cayuga stone

a new necklace made with a stone found on the shore of cayuga lake.
i grew up in ithaca, new york and love taughannock falls state park.

cayuga stone - sterling silver, rock, black suede, flameworked glass beads, freshwater pearls and tumbled black onyx hearts

it's another piece of jewelry that will be in the more fire glass holiday sale which starts this friday morning at 10:00. come on over, i will be there all day.

both of my glass focal beads are made from dark ivory, silver foil and raku frit.

i think this simple combination is endlessly beautiful.

a detail of the wire wrapping on the suede pieces - i just launched into it, with no real idea of what i was doing, but i love the sort of 'girl scout craft' look to the wire lashing.

taughannock falls, ithaca, new york

maple leaf glad rags

the grand maple tree at my studio is a magnificent golden honey yellow.

some detail photographs of another new necklace and earring set for the more fire glass holiday show.
this one with autumn colors.

the focal bead is one of my favorites and is almost 1 1/2" long -
i made it with a base of dark ivory, it has light silver plum ends, lots of raku frit and silver foil.

i may have used every style of bead in my horde - freshwater pearls, ceramics, smoky quartz, bone...

gold leafed ceramic and a scarab.

another glass bead, this one cloudy red rolled in raku frit with some gold leaf.

a bead that is a polished cross section slice of an antler.

amber, citrines and a giant pea green freshwater pearl that looks like a bird foot.

sorry it's a little blurry.

matching earrings and a very boring full view of the necklace.

even though there are thousands of leaves still on the maple there is an incredible 6" carpet of fallen leaves on the driveway and front stairs.

amber blossoms necklace & earrings

starting friday the 23rd, the day after thanksgiving, it's time for the holiday sale at more fire glass.
here's a new necklace and earring set that will not be on display.
it's going to my girlfriend diana for her birthday.

amber blossoms - my glass beads, freshwater pearls & sterling silver

a little closer.

the center bead.

another detail.
matching earrings

all this week i will be blogging new jewelry i have put together just for this show.

double dammit & back again

clank, clank, clank...
and then there was no computer.

do i adore the computer guys who saved my stuff and put it on the new huge hard drive?
yes.

but now i have drivers galore to find and reload. sigh.

jens lekman - you are the light
i love this kid, he reminds me of johnny halliday crossed with petula clark.

ginko leaves

we have three magnificent ginko trees at the street edge of our front yard.

every autumn they drop all their leaves in the matter of a few hours, it's like a switch goes off in their ancient tree brain that says drop your leaves - now.

ginko leaves - oil on canvas - 36" x 45"

yesterday we had our first hard frost and as the sun came up the leaves started to fall, by lunchtime all the leaves from all three trees were on the ground.

(source photograph for the painting above)

having the leaves drop yesterday was a terrible shame because the trees had not turned yellow yet, they were still bright green. very unusual. i look forward to their yellow splendor all year...

here are some snapshots from last autumn when they were incredible

all honey and sunlight.

ginko trees have a beautiful architecture.

all three of our trees are females - which means they each drop thousands of karo syrup sticky pinky orange berries with nuts/pits in the center. they smell noxious as they rot, the squirrels won't eat them and they stick to the rake. but oh, those beautiful leaves.

breathing in and breathing out

i stopped by the studio today to grab a bead sketchbook and my house guest was not there. so, i grabbed a paintbrush and had a stolen half hour of painting. i know he hates the smell of oil paint but it had been amost 6 weeks - whine.

it's a painting of snowdrops
here are four progress snapshots of it - with the last one being what i painted today.



it is sort of hard to see because the underpainting is metallic silver.







it was like an oil paint explosion.
when he arrived he very graciously shrugged it off and i felt like a little kid who had been caught doing something deliciously naughty.

250

hey - that was my 250th post.

to celebrate i have given this old blog a little face lift and have started labeling all 250 posts.
i have the 125 most recent done and am working my way back to my first baby blog posting.

if you look in the right hand column you will see a section labeled 'party favors' - these are my post catagories. i certainly wish i had done this from the start but it's pretty cool to see all my blathering sorted by content.

those of you who know me fear my need to sort things.
am i a bit ocd? yes, and i have had the meds to prove it.

miss margaret is going to blow in to town tonight for an hour or so - she's coming with a carload of her alfred university friends to pick up another friend - we're going to take them all to dinner at john's tex mex eatery in the s'wedge (yum).



here's my art student in her halloween zombie makeup.

first snow

we saw our first snow flakes this morning while sitting in the van waiting for an estate sale to open. very fittingly i was knitting woolen socks.

i found something truly wacky and delightful today at the sale.

i think it is a candy dish?

anyway it is cast brass and wood and was made in italy. it stands about 8" tall.

i adore it.

it was not the only treasure i found - here are pics of some great costume jewelry to disasseble and reassemble with my glass beads.

ceramic beads

some with crackle and some with gold leaf.

and polished pieces of cross sectioned antlers.

my quilting friend is on her way over to go thru the 30 pounds of fabric i bought at the same sale. the homeowner had been a decorator in the 60's and 70's and her personal fabric stash was amazing.

it was a case of true sable.
(s a b l e = stash amassed beyond life expectancy).

as you can see from the lack of publishing in my blog i am not making much these days - i have a guest staying at my studio. he came for a week and has stayed and stayed for forever - through no fault of his own, it's a rather messy non-divorce. i never knew i was quite so private about working - i just can't do it with an audience and i don't want to be in his hair.

i brought some materials home from the studio to work with and have been puttering with polymer clay, acrylic paints and i started a class in image transfer quilting. of course i am knitting - it's full on knitting season. but how i miss my oil paints and boxes of pearls.

pirate's booty

when she was little my daughter thought that the garage sale regulars were pirates.

this week was a great week for finding bits of booty for reworking into my jewelry.
here's most of it piled on my kitchen table.

a trade bead and a porcelain pendant.

a wad of fresh water rice pearls, 100's of them.

some lovely mottled glazed clay beads mixed with sterling silver beads just waiting to be unstrung.

and lastly gold - what a week for gold.
don't worry - the little victorian crescent moon pin with pearls will not be taken apart.

there is also a nice little pile of religious medals that i found. they will used as dangles on this christmas' supply of mexican voodoo necklaces.

halloween post mortem

last night's chili party and candy handout fest was just what i needed to banish the funk.
as promised a snapshot of my clown shoes...

13 pumpkins were carved by j's international students - most had never knifed a pumpkin before - or celebrated halloween.

all the 'guests' were dressed to the nines.

the prognosticator of love showed up - just as he does every halloween.

trick or tree.

the mummy door man

satan and his hot date

modeling the cupcakes - pumpkin cupcakes with cider glaze & chocolate frosting.

boo