.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.

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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.

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

.AEO sale.

I'm moving out of my apartment this month and making studio space for the new collection coming soon so I decided to have an AEO sale on all the fiber necklaces. All necklaces are now only $25 and $20. This is a very special sale!! Be sure to check out all the necklaces in the AEO etsy shop now!

AEO Sale

.studio views.

I have totally fallen in love with carving wax. Here are some pictures from the studio the past few weeks, working on the next collection, connection.

.AEO classics.

I've been busy in the studio learning about investment casting - practicing/obsessing over a new method of making. I can't stop. I'm totally hooked with a new method of making jewelry. I'm finishing up a new all cast collection of wares right now but in the meantime I decided to put up a few AEO classic wares in the shop because it's summer and that means it's time to accessorize with bangles and studs!!!

Check out the AEO wares in the shop now!

aliciaeo.com/shop

Happy Summer to you all!!

.winter forging.

 

 I went on a walk last week and found this amazing willow tree. The yellow branches are my favorite color - so I collected some. I love watching art unfolding itself in its own time. I am finishing up my first wood project, a table and realized that these willow branches will make for a perfect natural fiber to include in the weaving. I went back today to collect more. I'm excited to share it with you, soon.

.small business saturday.

Support small businesses today!! If you were looking for some AEO holiday goodies this is the time - I'm offering 15% off all AEO wares today and tomorrow! Just use the coupon code: SHOPSMALL at checkout. Thank for all the love and support.

AEO SHOP