I am fascinated by how others read my work. A single piece evokes different interpretations, which makes me think that symbols are containers for the meaning we give them. In other words, because we see what we need to see, a symbol’s greatest power lies in teaching us who we are and what we want.
Omen Ring.
Handmade with carnelian and recycled sterling silver.
Lately, I’ve been taking all the time I need to make a piece. I usually begin with a sketch, but I mostly improvise as I work. Sometimes this leads to dead ends, others to interesting results. Not knowing where the process will take me has made my work much more exciting!
Impromptu Ring.
Handmade with fluorite and recycled sterling silver.
I will add these pieces to my online shop tomorrow, Sunday, at 11 am CT.
I can cut the rings to fit any size between 5 and 10. Once I cut it to fit you, you will still be able to open it half a size. Please specify your size when you make your purchase.
The (very!) large lemon quartz pendant includes a 31” long darkened sterling silver chain.
Al items ship for free, and will arrive in a few days by DHL.
It’s been interesting to spend so much time in the company of my cat and my plants. Entering their wordless world has made me connect with a more natural environment. I realize that the constant rush and stress are unique to a world created by the human mind. In nature, time takes on another dimension. One that is much richer in every way.
Roots Ring.
Handmade with chrysoprase and recycled sterling silver.
Available this Sunday, at 11 am CT, in my online shop.
Borrowed wisdom for these times: Bloom where you are planted.
Blossom Ring.
Handmade with amethyst and recycled sterling silver.
This Sunday in my online shop.
Of all the trips I’ve taken, the introspective journey has been the most valuable. In the past, I was fortunate to go on long meditation retreats. Now a virus has stopped time, and has given me the opportunity to go within.
When I am able to observe my mind without reacting to everything that passes through it, I can navigate life's changes without losing my inner peace. This is the freedom I’ve always longed for, and I am grateful to feel it now.
Breakthrough ring.
Handmade with chalcedony and recycled sterling silver.
This week in my online shop.
Sortilege: the mysterious and irresistible attraction that the charms of a person or a thing produces on someone.
Ever since my father died a few months ago, the transitory nature of existence has occupied my mind. If he -with his powerful presence- no longer exists, then everything else will also end in time. This vision may seem depressing, but it has freed me from my worries about the future.
For as far back as I can remember, my dad had a toenail infection. After decades trying to heal it, he finally found a medicine that worked. When the funeral home came to take his body, the last thing I saw, as they closed the bag that contained him, was a perfect toenail on his foot. We fret about things that come and go, when what we can always have is the awesome experience of being alive.
Shiva Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.
Empathy from this shared life experience will turn us into citizens of the world. After we care for each other, it will be time to care for our planet.
Durga Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.
In these times where we collectively help each other by not seeing each other, I am glad we can communicate through the universal language of art.
Kali Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.
I will add the Legacy Rings to my Etsy shop tomorrow, Wednesday, at 1 pm, CST.
Each ring is one of a kind and I can cut it to fit any size between 5 and 10. Once I adjust your ring to your size, you will still be able to make it half a size larger.
I spent the morning writing blog posts. As I wrote, I felt inspired and confident. What great ideas! I thought. Now I’ve re-read them and they seem shallow and empty. Is this how I’ve been writing lately? For years? Stories I think are interesting, but are not worth reading at all?
Later, full of shame and regret, I realized there is no way to avoid this. I make a living by sharing what I create. Unless I show up as I am: informed or ignorant, profound or shallow, I cannot show up at all. When I work at my jewelry bench, I have to be willing to make junk or high art. I never know which is which, because there is no formula for either one.
A voice in my head says, who the hell are you to write about anything? Why should anyone care? I’m sure you hear it too. I think we all do. But I will continue to make things and write about them, because if I listened to this voice, I would be half dead. I’d no longer experiment and learn, fail and succeed. After all, everything is an attempt at something. Life itself is an attempt. I choose to participate.
Venture Ring.
Handmade with amethyst and recycled sterling silver.
This Wednesday in my online shop.
There is a space I enter when I am able to work in my studio for several days in a row. It is a deeper place in my mind where I feel more connected to my hands and body, and where I feel present as I chisel each tiny line on the surface of a piece. I call this space the blessing.
Continuity Ring.
Handmade with rainbow obsidian and recycled sterling silver.
Next week in my online shop.
I love living alone. It makes me aware of my changing nature, of the cycles of my mind and body.
I rest when I am tired, eat when I am hungry, and connect with friends when I am full of energy.
I have the gift of time and space to integrate my experience of the world around me.
Quietude Ring.
Handmade with labradorite moonstone and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.
One of the things I most appreciate in my life is that I can read every day. It is how I make sense of the world and find out what interests me. It’s how I model those I admire, and uncover my shadow in those I reject. Reading expands my imagination and makes me feel intensely. Stories are how I learn.
If I like the narration, I will listen to a book on Audible, otherwise, I will read it on Kindle. These are books I’ve read recently (in no particular order):
The Lost City of the Monkey God -Douglas Preston
The Work we Were Born to do -Nick Williams
Thou Shalt not be Aware -Alice Miller
Healing the Shame that Binds you -John Bradshaw
Born Standing Up -Steve Martin
Art and Soul Reloaded -Pam Grout
The Actor’s Life -Jenna Fischer
Chasing Aphrodite -Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
Pussy -Regena Thomashauer
Bad Blood -John Carreyrou
Three Women -Lisa Taddeo
Men Without Women -Haruki Murakami
More than Enough -Elaine Welteroth
The Mother Tongue -Bill Bryson
The Patron Saint of Liars -Ann Patchett
It’s not your Money -Tosha Silver
Beautiful Boy -David Sheff
In Pieces -Sally Field
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up -Marie Kondo
The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn
Ninth Street Women -Mary Gabriel
Get Weird -CJ Casciotta
The Muralist -B. A. Shapiro
Cooking for Picasso -Camille Aubray
Sapiens -Yuval Noah Harari
The Art Forger -B. A. Shapiro
Less -Andrew Sean Greer
An Abbreviated Life -Ariel Levine
Self Therapy -Jay Earley
The Tao of Fully Feeling -Pete Walker
North -Scott Jurek
Circe -Madeline Miller
Forward -Abby Wambach
The Insight Cure -John Sharp
A Thousand Names for Joy -Byron Katie
The Children Act -Ian McEwan
Behold Dreamers -Imbolo Mbue
The Secret History -Donna Tart
Eckhart Tolle -A New Earth
Finding your Way in a Wild new World -Martha Beck
Steering by Starlight -Martha Beck
The Anatomy of a Calling -Lissa Rankin
The Betrayal Bond -Patrick J. Carnes
Caveat Emptor -Ken Perenyi
Love Warrior -Glennon Doyle Merton
How Children Learn -John Holt
Self Comes to Mind -Antonio Damasio
The Body Keeps Score -Bessel Van Der Kolk
Inner Work -Robert A Johnson
Finding your Element -Ken Robinson
The War of Art -Steven Pressfield
Bird by Bird -Anne Lammott
On Writing -Steven King
Walking Home -Sonia Choquette
Loving What is -Byron Katie
Radical Acceptance -Tara Brach
Peter Pan -J. M. Barrie
The Power of Self Compassion -Laurie J. Cameron
This is Marketing -Seth Godin
Find Another Dream -Maysoon Zayid
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers -Debbie Ford
Talking to Strangers -Malcolm Gladwell
How to Change your Mind -Michael Pollan
Listening to Ayahuasca -Donna Postel
What I talk About When I Talk about Running -Haruki Murakami
City of Girls -Elizabeth Gilbert
Mating in Captivity -Esther Perel
Sense and Sensibility -Jane Austen
The End of the Affair -Graham Greene
The Female Persuasion -Meg Wolitzer
Lolita -Vladimir Nabokov
The Seat of the Soul -Gary Zukav
David Copperfield -Charles Dickens
The Color of Water -James McBride
State of Wonder -Anne Patchett
Bel Canto -Anne Patchett
21 Lessons of the 21st Century -Yuval Noah Harari
Call me by Your Name -André Aciman
The Weight of Ink -Rachel Kadish
Calypso -David Sedaris
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark -Michelle McNamara
Total Cat Mojo -Jackson Galaxy
Nevertheless -Alec Baldwin
When you are Engulfed in Flames -David Sedaris
Theft by Finding -David Sedaris
Sherlock Holmes -Arthur Conan Doyle
Born to Run -Bruce Springsteen
Just Kids _Patti Smith
Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
A Life in Parts -Bryan Cranston
The Power of Focusing -Ann Weiser Cornell
The Invention of Nature -Andrea Wulf
Creativity Inc -Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
Year of Yes -Shonda Rhymes
Yes, Chef -Marcus Samuelsson
The Art of Asking -Amanda Palmer
Rising Stronng -Brené Brown
The Power of Vulnerability -Brené Brown
Elon Musk -Ashlee Vance
Big Magic -Elizabeth Gilbert
The Virgin Way -Richard Branson
Quiet -Susan Cain
The Goldfinch -Donna Tartt
Mind over Medicine -Lissa Rankin
Finding Ultra -Rich Roll
Unbroken -Laura Hillenbrand
The Personal MBA -Josh Kaufman
Made to Stick -Chip and Dan Heath
Purple Cow -Seth Godin
Start with Why -Simon Sinek
David and Goliath -Malcolm Gladwell
Immersion Ring.
Handmade with Chalcedony and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.
I want to learn about what happens to us when we take the gentlest kindest approach towards ourselves. When we don’t start off feeling evil. When we begin by knowing that we are not evil. We are not sinners. Who do we become then? When we have nothing to prove? When our self worth or worth in general does not depend on our achievements. What do we do when we let our minds wander and be curious? What do we read? Look at? Learn from?
I believe we all educate ourselves that way, in what matters the most to us: our inner healing. We make sense of who we are that way. We claim our own way, not our parents way, not how others saw us, or how we think they saw us, but how we are.
We identify and claim our own teachers. Part of us knows and follows the trail. Usually when we are not watching. When the parents are gone when we are alone and no one can see us. That’s when we really choose. In secret, not ashamed but guilty of indulging. It’s when we give ourselves permission to explore and “waste time” that we best use it. The product is who we become by choosing.
Ember Ring.
Handmade with amber and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.
After years of shedding and major change, I feel am finally embodying my 46 year old self. The person I was in the past is gone, as are my expectations of how I thought life would be. I look around and observe where I stand:
I am learning to gather my tribe, and form a family of kindred spirits. My home is a creative and nurturing space where I have the love and play of not one, but soon two, furry creatures. I explore this magnificent city each week and feed my soul with new ideas. I regard my work as a deep act of healing for myself and others. My body is strong and flexible. My mind is curious, and I feel with all my heart.
Ample Ring.
Handmade with moonstone and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.
What happens if I don’t grow up? If my choices are not wise or healthy? If everything goes to hell because I live with few responsibilities?
Would it make me a failure if I don’t make a long term commitment to someone else? Will I end up alone and un-challenged?
I feel everyone around me has it figured out, but having slipped through the cracks of society, I now belong to no-one, but to myself.
Outlier Ring.
Handmade with aventurine and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.
