Good-Bye

If I had a million years to cry
It wouldn't be enough
to wash out my heart
of all it's love
for you.

House of Gems contest

Love to bead? love shopping sprees? need some great things for your stash to make jewelry from?
House of Beads is having a wonderful contest and it's been extended to August 15th! So hurry and enter by going here. While you're there check out all the goodies they have and get Creative!

Entry Page

And don't forget to upload up to five pieces to the flickr photo stream. Have a look at all the wonderful entries too even if you don't have a chance to enter by going here. Take a look at my entries to while you're there and let me know what you think!


Grand Prize (1):
$1000 Shopping Spree on HouseofGems.com
Runners Up (1):
$500 Shopping Spree on HouseofGems.com
Consolation Prize (5)
$100 Shopping Spree on HouseofGems.com

Timeline:
Contest runs July 18th, 2009 thru August 15th, 2009

Enjoy!


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Silver Linings

I am thankful to G-d that he always supplies a silver lining to every cloud or thunderstorm we have to endure in life. I have been going through some pretty intense times the past few months and July and August are never good months for me to start with and these have been no different. For one thing I have been without transportation for over a month now because my car didn't pass inspection and we can't afford to fix what's wrong and I am too law abiding to drive it even though we paid the insurance and the registration, so I've been home bound and it's not easy. Then I had trouble with my online connection and my security being breached which limited me even more. To top it off I've been being harassed by some who I thought were fellow peers in my current field and no resolution could be made, especially after lie after lie was being told about me. Because of all this and other personal problems I have been quite out of sorts and have been having problems with my heart again and don't want to end up back in the hospital so have been trying to deal with this as best I could. Because my computer is back in my studio I had to clean off my table to get ready for someone to come in and fix it, but I think I shall get it all back out today and try to make something.

(You can click on the pictures to see a larger view but make sure to hit the back button to return here to finish reading because it doesn't open in a separate window! )

Two good things happened to me this week though, I found out I was the monthly winner at Art Bead Scenes drawing of some fabulous beads and a gift certificate, for my entry in the LasCaux Cave painting challenge! It was such an unexpected surprise and a bit of a lift from something I'd found out that day. If you haven't visited Art Bead Scene, please do, there are always inspiring articles, and lots of tutorials, photos and eye candy to oggle and dream over, and be sure to check out all the entries from this past months challenge of the cave paintings, I've never seen such wonderful diversity in the previous challenges I've followed. It's a gallery of pieces all inspired by these ancient drawings and a wealth of inspiration to others as well!

I also received in the mail these beautiful earrings from EmandaJ from a drawing she had. She is also having a giveaway drawing this week too, so stop by the blog of this fellow infj and have a look, and leave a nice comment to be entered. I promise it's a great read and lots of color!
She also sent me this sweet little birds nest made from copper wire with two bluish freshwater pearls. It reminds me of the Robins nest we had this spring right outside our side door, atop the downspout. I watched as both Mr. and Mrs. worked very hard to build this very sturdy and huge nest! I never did get to see the babies fledge but later after they had I saw some juvenile robin's trying out the ground bird bath we have and they were a joy to watch.




I want to do something with this really cool nest Emanda made me and thought I might try and add it to this feather I made with a skinner metallic blend. I think the colors go well together and if all goes well for me today with my heart I shall try I think to bring this together. I'll show you a peek at it when it's done.


Mean while maybe you'd like a look at some of the things I was able to finally photograph, which shall (hopefully) soon appear in OrganicOdysseys .

These are some earrings of a different style I've been working on, using up some Donna Kato style brocade sheets. They have three layers to them, the copper bottom which is embossed with a secret texturing tool :) then the next layer is my version of Donna's Brocade surface technique and the top layer is smooth, polished black clay that has been imprinted with a Chinese character stamp and highlighted with gold. I like how these came out and I think I shall try this with other mixtures of finishes.

In keeping with the Asian influence I sculpted these bamboo earrings, this time using green clay instead of the white which I painted and distressed in my last version. Simple and yet effective I think, and flattering on any woman.

And again keeping with the Asian theme, while the pattern isn't exactly Asian the technique is, this is one of my older UFO's (un-finished objects) that has been sitting around in my bamboo bowl for ages. I finally decided what I wanted to do with it. This is one of my first attempts at Mokume Gane done in copper, black and white. In fact this was about 5 years ago when I tried to entice my husband into finding a hobby , maybe PC? by telling him the story of MG hoping it might interest him as he works with metal (or did at the time, now he actually works with polymers, just different than what I do :) ). He covered a belt buckle and we covered a terracotta urn together but it didn't hold his interest. This was a piece left over from the slab so I tried one of my favorite ivy leaf stamps in it. I liked it but didn't know quite what to do with it but I think it makes a wonderful brooch.

Ancient Whispers

I did finally get some time to come up with another piece for the ART BEAD Scene's July Challenge. My first try was for a bracelet, it was ok, but I wasn't inspired by the rough piece to continue with it. It will enter my Bamboo UFO Bowl. (That's for Unfinished Objects), and I'm sure I'll come up with something to do with it. But I did make something and rather like it. I guess I am partial to ivory or beige and turquoise and that is what I gravitated to in this piece.

I've had the stone 'bezel' for about four years, bought it at a local bead shop when I discovered it soon after moving here. I loved the irregular striations on it and since I have always loved stone for their beauty alone it didn't bother me that every time I came across this I hadn't made something out of it. I just liked having it. But when searching around through all my beads, UFO's previously made items and the box of 'do something with this! " I came across it again and got to thinking. I didn't even make a sketch with this one, just went to it. I was able to incorporate some beads I'd made about three years ago, some faux turquoise, ivory fossil beads and some ancient Hebrew pictorial beads. I loved how these came out but never knew what to do with them.

My focal Art Bead is made from a mixture of various colors of clay and sand, to emulate the texture in the caves. The pictorial letters are the head of an Ox, reminiscent of the cows and steer through out the caves at Lascaux. The second symbol is a Cattle prod or Ox goad, looks like a Shepherds crook. The Ox stands for the Leader and the goad symbolizes authority. These two put together symbolize G-d in his primitive role, as the leader who guides his people because he is the authority over them. Transliterated this word from Hebrew is 'El'.

I gathered these all together and grabbed some turquoise chips I had recently added to my bead boxes by cutting up an old necklace. It needed a bit more because of the dark brown, almost black vein in the stone bezel. So instead of using any black beads I had I decided to make some faux lava beads. So except for the turquoise chips and the stone bezel I made all these other stone with polymer clay. Not even sure if I want to list this in my AlmostARTifacts shop, I really like this alot and may keep it for myself, but yet I don't go out that much so if someone is really inspired and attracted to it, I would be happy to depart with it, I love it when my pieces find the perfect home! :)

So I just finished this about an hour ago, quick too some pictures and uploaded it to the ABS photo stream at Flickr. Check out all the great entries, this sure was an inspiring piece, seems the ancient art inspires as much if not more than the more modern and professional ones. Wonder if that is because we can all relate to it more?

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Can't get that song out of my head

Play this while reading

It haunts me as I try to sleep, which frankly is a lot better than in the past few weeks where I would go to sleep and wake up with 'Beat it', 'Thriller', 'Billy Jean' and numerous other MJ songs in my head, probably from watching too much news, something that hasn't proved a good thing for me in the past, especially since 9-11-01. :( And thankfully the dreams of Michael have stopped, I kept dreaming of how I could talk to him, help him to keep from destroying himself and to not worry about what others think of your outside, that is their problem that they need to deal with, but it never had a good ending because he's dead). So if you see someone in pain, try to help them while they can be helped. I guess this is so natural to me and not others as this is a common INFJ trait, and had I continued through medical school I would most likely have pursued becoming a psychologist as it seems after looking back, my main goal in life has been to help others or at least try but I've found many really don't want to be helped, sad though that is. But many times I'm not perceived that way and many misunderstanding happen and being an 'In', an introvert I usually would just shrink away. But I've also found that lately I've been trying to defend myself and that backfires too. :( It's so hard being an INFJ sometimes I wanna scream, "why me!??", Why can't I be like 'normal people', whatever that is? :) But I suppose there is a very good reason for us in the world, but why the small proportion I don't understand, only 1% of the population????

I personally think we would do much better in the whole world if there were more INFJ's people that are/were like Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Elenore Roosevelt, and even Carl Jung ( nice to know he was, wish he was alive today to talk with) and some say even the prophet of King David, Nathan was one as well as Jesus Christ? Now I'm not sure how all that can be figured on someone not here today, but I guess it's good to be in that kind of company. :)

Anyway, still had the song below on my mind, so I made this treasury to put it in a visual artistic form. Click on the picture to take you there to view full size. Let me know what you think! I love to read your comments. :)


Lyrics | Hoagy Carmichael lyrics - The Nearness Of You lyrics

Great pieces in this Treasury song collage by:

SarahJohnAfana
designsbywendyt
JenSanCandles
TheNightjar
cyndiesmithdesigns
trendyknitting
LinenMe
ixela
glamarita
carvelcountrysoaps
bovinebubbles

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