The Origin of Art

When people find out I make jewelry, or see something I've made, they invariably end up asking me how I learned to do it, or what got me into it. Honestly, I have my mother to thank and to blame for my obsession with jewelry making. I remember always having beads when I was growing up. From the time I could put them on a string, I was making jewelry or sewing beads onto things.

It was always more of a hobby than anything, nothing I was especially serious about, but enjoyed doing. One day my mother came home with an issue of Bead and Button, handed it to me, and asked "Why don't you learn how to do that?" while indicating the beadwoven piece on the cover.

I had never tried my hand at beadweaving, and always considered it to be something beyond my abilities. I told her that I couldn't possibly do such a thing. My mother, never one to let me get away with saying "I can't", asked me why I couldn't.

Really, I had no answer. Obviously I did not know how to do intricate beadwork, but she'd just provided me with a magazine that had instructions on the basics. So what excuse did I have, except to try it? So I bought myself a pack of beading needles and some cheap seed beads from wal-mart. My first beadwoven piece was made with sewing thread. I didn't know how to weave the ends in, so little knots stuck out everywhere. It was too tightly woven in some places, and far too loose in others. The beads themselves were somewhat misshapen, so even where my tension was good, the beads made the piece ripple and pucker. It was an ugly thing, the little peyote purse I made, but I was so ridiculously proud of it.

I learned the basics, and then the more advanced techniques, and soon enough I could make any number of things. Then one day after flipping through an issue of Art Jewelry and wishing I could do the intricate wirework, I remembered that day when my mother brought home Bead and Button, and asked myself "Well, why not?"

I taught myself wirework through books and magazines, until eventually I knew enough to make things people would actually want to wear. Much as I loved beadwork with its hundreds of teensy sparkling beads and time consuming needlework, wirework called to me in a way that no other technique had. I was simply fascinated by the art of shaping the wire and hammering it flat, of joining pieces together and wrapping stones. I can't say that I'd have gone down this path were it not for the fact that my mother simply didn't let me shrug and say I couldn't do such a thing. Now every time I find myself wanting to learn something new, I don't hold back for fear that I won't be able to. Mom's voice is a constant in those situations, nudging me towards trying my hand at the various things that take my fancy. I'll admit that some didn't make it. Knitting, for example. I'll leave the knitting to other people, for I fear my talent does not stretch to that. But at least I tried it before I decided that it wasn't for me.

My mother gets a piece of jewelry every year for Christmas. I figure it's the least I can do, considering all that she has done for me. It's my modern day version of the crayon drawing hung carefully on the fridge, a tribute to my mommy, without whom I couldn't do half of the things I've learned.

Roses are red

I've been bit by the yarn bug pretty hard this year. When the weather starts getting cooler I always have the urge to dust off my crochet hooks, buy some pretty yarn, and make a scarf of a hat.

This year I've started experimenting with pieces that can be worn almost like jewelry. I do like scarves and hats, but when I get into the office in the mornings I have to take them off. I wanted things I could wear all day without looking like I'd just come in from outside.

The nice thing about crochet is that is can be very sculptural while still looking soft and delicate. There are so many fancy stitches, but even the most basic ones look wonderfully textured and touchable.

I've made a few lariats so far. The one I'm working on right now is in shades of oatmeal and a lovely deep reddish-brown.

This is the second one I made:

It's done in a very soft, slightly fuzzy yarn (Lion Brand Jiffy yarn). Narrow as the lariat is (it's about an inch and a half wide), it is also surprisingly warm. It can be worn a lot of different ways. As a belt, a scarf, looped several times around the neck or just once.

I've bought so much yarn these past few months that I'll be making a lot more. I'm also playing around with crocheted bangle bracelets and belts.

And in the end

Two months left to go in this year. I can't help but wonder where the time went, as I do every year when the trees are stripped bare and I find frost on my windshield in the morning. Spring and summer went by in a rush, and autumn is tiptoeing towards winter, promising snow and ice as it goes.

I forgot about daylight savings this morning until I stepped out my front door into sunlight. I'd grown used to driving to work in the dark, used to the reflection of streetlights and headlights on the pavement, used to rounding the curves on the hill and seeing the city lit up in the fog just ahead of me.

This morning was misty and cold, and my breath blew out in clouds as I scraped the frost off of my car. I could see the crows strutting in the front yard and every bare limbed tree let shreds of the rising sun peek through. Another year come and gone, and so much has happened, and yet it's like nothing has happened at all, or not enough.

I wonder if there will ever be a year where I feel its passing and think to myself "I'm sorry to see it go"? In a way, I always am, but it's not so much that the year itself was so wonderful, but more that it never lived up to what I had hoped, and now it's gone.

So I drove to work this morning in the sharp air, watching the leaves scuttle across my path and blow down the hillside, taking with them the last bits and pieces of October, the ghost of so many seasons past gone off to haunt someone else for a while.

A Season Turning

Autumn has always been a tricky season, here. It is never the same from year to year. Sometimes it stays hotter for longer than it should (like the month of my sister's wedding, where we baked in 90+ degree weather at the end of September), sometimes colder, and sometimes, like that last bowl of porridge, the season is just right.

This year has been the colder variety. It has rained nearly every week, beating the leaves off the trees right as they're changing color. It has washed away all traces of summer and left us with a soggy mess in place of the warm days we still expected to have. It's an unwelcome reminder that winter is just around the corner and that soon everything will be hard and bare.

But no matter what our weather is like, every year for a few brief weeks there is a short vivid burst of life as the seasons swing from one to the next. On one of the rare sunny days we've had so far, I decided to take my camera and catch a few such beautiful things.

Asters are everywhere here. If left unchecked, they grow in huge clouds of purple and white flowers. This year they overtook our pasture and ringed our pond until you can't even see the water. Butterflies and bees love the flowers. I spent half an hour stalking butterflies through the asters, trying to sneak up on them without disturbing them.









My goat was tethered near the biggest bunch of asters, and he apparently disapproved of me paying so much attention to the butterflies, and so little attention to him.



The trees looked promising this season until the rain took its toll. They are rather less spectacular now, since most of them have been stripped of leaves save for the lowest branches.







Then I stumbled across the tiniest maple tree that was all decked out:



It was barely five inches high. I hope the little guy grows until eventually it becomes as big as the other maples in the yard.

A few years ago a huge old tree was ripped up by its roots during a bad storm. The crater its roots left behind turned into a small pond that is largely populated by frogs. I never can sneak up on the frogs. Unlike the butterflies, they always know I'm coming and before I even come into full view of the pond I hear little croaks of alarm and then splashing plops as they jump into the water.

I did get some pictures of the maple leaves floating in the pond, even if the frogs eluded me.





Last but not least, we have the true harbinger of the changing season. We always have a lot of crows around, but in autumn they become overwhelming. You can't step outside without hearing them cawing in the trees.

Attack of the Killer Squirrels

Living in a rural area means that we have a lot of critters of the small and fuzzy variety. Of course, we also have critters of the Big and Scary variety, but luckily I don't encounter those quite as often.

Ever since the ice storm I have noticed that all the fuzzy little things have moved closer to populated areas. I think a lot of hidey holes ended up being destroyed when so many trees and branches came down. I used to rarely see squirrels on our road. Rabbits, sure. Groundhogs were even a fairly common sight, as were chipmunks. But squirrels were like elusive little gray ghosts. You knew they were around somewhere, but you never really knew where.

This year has been different. They're everywhere this year. Every time I look out the window, or pull into my driveway, there are squirrels cavorting in my yard. They're digging in the ditches by the road and leaving piles of chewed up hickory nut husks everywhere. They went from being rarely seen to rarely not seen.

The thing about squirrels is that they're fearless. I don't know if this is because they're too stupid to know any better, or because they're simply brazen and don't care. Either way, I find myself having to drive like a stunt driver to avoid turning them into furry little splats in the road. Our road is very narrow and steep, so all of this swerving and slamming on brakes often takes its toll on my nerves.

I think they're aiming for me, though. I think they wait for me to pass and then radio ahead to other squirrels, so that my drive to and from home is fraught with kamikaze squirrels who launch themselves with great abandon towards the wheels of my car. Of course their frantic dashing is usually aimed towards snatching some acorn or other treasure from my path, lest it be crushed into useless powder before it can be stashed away. I halfway expect to see them clad in tiny helmets as they run crazily around in the road, tails whirling like windmills.

I guess it could be worse, though. Squirrel are just a part of living here, like the rabbits and the birds and the shirtless drunken country boys riding their horses down the road at 2:00 AM.

I just hope the squirrels and my car can survive each other.

Body Odd

I posted before about my annoyance with sweaters this season. It's nearly impossible to find a well made sweater that doesn't have elbow length or dolman sleeves this year. I ran into that problem again this past weekend, when I once more made a fruitless trip to look for winter clothes. The temperature has dropped like a stone here, and it's colder than usual for this time of year. We're usually not this chilly until mid November.

In addition to sweater shopping, I decided to look for slacks to wear to work, and a pair of nice leather gloves. Leather gloves are something I mean to get for myself every year, and then don't due to price or not finding a style I like, or not being able to find a pair that's not trimmed with rabbit fur. I can wear leather, but the feel of fur gives me the creeps. It's just too real feeling. It reminds me of my little hamsters and how soft their fur was. I don't want to feel like I've got their pelts around my wrists.

But my efforts to buy either of those things were met with frustration. See, I have an Odd Body. My waist is two sizes smaller than my rear, and my hips are a size in between. So slacks are a constant struggle for me. I own two pairs. That's it. I've owned two pairs for three years, because every year I go shopping for slacks, and every year I come away from the stores empty handed. If it fits one place on my body, it doesn't fit the rest of me. I could go up a size or two and then have them tailored to fit, but tailoring is so darned expensive that I find myself resisting the idea of it. This is the year I will probably give in and have it done.

When I was a teenager, and then into my early 20s, I was lacking in the hip and rear department. Clothing hung like a tent on me. I was frustrated when I outgrew the Juniors department and found that everything in Misses made me look like a kid playing dress-up. Once I got over age 25, got a desk job, and ran out of time to do all the active things I used to, I sprouted curves. But only on my lower half. Now I'm frustrated that all the things that hung like tents on me now squeeze me like a drunken relative at Christmas.

As far as gloves go, my hands are another issue. I have long, skinny fingers and wide palms. My wrists are scrawny things that make my hands look larger than they really are. Small gloves don't fit. Medium gloves almost fit. Large gloves? Too bunchy around my wrists and fingers. They fit the length of my fingers, but that's it.

So what exactly are my options? Knit gloves that stretch, but get soggy if I have to scrape my windshield or touch anything wet. Fingerless gloves that leave my fingers exposed, which is bad due to my joint problems since it makes my hands stiffen up and ache.

I guess my only option this year is to do what I did last year. Gloveless and wearing nothing but dresses with tights and boots. Which is a good look, but not one I want to do every single day at work. I need to find that magical place where they sell things for a woman with a size 2 waist and a size 6 ass. Hopefully this place will also carry sweaters with sleeves and leather gloves that fit my odd hands.

Until then, I will continue to search, and likely walk away frustrated about a body I shouldn't have to feel bad about. That is the only time I ever feel bad about myself, is when I've tried on a dozen things that don't fit and eventually give it up as a lost cause.

Off with her head

History has always been a passion of mine. The often dark and bloody history of England has been especially fascinating to me. My mother grew up in England and always supplied me with books about the kings and queens and battles there.

Of course everyone is into Henry VIII since Showtime started airing "The Tudors", which is now in its third season. Henry and the unfortunate Anne Boleyn were always extensively covered by in books both fictional and factual, and of course in movies. Now there are even more books coming out, which is good for those of us who love that period in history!

So out of boredom one night, after reading a book on his various wives and their often tragic endings, I decided to make an Anne Boleyn doll. I do not work off of patterns with crochet. It's all done freehand, since I have what can only be described as "the dumb" when it comes to reading crochet patterns. She is entirely of my own design.

Being as my sense of humor can be a little warped at times, I decided that she of course needed to be the headless version, with the classic black Xs for eyes.





I even recreated her famous "B" gold and pearl necklace using gold filled wire and seed pearls. The longer necklace is made with teensy faceted garnets and pearls. She stands about 5" high.

I'll have to take some better pictures of her dress. I only had a few minutes to take those yesterday, so her dress isn't arranged properly.

I brought her in to my office to show to a friend, and she pretty much went on a tour of the offices here. People kept coming and picking her up to show her to other people. I was afraid she'd go a-wandering and not come back eventually, so now she's safely on my desk at home where no one can bother her!

I do plan on making the rest of his wives at some point. It probably won't be until next month, though.