.finger lakes + boston.

I fell in love with the Finger Lakes! My plan was to stay one night which turned into two and continued into three. The Finger Lakes are located in Upstate New York, the landscape is soft rolling farmland with beautiful barns with many farms having their own little veggie stand on the road, paid on the honor system. The Finger Lakes region is a central part of the Iroquois homeland. The Iroquois tribes include the Seneca and Cayuga nations, which two of the lakes are names after, the lakes I visited. I'd visited Ithaca once before but it was winter. This time I was able to explore several gorge trails that just captivated me - the rocks, the colors, the flowing water and the way the light traveling through the trees and reflected and danced on the water. It was succession of moments of awe hiking the trails. There were several places this journey I felt my heart expanding and Ithaca was one of them.

My very last night of camping was in the Catskill Mountains on a small lake. The mountains were covered with the changing colors of fall, already! I had mixed feelings of savoring the peaceful comfort I had found on the road - the rhythm of setting up my tent everyday and waking up to drink coffee outside, just being outside so much of the day felt like home to me. But I was also feeling ready to reunite with dear ones and start this next adventure back in New England.



This last update took me longer to write than expected. I've been back in the city a week, time seems to fly by in the city. It feels so dense and busy here, I'm readjusting to New England but there's a part of me that now knows I don't want to fully readjust to the life I had here before. I need time to absorb nature and moments of silence to authentically connected to myself - to hear myself. I found a beautiful little place in a small coastal town just a little north of Boston to spend the next few months and I marinate all the places + colors + experiences of this nomadic residency and preparing for jewelry workshops in Somerville and the holiday shows that will quickly come.

Thank you thank you to everyone reading this for your love + support. I hope you have in someway connected with yourself thru this journey. I will continue to share this experience with you all as I process it with time and the jewelry that will slowly evolve from it. 

Much Love,
AEO

.west to east - a nomadic residency.

September 1st I'm embarking on a nomadic residency starting in Ketchum, Idaho and will travel east to Somerville, Massachusetts.

Living in the wild untamed lands of the west has been such an inspiring time for me and my jewelry design process. The slow life and the access to open lands has taught me to be more present and absorb my environment, it's something I want to continue to practice. This realization led to the idea of a nomadic residency! At the beginning of the year I  created a collection of jewelry, East to West inspired by my move from Somerville to Ketchum. I have travelled East to West and West to East many times but never the space in between. This residency will travel over 10 states (Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts) and span 20 days. The intention is to absorb the places + landscapes in between the West and East. After this journey I will create a new collection of jewelry, West to East inspired by the experience + landscape I encounter.

I'll be sending out residency updates from the road and images on instagram @aeodesigns.
Join me on this adventure!!

exposed::vulnerable jewelry collection

I went to Portugal to study metalsmith techniques and it ended up changing my relationship with how i made art - how i want to make art but it’s always a transition to changing a relationship/habit. I came back feeling recharged and lost - like reunited with a loved one after something has happened. This is jewelry. This is my art. This is my greatest teacher. But I didn’t know how to interact with it anymore. I was frustrated to not have the same relationship - to feel like I didn’t know it/connect with it.

Mark Nepo said that anxiety is the reaction to freedom.

At the same time I came back to a home that no longer felt like a home. In the following months I had to move out of a somewhere that I called home for a year and half, which is like forever in my timeline. I met - connected and separated from people in small and deep ways. I also met someone that connected with me in a new exciting and overwhelming way - a connection that made me feel recharged and lost. A connection that would demand openness/vulnerability in a way I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.

I left the east and returned home in the west and back to the east and then the midwest and head back east for a few weeks before I got west again. With only a small backpack, 4 outfits, The Book of Awakening and jewelry supplies. The great opportunity to learn how to be human - without comforts and hideaways.

I sat down in the studio again and started to make one earrings, slowly. I made the earring and then had another idea. I kept making pieces one at a time with new ideas slowing building on one another.

The pieces weren’t beautiful in a traditional way. The pieces were rough and industrial. The pieces felt like that were showing something they should be, exposed. The pieces are made with no home - an energy of being recharged and lost - completely human. The story I am telling right now. The story I need to tell over and over again to better understand this place I am in. The story I need to tell to reconnect with this new relationship I have with my art, jewelry. The new relationship in my life that requires all the darkness, space, details, roughness to be out - to be appreciated in a way something loved only can be, completely/actively.

I hope you find these pieces to be truth-tellers, reminders that we are all on this rugged /beautiful path. I hope you find community and healing in this universal truth we are all seeking. We are beautiful/unfinished/evolving/exposed beings - looking for a home/connection/peace/purpose and the only way is through in the surrender into this moment.

You can find the new wares in the AEO shop now.

aliciaeo.etsy.com

.telling the story in a new way.

I've been in a jet lag haze for several days and I'm finally coming out of it. I'm excited/anxious to get back in the studio and create, start to process this time. I sat down yesterday morning with all my amazing beach stones from Lagos and started to sketch some ideas. I liked the ideas but it wasn't much different than what I had been designing before Portugal. I realized that I am ready to challenge myself more. I started to think about movement/flow of ideas. I started imagining creating a special collection of pieces incorporating the hand-selected stones from Lagos. It felt like a lot. I was hesitant to even start sketch ideas - it didn't feel right. 

Friends have asked what Portugal has done for my jewelry - has(will) it changed my jewelry? Portugal changed the way I view/interact with the process of making and designing jewelry. It reminded me of the lost element of storytelling in each piece. 

Portugal made me fall in love with with light + shadows. The story of elements: the sun + time of day + building (canvas). To me light + shadows are a reminder that all is I see is coming from within me. We are constantly reflecting ourselves onto the world, that's perspective. 

My jewelry is a story. I have to learn how to tell that story in a brand new way, that's mine to figure out how. Portugal just gave me the light + shadows to see it.

.day 9.

I made it to Faro yesterday and met with the jewelry designer/future teacher yesterday. We had a great meeting...our only trouble was that he doesn't speak English and I don't speak Portuguese but thankfully we both speak Spanish! He told me that to come back today with some pieces so he could assess my skills and create a learning plan for me. I will be taking one-on-one classes with him 3-days a week. I'm thrilled!! He is the 4th Jeweler in his family and was the Director of a jewelry design school in Lisbon for 25 years. He is serious, passionate and experienced. He told today that he can't stand commercial jewelry or the way people just copy things off of the internet. Jewelry is a process. You can't just go to the studio and start making something, art doesn't happen by chance.You have to take time to understand a concept, design something, create a model of the design and then you make the final piece. He's strict and rooted into his views - he's just the teacher I need right now. I know he is going to really guide me into this new transition for myself and my art.

So grateful.
I hope you are finding teachers in your journey.

.day one.

I arrived in Tavira yesterday afternoon and felt like I woke up in my teenage european fantasy! I have wanted to come to Europe forever - here I am, 31 and finally here!  This trip just seemed to fall into place for me and to be honest I really don't know what will come of it. I have some hopes and intentions for this time but who knows - I think this trip will be as mysterious and magical as it's arrival. No matter what evolves/appears/reveals from the next 8 weeks I am already grateful for it. 

For the chance to S L O W down - 
to realign my energies - 
to refocus my path/direction - 
to practice M O R E gratitude - 
to be more O P E N - 
to G I V E time to discovering the story of my art
to E M B R A C E impermanence
to R O O T deeper into myself

I'm excited to share this time/experience with you all. Thank you for all the love and support.

.E X C I T I N G plans for 2016.

This has been a big year for me.  A year of taking risks and realigning my energies to nurture my truths. This year has taught me so much about myself. Thank you. Thank you to each and everyone of you all for your support, love and encouragement this year.

I have some BIG AEO news for 2016!! I am going to Portugal for 8 weeks for an artist residency. Thanks to dear friends and open doors I will be spending January and February in a small coastal town in the Algarve region of Portugal working with local metalsmiths.

I’ve travelled so much but I’ve never dedicated a trip solely to my art. I am grateful for this opportunity - to sit in my creativity and see what emerges - reveals.

I hope you follow me on this journey! I’ll be sending out a  few emails to update you all on the process, as well as blogging here and be sure to follow my instagram for the latest sights and scenes.

Happiest N E W Year to you and yours!

Let 2016 be a year in which we follow all that feeds us soul and let go of the rest.

xx