I’m trying to remember when I first read Oscar Wilde, and I believe it was in high school; The Picture of Dorian Gray. For those doing math out there, that would mean about close to 40 years ago.
My obsession continued into college and remains in place today. I love his writings, images of him, the film starring Stephen Fry, and just thinking about this radical individual taking a lobster out for a London stroll on a leash. So here is a brooch entitled Thee Poison Pen featuring the wild one, with a lovely vintage pen nib affixed. The vintage seam binding ribbon is, of course, the palest shade of pink.
My research into ancient radical writers also lead me to Aphra Behn, who lived during the mid-1600’s and is upheld by many feminists as the first published female literary voice. Kind of a riot-grrl of the 17th century. Thee Poison Pen brooch honoring Ms. Behn, with vintage lavender ribbon and pen nib.
These two brooches will be offered among the last of the resin jewelry on the So Charmed site; we are about 4-6 weeks out from launch. If you are interested in either of them now, feel free to email me: jodiatsodashcharmeddotcom.
Ok, due to OVERWHELMING response… I know, six people, but I expected ZERO so I’m all psyched up… there are now three “lots” I’m giving away with the drawing I posted yesterday (scroll down). This is Lot 2, a pair of very elegant showstoppers with vintage glass and sparkly goodness.
And here’s Lot 3, more Time and Candy… golden brass clock hands with red glass beads, and vintage glass candy colored droplets.
As before, all you have to do is post your New Year’s Resolution in the comments area, either with this post or the previous one, and your name will go into a hat for random drawing. Then you get earrings in the mail! Cool? Cool! PS: Feel free to express preferences but I’m not promising as I want to keep this light and fun ok?
Happy New Year to all! Is it Jan. 2 all ready? Time is FLYING! Which is why I included the earrings far left in this first jewelry give-away. Those feature little clock hands and little black glass beads. In the center we have vintage beads on long lovely ear-wires. On the far right vintage 50’s “cut-out” buttons and delicious glass lampworked strawbs. And all of this can be YOURS! To keep, to give away, to deconstruct for supplies, whatever your heart desires!
Here’s how I’m gonna work this. To enter, you just need to comment on this blog post… and tell me one New Year’s resolution. Extra points for a resolution you’ve all ready broken or intend to break soon! Just kidding. Sort of. But share something… anything. I’ll put your name in a hat — a very cool vintage hat, of course — and then the bf will randomly draw a name for the winner. So it doesn’t matter what you write, we’re not judging.
Contest ends tomorrow at midnight, drawing and winner announced Weds, earrings ship by Friday.
With all the daily posting in Dec, a couple of pieces never made it onto the blog, thought I’d include them here so I can MOVE ON! Pictured above and below, The Trapeze Artist mixed media joint.
Lots of materials combined here.
Two more close-ups, nice little clasp if I do say! And this skein of the Indian sari fiber is incredible… it’s black but also has under and overtones of blue. This is the color I want my hair!
This one is called When You Left I Found Direction. I’ll just stack the other photos below. That’s an opalite chunk and a bone in the center.
The opalite glows like NOBODY’s bidness, changing with variations in light. Gorgeous.
More dreamy sari fiber. It only gets better as it frays.
As always if you want to see the photos bigger, hit my flickr page. All jewelry goes into the so-charmed.com category on the right. Duh!
Yes, these will be for sale when so charmed relaunches soon. Sign up for the eNews which publishes so sporadically it’s ridiculous, to get that announcement. Here’s the only one that went out in 2011 in case ya missed it.
Have had a complete fascination and love for automobile emblems for a long time now; once created an entire line of vintage handbags featuring these… all sold now with a few in my private collection. Anyway, have had this Caddy wreath around the studio for months, distressed it, left it on my work bench, waited, and woke up yesterday morning having figured out how to construct the necklace I wanted to make. Too busy with NYE to make anything but lasagne yesterday but got up this morning and worked out the details. Very excited with results and will be adding more to this series.
Vintage chandelier crystals for added post-apocalyptic glitz appeal.
Clasp is a wonderful vintage button… not sure what this type of button is called with the cording wrapped around. Anyone know? I have two more of these. LOVE.
This necklace hangs longer than I usually make. I’m so petite myself that I tend to wear shorter length things, but have to remember that lots of people like the longer concept.
This image shows the clasp + a very cute set of coral teeth to help you bite the hand that feeds you. This piece is very world’s-end for me, not in a Westwood kind of way, in a dress up all glam for the bombed-out ball kind of way.
Finished up the Maintain Balance necklace yesterday.
The clasp turned out cool, with a handcrafted toggle and a found rubber gasket.
Here’s a close up of the main elements.
And, modeled by the lovely headless zombie torso, Missouri-Abigale. PS: Two words I am TIRED of seeing together: Statement & Necklace. AGHHHHH, make it stop!
Home Sweet Home was also finished yesterday.
In love with this picture frame scored at half price on the Hobby Lobby field trip!
Another nice aspect of the new model is that she is lifesize, so this will give a sense of scale without my having to constantly provide measurements of everything.
Molly and I spent all day driving around and shopping and eating at Chipotle and laughing and carrying on. One of the stops we made was Fixtures-Plus (Brentwood, locals, also one in Balto) a warehouse of old store fixtures and displays, including a room full of mannequins. I’ll take my camera next time; it was INSANE in the membrane! Of course the mann-girl I wanted was on a shelf three stories up, so this guy had to go lug a ginormous ladder over to git ‘er down. Next stop was to score some plaster of Paris gauze strips and when we got home we covered up her ugly plastic self, zombie-style. I can’t believe how cool she turned out. And it was so messy and fun! Total cost: $40. Which beats the hell out of the mannequin Filene’s was “liquidating” for $75. Anyway, look for my new undead model when So Charmed relaunches.
Here is Earl Moth, he was once a tea tin, of the Earl Gray variety. I’m testing out photographing with just a few additional props so that I can give you a sense of how the pieces look worn (and without nagging Molly constantly to model for me). So it’s cool to see the moths upright instead of lying on the white seamless for one of the shots. Right? Oh, and that’s a hand we picked up at Fixtures. It had white dust pouring out of it, which made me instantly think of cocaine smuggling. I have been watching a LOT of Breaking Bad via Netflix. A LOT!!! Hand was $5. There was a spooky pile of them. Some with arms! Legs and feet too. I’m telling you, the place was too much.
Here are some sweet little spool necklaces that have been around here forever (never listed. Why? I don’t know!)… these are the ones that have poetry and other writings handscrawled around the vintage wooden spool, underneath the ribbon. You can see them undressed on flickr. The frame was scored at my new other favorite place on planet Earth, HOBBY LOBBY. Is that not the queerest name ever?!? It’s just lame! But people, this place kicks. We had so much fun and it took hours to make our way through the airplane hangar sized place. Only drawback… a biiiiiiiig shlep out to the exurbs (Laurel, locals). A field trip, for sure.
Anyway, the light was gone for the day, so these photos aren’t the best, but since they are just ideas at this point, let me know what you think! I’ll still do lots of white on white, b/c I think those are so pretty and really show the work.
One of the things I have wanted to take a break from in the jewelry world is resin. But before I sign off on this troublesome yet intriguing bane-of-my-existence process, I wanted to share a recent piece, pictured above, that was commissioned by a favorite client in Italy.
He had seen my series of Blues pins, pictured above, and requested one of Ella Fitzgerald for a friend of his who is a singer. I just couldn’t say no. And, truth is, when I see the results that are possible with this sticky messy stuff, I so wish it were a little less snarly to wrangle with. I use the Colores Doming Resin System, purchased from Rio Grande, which is a two-part deal and hardens when mixed. Properly. And I do mean properly. Should you measure out one tiny drop wrong, stir the mixture too hard or not hard enough, or should a piece of dust fly into your still-curing solution… and oh, did I mention humidity? Or your inkjet print not being dry enough? Or bubbles rising to the surface? All told, this stuff is a pain in the tuchas, even when it is working (smells kinda toxic, ugh). Anyway, I was happy to make the Ella pin, and am now retiring my resin for awhile. I hear it works better in the southwest btw, where the humidity is not DC-swampy. Good luck!
This is ALMOST finished, still need to protect the patina, but want to let it sit for a week or so before applying a sealer and may also do some work to pull out the dimensionality of the puffed part. There are three of these in the series, this one titled: Why Are You Weeping?
This is my first time using the green patina solution, and it was so exciting. The metal is called NuGold and I did a couple of tests on it before applying to the piece. BTW, this piece is finished on the back with a soldered necklace thingee as well as a soldered pinback. Which was NOT easy to affix, let me tell you.
The chain and findings are all vintage, glass Czech stones, which I hand set… and the blue one has the loveliest givre inclusions in cloudy blue. The chain with the little pink glass stones was gifted to me by one of my dear suppliers.
Stay tuned for more finished things next week, the last week of class. (sad face) I now officially want a hydraulic press for the home studio. Do you hear that Santa? (Yes, suddenly and conveniently I’m celebrating Christmas). I’d like to do even more of these, perhaps with riveting instead of soldering since I’m not yet ready to torch solder at home. Rivets ’round the flat edge would look great.
Took a break from the tin moth factory today to work on my bead stringing. Decided it was time to make these miniscule crimps and tips look all professional-like, so I watched a YouTube tutorial and got to work. The video really helped, altho these findings are so tiny you’ll see the camera-person struggling to keep them in focus! I had to watch it twice. FYI, pretty much anything jewelry-related that you want to learn via demonstration lives on YouTube somewhere. Soldering, beading, wire-wrapping… just search and see what you come up with. I’ll try to post some more links to some of my favorites. Wait, I need to learn how to embed video in the blog… let’s see…
Ok, how cool is that?! Great, because one of my Favorite Thing posts is going to be a short video that I’m shooting. Sorry… I’m talking to myself!
Not really sure where this necklace is going, but so far, having fun with the materials, colors, and a certain powerful feeling that’s emanating from the main focal. Not to get all woo-woo on you people.
