a few pieces to wear myself. If you are my same ring size then come early to the crawl this year, cause there will be lots of pretty rings made just for you, tehehe.

The other participating jewelry artists at my studio are, Simone Richmond, Linda Read, Heather Matwe, and Jessica Taylor.

And now the unveiling of my Week 1 Ring:

"Finding Balance" - A quirky fun little ring made as a reminder that "Finding Balance" isn't as important as being able to laugh at yourself and know that you are real - flaws, neurosis, bleeding heart and all - accept it, laugh at your not so cool moments, and move on.