.I carry the ocean with me.

 While on Shaw Island a few weeks ago I did a lot of beachcombing at low tide. I found beautiful perfect shells and interesting broken bits. I found myself holding onto the prefect shells, feeling the preciousness of the find. Then started to see the beautiful and intrigue of the broken and worn-down shells. The change in color and texture for time, salt water, and sun. They almost don't even look like shells. I love the questions they ask.

I'm slowing working on a little series but here is what's evolved so far. A brooch with a broken shell and a pair of earrings with almost matching shells. What a find! It was fun to play with the scale of the brooch design. Now I'm working on a necklace with broken shells. I'm really excited to see how it evolves.

.studio flow.

 This weekend I spent time in the jewelry studio for the first time in a long time. The energy just arrived out of nowhere and I listened. I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning working out two ideas, in a flow. It felt refreshing to feel the familiar flow and transcendence of working with metal where time seems to disappear. Coming back to the studio reminded me that things take the time they need. Don't worry abut another season, just be here and know it always keep moving. Sometimes it comes back and sometimes it take us somewhere else, but the time is always right. 

During my last week using my residency at the Grunewald Guild, I was focused on iterating design ideas inspired by the river. This has been a studio practice in the past, taking an idea in one medium and translating it to another. So that's what I did, I took the fiber ideas around the river, flow, and current into post earrings. I love the movement that came out of the pieces and want to try making a couple of these to see where they land and evolve.

The other piece I made was from a rock found at one of my favorite places, Ancient Lake, an incredible vast coulee formed by the Missoula floods. I wanted to make a piece that mirrored the coulee and the open - expansiveness. 

.new studio.

I took an extended break from making jewelry this past year. It's been a full year of working and going to school. Making jewelry has always been a personal practice that comes from space + reflection. I am grateful to have time, energy + space to give to my creative practice, again. I setup a new studio and am slowly experimenting and finding a rhythm again. 

.staying open.

It’s been a wild unexpected year - I left Central Idaho at the beginning of September 2017 and drove cross-country back to New England. My stay was short only a few months until a new opportunity presented itself in Western North Carolina so I drove down at the end of March.

From the outside it might look like many things - it might look like a nomadic adventure but internally I found myself frustrated over and over again by things “not working out” or finding that the anticipated path curved to a new unknown direction. This has happened with every move. So now as I am in that place of geographical transition I have felt waves of frustration that it didn’t work out or go as planned until I started listening a little close and seeing/hearing those signs that are always waiting for us. I listened to a podcast with Liz Gilbert talking about how beautiful and magical and unknown life is as it curves and winds and we can’t let fear lead us on this journey.  The next day I saw a friend's picture who is serving in the Peace Corps Morocco, a friend I served with in the Peace Corps with 10 years ago and I felt such profound gratitude, nostalgia and heartache thinking about my time in the Peace Corps. It was the most unexpected journey of my life. I landed into the unknown and it pushed, pulled, and guided me through to find a new more vulnternable more open and more compassionate being. These culminating moments help remind me that it’s not my job to judge my journey but to be present- to listen - to let go of expectations and follow where I am led in order to allow life to let me be the person I am becoming.

-----------------------

I made a small collection of earrings inspired by this moment + idea of staying open to the unknown + unexpected. 

See more in the AEO etsy shop.