Rise up!

I am profoundly disgusted with the recent developments in our governing system. The idjit men in charge have decided to defund Planned Parenthood. What's next? Public school?

Whatever their reasoning it comes right down to allowing a woman to own her body. Completely own it and thus be able to decide exactly what happens to it.

I will uphold a woman's right to choose what is right for her and her body. The vast majority of women make their choices wisely and with considerably agony and forethought and will hold those choices forever in their hearts. Many women are blessed with partners that will support her but those who do not need a safe place to explore their options.

I'd rather that no woman every had to consider an abortion. I want her to have access to sex education and birth control. I want her to have access to STD testing. I want her to be able to get screened for cancer. I want her to feel like she's more than the sum of her parts. I want healthy, happy women to bear healthy, happy babies and to be able to raise them, feed them, educate them and send them off into the world able to contribute to the greater good.

These powerful politicians scare me. I see evil in their eyes. Recently I've been reading a historical fiction book about WWII and the Nazi SS was characterized as men with no intelligence and no skills who only desired power. Given any sort of power they quickly resorted to brutality. They had little humanity and less conscience. They beat and brutalized and murdered hundreds of thousands in their quest for power.

Sounds like quite a few of the current crop of Presidential wannabees. We cannot give that type a foot in the door. It's already too late to some degree but it's not time to roll over. It's time to fight.  I call on women to wake up and realize that we are more powerful than we think. We can still vote. We can vote these bastards out. We can protest and call them on their idiocy in loud voices.

We can make choices for our bodies, our children and their wellness and education, for the health and beauty of our environment, for simple humanity untarnished by greed and the lust for power.

Please look in the mirror and see how powerful you are and how powerful we are if we decide to step up and take that power. No woman would choose to send her sons and daughters to kill other sons and daughters. No woman who has watched her child entranced by a butterfly would choose to devastate wilderness for the sake of oil. No woman would see her elders forgotten in sterile nursing homes.

Think, vote, speak up.

Always.

Summer of Friendship

Meanwhile, back at the ranch/homestead/mountain lair, all is smoky from several gigantic fires in the area, 1000's being evacuated from the Butte/Amador fire. We daily count our blessings and know that it would be so easy to be in the same situation, just one tiny spark. Insanely, our vigilant fire departments are almost daily having to attend to illegal camp fires, thereby proving idiots walk among us. Rain cannot come soon enough.

Photo by Shannon Prieto - 9/10/15

I am naming this the Summer of Friendship. I've been blessed to find myself surrounded by a lovely tribe of geeky metal working, fun loving women and feel for the first time in my life that I'm accepted and celebrated for who I am in the company of women. It's a fine thing and if my life can be compared to a bowl of Salted Caramel Gelato then they are surely the Fudge Sauce and Toasted Almonds on the top.

Do we grow into our acceptance of others? I'm not sure if aging allows us to simply be who we are or if we get better at picking the right people to hang out with. We learn that some people are more like Habenero peppers, they enrich but you only need small doses, while some are more like French Roast, in which a daily slurp is almost mandatory.

I think of the history of my life and marvel that I've gotten to this most excellent place, peace and acceptance, rich and varied relationships, exciting and exacting work, with so much more to look forward to and I cannot help but smile.

Always...

Mad for Leaves...

I've been on a leaf run for a couple of weeks.

These morphed from plain to FABULOUS, even if I do say so myself.

Fine silver, cut into rectangles, folded over, cut into vague leaf shapes, hammered with a riveting hammer, heated to anneal, opened up.

 Starting the shapes.

 Kind of ugly and scary at this point.

 Smoothing the edges, bend a little bit here and there, yowsa, much better. From here lots of sanding and polishing.

 This set got stems, but the next batch won't as I prefer the extra movement a simple drilled hole provides.

Some enamel alchemy, mixed some dark red on top of the gold and got a really successful color.

Hmmm, what would look good with this? Need shiny, some irregular citrine, some Mandarin garnet and we'e good to go.

 Finished, sold the first day out, sent to the Midwest to a very beautiful, vibrant lady.

Here's the next batch, in the polishing stage. Open Studios is fast approaching and I want to have some new work ready.

Always...

Finished and.....Gone!

It feels really good to labor over a piece for days and days and even better when I get it done and it sells the first day.

Edited to add a process pic.

Peace

Baubles and Babes

Ten days in West Texas blissfully doing little girl things with my darling granddaughter and now I'm heading home again to my treeful haven.

Time away refreshes my creative streak so I can hardly wait to get started burning and hammering metal.

I got some nice things done before I left.

This is a natural turquoise from the Nevada Royston mine,  designed with a bail big enough for this handmade Viking Knit chain.  I'm proud to say that except for the purchased stone and clasp I've fabricated it all from wire and sheet.

There are more on my bench waiting for completion.

I think the grandmother gig is about the best job ever.  My Georgie loves to talk and imagine so we have a great time together.

Always

Out of the frying pan...

We're always just one spark away from disaster. The Lowell Hill Fire started two days ago and is being fought with everything that's available. Incredibly, no structures have been lost but four firefighters have been injured, one seriously.

It's only five or ten miles from here, our fairgrounds has become a staging area and heavy equipment trucks are moving past my house day and night.

The smoke is choking. I wake up to a hazy fog of thick smoke but complaining is useless and silly when people are either being evacuated or are planning exit strategies depending on how the wind blows.

We can only wait and watch and send good thoughts to those who stare down the gullet of the beast and with shovels, chemicals and sheer courage say, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!".  Bless them and their heart.

Always

Leaves, fire and tears...

I tend to work through grief by immersing myself in my studio and brother, I've been working a LOT in the last three months. My well has run very low but I find that I can keep it from running completely dry by just being in my studio. Often I become so completely absorbed in creating something interesting that I forget everything else.

Life has been rough for me and mine, horrendous events have knocked our wheels out from under us, sadness and loss have torn holes in our lives. All we can do is hug and talk and try to be there while the terrible wounds heal enough to go on with life.

And so, I do the only thing I can, keep working, keep moving, stay focused on the blessings, even when they seem elusive at best. We are at our best when things are worst...a line from an old movie, but it's true, not to run from pain but towards it, to help with the unbearable burden.

So, my little world may seem trivial but it's the best way I know to go on, I like the thought of things that will remain when I am no longer here. A legacy of beauty, pieces created with love and soul, little bits of me that will speak to those down the road.

I now have my own soldering set-up, mine, all mine. This has been a long time coming. I waffled around for years and years, not quite sure if that was the direction I wanted to go. But once I started using a real oxy/propane system I knew I had to get busy and get it done.

Gathering all the paraphernalia took some time. I had the Smith Little Torch but originally bought Oxy/Acetylene regulators, soooooo, off to Cyberweld for a new regulator, then gather up the chemicals, crock pot, pickle, alcohol, borax, flux and so on.

Whew! Then, with the help of a great metalsmithing friend, the tanks were connected and voila! That first flame thrilled me.

I'm setting stones, building bezels, thinking through designs. I know the leaves thing is sort of trite but I really love that organic look and wanted to try to on my own. They are so much fun, cutting and shaping and filing and soldering on the stems and more finishing makes me happy on so many levels.

More will come, the ideas are endless,

Don't hold back on love, spread it around, tell that person you love them, because tomorrow may be too late.

Always...

4th of July...

Doesn't get a whole lot better than a July 4th party at Lucchesi Vineyards. Their private road is named View Forever which gives you just an idea of how gorgeous it's going to be. Their gracious gardens wrap around the top of the hill with grapes sweeping down into the valley.

Lovely shaded seating and cool breezes, grilled burgers and very good wine, laughing conversation and music led us through the incredible sunset and into the cool dark night towards dancing to live music and eventually to a far distant display of fireworks. It was lovely to see the splashes of color all along the ridge, from Meadow Vista to Lake of the Pines, Roseville, Sacramento and on.

It was peaceful and sweet and later we star watched in the hot tub. Life is good in so many ways, even in the midst of challenges and loss, the very act of keeping company makes the road a bit easier.

I was heartened to hear very few fireworks, probably the first time in my life the endless pop and bang has not accompanied the day and evening hours of this day. Our community seems to have taken to heart the danger we live in with our drought, thankfully.

Always...

Burning and hammering -

One of my all time favorite things to do, especially when I can push myself into new and beautiful things.

 This is my second bezel set stone, in this case a rainbow moonstone. Here's the bezel and back plate already done and the prepped ring shank. I'm sort of making this up as I go, I soldered the rink shank and then sawed it partially so I could separate the two sides. I like that split shank look and it seems like it will be more stable on the finger.

 I'm learning great patience with myself when soldering. It soldered beautifully the first time then came apart in the quench water, oops. I couldn't even see where the solder went but the second time it all came together like a charm.

 The back view. There rings behind are spinner rings in process, waiting for texturing and their companion middles.

Here we go!  It turned out great, this is before final polishing.

So, I'm happy, happy, happy with my professional life, pushing my personal envelope and continuing to find joy in everything.

Here are a few of the latest.

The moonstone, a spinner with the words Nolite Tradere and my Queen's Ransome spinner,with lab grown ruby cabochons.

Always...

Starry night

I'll meet you there,
Under the starry night,
The trees will stand guardian,
The silence and the heat
Will surround us,
Soaking into our skin,
Sinking down deep into our
Hearts.
And we will simply
Be.

Always

Mom Heaven

An unexpected visit from my son has me doing the happy dance.

I haven't seen him since Christmas and when his trip to Italy went awry they decided to head out here to explore.  Note to self and everyone else, don't try to fly on stand-by in mid May, not gonna happen.

Tough cookies, swimming in the Yuba river in May. Normally the run-off would be tremendously cold and dangerous but this year it was just cold. The Yuba river is a soul restoring place, one that I visit far less than I should but for some reason I head there after almost any flying, it just calms the jitters.

Riverwoman Design is getting very popular lately and so I'm working hard to keep the new stuff coming out and the older tried and trues in stock. I'm happy as can be with the spinner rings and I'm working on version two and three of cabochon set rings. I've learned that only repetition makes me good at those processes.

Last night I enjoyed my new hot tub under the stars for the first time and rejoiced at how wonderful it felt. This has been a dream since I bought this house and now the last big project is finished. I know there will be many nights of star gazing ahead.

And now to get busy, big family dinner tonight to say farewell to the travelers...

Always.

Glorious May Day

It's actually food porn v.2, another completely fabulous Polly's Paladar dinner, this one round 2 from the Fine and Rare duo from San Francisco.

The food was amazing, the company heartfelt and funny and comfortable.

We aren't really that messy, but there was wine involved, lots of it, so things got a bit silly. I painted the menu with bits from each course, starting with the butter/olive oil/anchovy/garlic dip for the bread and ending with some strawberry/rhubarb.

I'm a huge sushi fan but have been avoiding Sea Urchin since that first taste 40 years ago overwhelmed me. Well, now I'm loving it, the combination of urchin on avocado was sensual and quite tasty, both the same texture but the urchin bursting with ocean flavor. Yum!

I could not resist taking a pic of this delicious crab cake course, for it's beauty.

A fitting capstone to an incredible year.

Always.

Oh yeah...

I promised some jewelry porn and then got distracted actually making it and forgot.

I've been wanting to sink my teeth into soldering and stone setting for a long, long time and now I'm so lucky to be involved at the Curious Forge, with easy access to a torch and lots of fun tools, as well as the incomparable talents of Karen Olsen Ramsey.

So, I just launched in, spending some really fun hours practicing and getting a feel for the torch and placing solder just so.

 Here's my first spinner ring, made out of brass and likely not terribly wearable without turning my finger green but it's a good prototype.

 I also started the bezel setting for the amethyst stone.

 Here's more of the bezel setting and the beginning of two sterling silver spinner rings.

 Matching up those edges is going pretty well and it's major fun.

 Here we are, the original, the silver with copper still in progress, the triple gold filled and silver wire on sterling and the amethyst ring almost done.

 This one has been a blast and there will undoubtedly be more, those little fine silver balls are so much fun to stick to that copper.

And the amethyst bezel set ring, looking good with more fine tuning to be done but I'm hooked.

Pushing the envelope like this means I spend a lot of time combining the things I already know with the new things I'm learning.  There will be enameled pieces with bezel set stones, oh bliss.

Peace

Food Porn

Tonight I've got Food Porn to show and tomorrow I'll post some jewelry porn.

I've slipped so happily back into my wonderful life and even though I'm stumbling a little, trying to find my equilibrium, I'm lovin' it in a major, huge way.

I'm slowly shedding stress, which I find sort of interesting. One would think that I'd just shake it off and go on but it's easy to stay in stress mode where everything takes on more importance than is strictly necessary. It takes conscious acceptance of grace and thankfulness and peace and those are slippery little buggers, apt to crawl away when you're not looking.

"Stay please,"  I say, and wrap them like the softest of cashmere blankets around my shoulders. If I do it often enough my body relaxes and my brain follows, letting the warmth seep in deeply.

Occasionally I experience something so profound that it can take me days or weeks to process.

Last week I attended "Feasting at the Grinding Stone," a dinner prepared by Sean Sherman, The Sioux Chef from Minneapolis. He specializes in cooking pre-colonization foods of the Native American peoples, no flour, no chicken, beef, or pork and no dairy. It's hard to describe eating a meal composed of ingredients that grow all around us.

This was an incredible experience and not only for the food. Sean Sherman is a Native American and this meal was attended by many members of our local and more distant tribes including the Nisenan from this area. We were welcomed by these peoples in various ways, both in songs and stories. This meal became a blessing and a union, for a short time, of the old and the new. We talked about food and seed culture and the importance of remembering those local food gifts that we rarely think about.

We need this intimate joining with the earth and each other now more than ever. There are lessons to be learned, stories to hear, songs that root us to the dirt and green things that feed, shelter and nuture us.

Peace

Life is definitely a box of chocolates.

Counting down the days, next week I'll get my life back and studio time will become number one again.

I'm doing some work but mostly just trying to keep up. I was making these fringy earrings and of course, headed off into something different.  The usual silver and then a pair with gold filled dangles, love them! Here you see silver polished, silver left matte for a more rustic look and the silver and gold filled.

This last week has been really awfully crazy and not in a good way at all. I left my purse sitting in my car in Sacramento a week ago and in less than 10 minutes it was GONE! I've spent the last week fixing the wreckage, trying to put my life back together, one thing at a time.

I'm sure they grabbed the credit cards and tossed the rest, including the prescription sunglasses and the new wallet my daughter gave me for Christmas. Damn!

Don't do it, don't be casual even for a few minutes. And take all your cards out of your wallet and copy them. I had done that a year or so ago so it was easy to remember the AAA card and the others. I change my purses fairly often so it really didn't have much in there, but the replacement is awful and the sense of having no identity or means to get money is really weird.

So, this weekend I braved the insane Easter crowds at the mall and went to Lenscrafters for an exam and new glasses, hideously expensive but worth it.

There are many great things to look forward to, including a special dinner called "Feasting at the Grinding Stone" an indigenous feast cooked by The Sioux Chef, Sean Sherman. I'm so intrigued by this meal, in which I will be joining some great foodie friends.

My lesson this week is that nothing is over til it's over and that anything approached with love can turn into a good thing.  Life is always an adventure and I'm very glad to be able to live it.

Peace

I'm BACK!

And loud and proud of what and who I am.

I was asked to temper my words by someone I loved with all my heart and so I did, because I did not want to cause him pain.

I grieved my beloved blog and tried to write privately but it just didn't seem the same. Here I feel like I'm having a conversation and even though I'm not an exhibitionist I found it nearly impossible to write for a very limited (but loyal) audience.

I blew it.  I followed my heart while the alarm bells rang at DefCon One, ignoring those warning bells, wanting so much the fantasy that the reality just escaped me.

You can't make someone love you. What is in their heart is not the same thing that's in yours. You can't make them faithful.  You can't make them honest. You can't make them be the warrior your heart seeks.

And I suffered and suffered and finally experienced enough betrayal that the light broke through and I stepped free.

And now I'm free and will work really hard to rebuild my confidence in myself.

And no doubt I'll screw up again but I'm actually okay with that. I've chosen to live my life with an open heart, in a childlike simplicity of loving and laughing and giving.

And one day there will be a person who deserves that and celebrates it and me.

Peace

Ten weeks and counting...

I'll raise my hand and admit to being a wimp.  Mornings are just not my thing. I'm slogging through these weeks like a zombie and making a vow here and now, not again.

DO NOT DO IT!  I'll need to remember this next year if they ask me back, no no no. It would be different if I wasn't alone but trying to keep all these parts moving is really exhausting. Does my body hurt because I'm so tired or am I so tired because my body hurts?

Who knows, but I think it's okay admitting that in two years I'll be sixty and maybe, just maybe, I can't do everything.

Damn and blast, really?

Only ten more weeks, socking money away in hopes of putting in a hot tub, it's a good goal.

Of course, I probably don't need to spend the 45 minutes I have in between jobs filling my yard waste container, do I?  But I did, filled it up and then took advantage of the sunny day today to fill it again, just in case it's raining next time.

I forgot how beautiful my gardens were in Minnesota. I used to sit in the hot tub in the morning, after everyone left, drink coffee and watch the birds, it was heavenly.

We don't have that many iris out here, they love water and damp, rich soil, both in short supply out here. I'm consciously avoiding planting anything new, hoping I can continue to water my flowering dogwoods if our drought continues. It seems a selfish thing to water plants when there are those who have failing wells. I've also thought about putting in cisterns but finding the space for them on my relatively small lot is daunting.

Oh well, time for sleep.

Peace

Cruising through January...

Two weeks into my crazy odyssey of jobs and I think I've lost my mind.  Why did I think I could do all of this?

But I can, it's just an adjustment and it's much better for me not to have time to have the blues. This way I'm running on full speed and keeping up nicely so far.

The new job is much harder than I ever thought it could be.  The level of detail is extreme. I still get frustrated after a year at my plumbing job but they're happy with me so it's good.

My birthday weekend was lovely, heartfelt and filled with friends and family and him. Our reunion was incredible and sort of astonishing. I imagined some awkward moments, after all it had been almost two months, but there were none. I'm reminded that true friends don't notice the days or weeks or months between meetings, they just keep going like there was no break. Well, it was like that, so sweet and loving and full of laughing and happy I'm still smiling.

We did lots of talking and even when it was time to part we begged for just 15 more minutes.

It just seems different and it's good and that's enough.

Peace

January blues...

I've ripped apart my living room, gave away my couch, roamed an hour away to bring home a new recliner, moved furniture, cleaned both refrigerators, scrubbed and polished and dusted and raked and swept and found a home for an old bed cluttering up the garage.

I start a new job tomorrow, tax time help for my accountant. That plus my other part time job, the gallery and my jewelry business, four jobs.

And still I'm excruciatingly lonely, bouncing around my empty house, talking to my furry friends, putting things away, cleaning some more, wishing, wishing, wishing that I had some company.

I need a hug.

When I trained to be a CASA we talked quite a bit about the loss of one's home and the effect it has on a child.  I realized that I lost my home this time of year when I was in high school. I was sent to live with my Dad at Christmas and didn't even get to say good-bye to my friends. In retrospect it was a very positive move for me but it did have a great impact on my life. I feel once again the loss of my home every year about this time. Knowing that it's connected helps intellectually but not emotionally, the pain is still there.

I know it will pass and keeping busy is one way I've learned to deal with it. I need more physical exercise which is difficult lately, hip issues are increasing and likely will result in a hip replacement this year.

I'm lucky to have great friends who tease me and make me smile and laugh.

It's all good.

Peace

First Day!

It's a bright and shiny New Year and I love it!

I really don't like having two blogs as I'd like to keep one place for everything.  The only solution I can see is to copy anything halfway personal, thoughtful or interesting from the website blog to this one.  That makes my heart happier.  Don't you love it when the right thing comes about and makes your day all bright and shiny?

There will be more added to most of these posts, watch me jump around between public and private, crazy time but what's new?

This time of year I find that I don't have a lot of energy for my studio but I'm still in there, mostly cleaning up the carnage from the last month or so.

There is planning going on too, an order list growing way too quickly and some new things percolating. We have a new jeweler in the Gallery and that always inspires me to push myself a little bit more.

I want to make big chunky silver rings, with fine pieces of turquoise.  I bought a beautiful ring for my daughter for Christmas from Durango Silver. All of their jewelry specifies where the turquoise came from and the name of the artist who made the piece. That's the way jewelry is supposed to be made, with fine materials and acknowledgment of the maker.

Whether they actually come to fruition I have not a clue. I realize that this time of year we're supposed to rest, bundle up and drink some tea and dream a little bit.

Do you have a particular time of year that you rest? A time you don't feel like creating? Or maybe you do but there isn't any mojo left after the holidays? I certainly don't have much left.

This time of year I tend to spend more time alone. The weather has been coolish...let's be reasonable, 30's and 40's is only coolish to the rest of the country...so I don't get out as much. I think I used to love shoveling snow because it gave me something to do outside.  Now I rake leaves, fill up the yard waste container, putter around the yard and still get really cold.  Of course, I'm out there with a sweatshirt on, light gloves and no hat, figures.

I've been wearing my big new sheepskin coat when I go out, it's freaking heavenly and I'm so glad I splurged and bought it for myself.

I both relish and dislike my solitary hours, which would typically be filled with studio time but I'm not ready to pick up my pliers right now.

So, I'm restoring and thinking about spring and the things I hope to accomplish this year, personally, professionally and spiritually.

I'm looking at a hip replacement and disappointed with my body that it's failing me so early. However, maybe I failed it? But from what I hear it's a good thing, the recovery is fairly long but you get your life back with no pain.  I'm very freaking tired of having difficulty tying my shoe, limited mobility is sucky.

Peaceful dreams my friends.