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Welcome to Briarly Hill!
These are the musings and ponderings of the Artist from Briarly Designs, an online store of unique, handmade, sterling silver jewelry. I invite you to check out some of the pieces I've made and let me know what you think. Go to: www.briarlydesigns.com
Enjoy!
P.S. - A lot of people come here looking for the whimsical "Shipping & Returns" policy my husband wrote. If you don't see it below, you'll find it in the archives under July 5, 2007.
These are the musings and ponderings of the Artist from Briarly Designs, an online store of unique, handmade, sterling silver jewelry. I invite you to check out some of the pieces I've made and let me know what you think. Go to: www.briarlydesigns.com
Enjoy!
P.S. - A lot of people come here looking for the whimsical "Shipping & Returns" policy my husband wrote. If you don't see it below, you'll find it in the archives under July 5, 2007.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
I was checking out from Barnes and Noble last week, when I noticed some magnets hanging on a rack and started reading them. One caught my eye that I had never seen before.
“Do something scary everyday” Eleanor Roosevelt.
I don’t think it meant looking in the mirror; however that did cross my mind. Walking through the halls at my son’s high school? No? ok, I get it.
Today I did something scary, I soldered a difficult part to pin that I have been putting off for a very long time. I hate to fail, or worse waste materials. This is not good I am told, as an artist I need to take chances and try new things if I want to be creative.
So, I had this cool idea for a pin. Take apart a less than stellar (I refuse to call it failed) piece of jewelry, add a freshwater disk pearl encircled with 14K gold and wind a wire around like a safety pin. Easier –said- than -done. I have a habit of not drawing things out first, instead liking to create as I go. This can be problematic if you accidentally do an irreversible step before a more functional one. I drew a basic idea, and thought, and pondered and, it….sat, for weeks. The simple step of soldering a 14K gold bezel onto a base was excruciating, but I did it! And then the piece sat again. I didn’t know how to make the catch on the back. Several reference books later, the make do part of me took over. I came up with the idea of two tubular pieces soldered to the back, one of them would be joined to the bottom stationary wire and the other, with a piece cut away, would hold the pin part. I have no idea why I agonized soldering those two tubes in place, in the end it wasn’t very hard and “bless my soul” it works!!
I recently read a bio of artist Michael Boyd in the September 2009 issue of Art Jewelry magazine who said” if he went out to dinner and spent $50, he gave himself the same permission to trash $50 worth of material.” He went on to say, “If you can’t take that $50 pearl and cut it in half, you will never expand beyond.” I am expanding, “ to infinity and beyond” I think if I did do something scary everyday, then perhaps it might just get a little easier and maybe I wouldn’t be afraid of ruining a wad of silver… Maybe
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