uncertainty

I can't decide whether I love or hate this set. Cary was with me when I bought the pendant and suggested she make the chain out of gemstones that matched the piece. I get lots of compliments when I wear this, but I keep remembering the really good gold loop earrings I could have bought instead. After losing yet another side to a cheap pair of gold hoops, I remember again the practical thing I let get away (I went back and checked a couple of days afterward) in favor of a pastel gemstone heart that doesn't really look like a heart. Sigh. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's too feminine. I usually wear it with some small baroque pearls (not shown here), with a pastel top, but more often than not I take it off for something else. Maybe it's just out of style or just plain ugly. The matching earrings help but they're clamp-ons so I can only bear them for a couple of hours. I think I should have bought the gold hoops.

minor designer

Like jewelry lovers everywhere, I sometimes make an impulse buy from a boutique or department store. I try to stay away from these places because I don't need anything more mass produced in my life. When I get something from a second hand store, even though it was obviously mass produced, I feel like I'm repurposing it. That somehow it's come to rest in my huge collection as a special part of a whole. I feel like someday the collection can be catologued and donated to the aptly named the Walters Museum of Jewelry in Baltimore in  a cabinet marked, "How did she do it on 12 bucks an hour?" Needless to say I've gotten snagged by a few sale items signed by minor designers. The above is Bebe from a couple of seasons back and the ring is Betsy Johnson. Being that I'm from a small town it doesn't matter that these pieces are way out of style. I can wear them anyway. I love rings that make a statement and also have, besides the Betsy Johnson, below a Juicy Couture and a mock turquoise from Target.

Antler bracelet

This amazing bracelet was made for the tourist trade I think by one of the North Eastern Tribes. Why I think this is just a gut feeling. Anyone in the world could prove me wrong. But anyway it's all carved on an antler and linked together by heavy links which suggests the artist was using available materials not special jewelry ivory and jump rings. I love the way each scene is cut into the natural brown window of the exterior of the antler and carved into the ivory beneath. I also like that these bracelets could be made from leftovers after a hunt or found pieces lying in the woods. It is such a treat to find something so rare at the Sutro St. Salvation Army for only a few dollars. I'm awed by the workmanship/workwomanship put into what strangers would consider cheap trinkets. Tourist trade art is just so under appreciated. I buy it whenever I find it abandoned. To my mind the carver of this piece is every bit the artist of something you'd find in a museum. I'm sorry that my best photos don't do it justice.

black pearls

A rope of blue (black) pearls, what an '80's cliche! These are obviously not the greatest quality in the world. I ordered them from China. But for the price, the fun is worth it. You can imagine yourself with these and a dress with shoulder pads, Alexis-style, stubbing a lipstick stained cigarette out into your plate of eggs after a fight with mean ol' Dex, whom I knew incidentally in Hawaii when he was still just plain ol' Mike making the rounds of regional theater. I have no where to wear these crazy purchases except at home with a pair of jeans and an old sweat shirt, but boy do I feel good if I have to run out and do an errand. It's a small town; I'm eccentric.

rhinestones

These are some of my rhinestones. I wear these three together as a choker. You can tell these are old stones because each one is cut differently. Rhinestones go in and out of fashion so fast it makes your head spin. I don't think they are "in" at this precise second so I have mine stored, waiting for that next rhinestone "moment."

I often wear one of these drops with my rhinestone choker. I like the way these seem to almost float at your collar bone on such thin chains as a contrast to the thick studded choker. You can also wear these alone (especially the pink and the white) when the style is as it is now, with small and understated necklaces. Although during times like these, I tend to stick to my diamond solitaire, which is a piece my Aunt Olive said every Lady must have.

kitties and fish part two

Caroline Walters, Textile student at California College of the Arts says:

"The original necklace was a bit cluttered, and to fully show off the charms, I put it on a new chain and made it two tiered. I think this made it more modern, while still keeping the original spirit of the necklace."

Adding a new chain was a brilliant idea since part of the problem with the original was that I thought the old one might break at any time. One never feels confidant in a piece of jewelry with a weakness. The charms are more mindfully organized on this new version as well.

Caroline immediately accepted this "Project Runway" assignment. She loves crafts of almost any sort and is wearing a  sweater tank she knitted herself. I'm proud to say I introduced Caroline to knitting, but she has far surpassed me now.

Caroline has an Etsy store called FawnsLove.etsy.com where she sells knitted goods and other hand made accessories.

The way Caroline fixed this piece for me reminds me a lot of the way the artists handled their materials at the Renegade Craft Fair this year in San Francisco. Especially the work of local California artist Isobell.etsy.com from whom I bought a wonderful sweater chain with cats. I don't wear little '50's sweaters much, but the chain looks great on peter pan necklines. Check out etsy for bespoke items of all kinds.

kitties and fish

When I first got this necklace it was cats and dogs. But the dogs were ugly and so over time I replaced them with fish. I also added some more interesting cats. The sign of  my success was that my two nieces called the final outcome, "Mystical," which was the ultimate compliment coming from them. To own a
necklace that two, count them, two teenage girls would like make it worth a blog all in itself. But now I'm not sure I like this very much. And the girls did like it two whole years ago when they weren't so sophisticated.... I feel like it's too cluttered and should have something taken off, but I can't decide what.

I wish I had a model so that we could analyze it better. But I'm just one  person here.... Maybe I'll get the girls to take it home and work on it themselves. I could do that before I publish this and have a before and after photo. Yeah, where's the phone....

silver

My students at the Plumas County Jail loved this necklace combo. I don't know why, but when I wore these necklaces together I was always complimented. I've given it some thought and decided this was so popular because it has sort of a tattoo motif. One of the pendants is a '50's era cupid and the other is a Ganesh or other sub-elephant god from India via Target.

The beads are interesting too because they're old with a matt-finish. It may be that the Jail Students just have good taste. This set looks particularly good on, and the students you meet at the jail are often artists or artistic in some way. Our culture has a huge appetite for artistic goods. For instance, cell phones only need to be little black boxes, but people will pay more to have slender pink or glowy green ones. We love art in all aspects of our lives. If we could capture the artistic potential of all the people we have in our jails and prisons, surely society would benefit. Bring back extensive art training to our grade and secondary schools!

Red!

Red as a color was just so out of fashion during these Obama years. But as much as my politics lean blue, red has always been my favorite color. I've always had a red car for instance and a red pair of shoes. Red scarves, red socks. So I'm glad to see the fashion pallet beginning to include red again. I wear the two necklaces above with a black and white checked dress. One is made of vintage ceramic beads and the other is dyed coral with a Tibetan silver bead in the center. The red rings are just for fun although the one on my pointer Jorge Jensen, the Danish designer. My Great Aunt Hoyt, who was a jewelry artist herself, visited Jensen's studio when he was still working there. My sister, Nancy has a ring in lapis, one of his classic designs, that my Great Aunt bought on that very trip. And even the box it came it! And this just in, Michelle Obama wore a RED dress for the inaugural balls! I see a future for red.

flowers

The first necklace of this pair is a thrift store find. But the second comes from Saudi Arabia, probably from their version of Target. I think it's really pretty though and have a striped shirt that picks up all the colors. The whole effect is rather Mary Poppinsish, you know that day after they stepped into the chalk drawings? I like to wear these necklaces with the flower ring below that I found at the, you guessed it, Sutro St. Salvation Army. I like to carry out a theme in my jewelry but don't want things to match too closely. In fact I rarely wear the earring that I show in the sets to avoid that matching phenomenon. The ring below carries out the theme but is chunky and doesn't make the ensemble too saccharine.

hearts

If our society were suddenly lost and then rediscovered 2000 years later, those latter day archaeologists would encounter all these hearts everywhere and wonder what they meant. Even if they connected our heart symbols with our physical hearts (which is not a given) they may believe we were obsessed with avoiding heart attacks. This romantic symbol may become quite a puzzle to those people of the future. Long life, healthy hearts, riches, could all come before love. But while hearts mean love I'll continue to collect them with a passion.

The hearts on this chain are just a few of my favorites. Most are lockets. One's an actual lock. The key at the end rides down your back and is an effective counter weight to help the rest of the necklace ride true. Most of these hearts I've had for many years. I had a friend in Hawaii who had a necklace similar to this except all the hearts were Victorian. I loved it. So one day I finally decided to put my hearts together to get a similar effect. And while clearly more '50's than Victorian, the look is pretty cool.

lady bugs and hearts

Lady bugs and hearts go together. You can really tell from this large photo that they are the same shape inverted. I got the two big pieces at the Junkee Exchange in Reno for under $5. The bracelets below are a different story. I got the lady bug bracelet from my hair salon, but you can probably tell the other one took some time to assemble. It started off as a charm bracelet with about five hearts on it from the Sutro  St. Salvation Army. Then I slowly added to it one little heart at a time until it is what you see today. My favorite charm is the little dunce capped fellow you can just see peeking out behind a myriad of hearts whom I call "the romantic idiot." He's just a good warning not to be swept away by romance or if you do so it will be at your own peril.

Hawaiian Shells

So many island treasures show up in Reno! At the guess where? Yep, the Sutro St. Salvation Army. In the first photo I found most of the shells in Reno, all but the small red ones that have a long Hawaiian name which I've forgotten (my Hawaiian shell book is so beloved that it was put somewhere really special that I now can't remember). But anyway I found the red shells on the beaches of Oahu and strung them up myself.

I also strung up the puka shells, which I got at the yard sale of old Mrs. Wilma Abernethy, the wife of Quincy's famous old Sheriff who closed down Quincy's last whore house where I lived when I first moved here. Anyway she had these shells in a paper bag since the 70's when she had bought them from a swap meet in Honolulu. I made another necklace from that bag that is worth its own blog, but as you can see these are beautiful puka shells that had been stored away since they "went out of style." I've actually made one necklace for my son and two for his girlfriend out of that stash in addition to the big one I made for myself, well actually Cary made it with fishing wire since nothing else would hold the weight.

Mrs. Abernethy and I became great friends, all because I liked her Hawaiian shells. She greeted me very warmly everytime we met, and she wasn't really known for that. She also had one of the most beautiful diamond rings I've seen in my life.

minor designer

Like jewelry lovers everywhere, I sometimes make an impulse buy from a boutique or department store. I try to stay away from these places because I don't need anything more mass produced in my life. When I get something from a second hand store, even though it was obviously mass produced, I feel like I'm repurposing it. That somehow it's come to rest in my huge collection as a special part of a whole. I feel like someday the collection can be catologued and donated to the aptly named the Walters Museum of Jewelry in Baltimore in  a cabinet marked, "How did she do it on 12 bucks an hour?" Needless to say I've gotten snagged by a few sale items signed by minor designers. The above is Bebe from a couple of seasons back and the ring is Betsy Johnson. Being that I'm from a small town it doesn't matter that these pieces are way out of style. I can wear them anyway. I love rings that make a statement and also have, besides the Betsy Johnson, below a Juicy Couture and a mock turquoise from Target.

Alyce's necklace

Isn't this just really cool? My friend Alyce Dodge made in our high school ceramics class, and I loved it now and I loved it then. I was so surprised when she gave it to me for Christmas since I was certain it was destined for her precious mom. The Dodge Family were the kind of family who gave each other only things that they'd made for Christmas, something I didn't appreciate then but now hold with the highest regard. Christmas doesn't seem right without handmade gifts. And I know from my experience that making even some gifts isn't easy in these hectic times.

But to make the presents like Alyce made! I always equated her to Herr Drosselmeyer from the Nut Cracker Ballet. Her presents seemed like they would come alive and were so beautiful they belonged on Maurice Sendak's version of the Nut Cracker tree.

And in another version of things that should be jewelry even though they're not are these two lovely dolls Alyce gave me from the same era named Pierre and Julia. Don't you just love Pierre's '70's side burns? Alyce has a perfect eye for detail.

China Now!

I own a necklace and bracelet that I think are beautiful that come from the Chinese Jewelry Industry today. In fact I have been  more than happy with everything I've ordered from China but these two pieces are lovely examples of why ordering modern Chinese jewelry is a good gift idea.

The price is always right. When my son went to China he said, "Mom, you can buy anything for any price." And while that's not quite true from here, certainly there are many bargains. I love the way this necklace is handmade using macrame and the bracelet is braided with heavy elastic thread.

Personally I thing these chip beads are really ugly and couldn't imagine how they could be used well, but that's the Chinese strength. As a rule the Chinese know their materials and get the most out of them.

Jade

The search for old, undyed jade tends to lead  you to creepy old antique stores where the bartering is tough because the proprietor hasn't seen a breathing customer in, oh, about a hundred years. I have to admit the ring came from Mr. Ivan Coffman at a very good price. But the other pieces...oh I had to struggle with them. I visited them often and tried to make friends with the shop owner. I waited literally years before I was sure the price I was being quoted was the best it was going to get. I'm not one of those people who likes to down right steal from a dealer. I understand how hard it is to stock a store and make any of it pay. But if I'm buying a set I like to get 10%. But falling in love is falling in love so I paid the full price which really wasn't that bad. I just really like jade. I've heard it said that buying jade for yourself is really bad luck and maybe that's what I can blame all my problems in life on, but I swear wearing jade is worth it. It's subtle and subdued and goes really well with white pearls. And this is really important: jade ages with you. What is more beautiful besides an ancient lady in flowers is an ancient lady in jade?              

more pretty pennies

Martha Stewart taught us all in the '80's that things look better in groups. So true for jewelry as well as for dishes and pictures. I wear these hearts together and these crosses together for maximum impact. Again these were things I found in second hand stores for under $10s.

I love the way these two hearts go together. It was one of those times when I saw the one on the left and bought it forgetting I owned the other one but feeling that I had something that matched. It took me several months to put the two pieces together, but boy have I used them a lot since.

I don't wear crosses much but these three together always attract compliments from those who do. Once again it's the principle of like things together.

pretty penny

A bracelet made with old buttons (available at Plumas Arts in Quincy) and a chain from the Nifty Thrifty (in Portola) make a "Pretty as a Penny" combo when worn together. I love to find things that match truly by accident and when you have a collection like mine you can't remember every piece so you just get this "feeling" that something goes with something you have and as long as you love it and can afford it you just make the purchase and figure the connection out later. I don't know how many times this has happened to me. I see something and get a sort of electric feeling but can't place the source. Sometimes a piece will go perfectly with some item of clothing I have, but usually it goes with another piece of jewelry.

This is fun, when it happens, and particularly rewarding with rings. If you know me, you know I like to wear lots of rings stacked together. And I get bored with the same combinations very quickly. So when I find a new ring that changes the way a favorite stack looks, it makes my week, or month, or sometimes year. Rings that you can stand to wear day after day are rare so I rarely ignore that ringing feeling about a ring.

But I do love any kind of coincidental matching finds. I'll try to feature them as we go along. When you make a good match you feel like the gods are with you. Like you are lucky. And really, when you think about the world we live in today, how often do we really get to feel lucky, in a good way, not like in an "oh thank god I didn't hit that pedestrian because I was texting on my cell" kinda way?

Again one of Cary's creations, this time made of highly tanned leather pained in acrylics in a pattern inspired by a Japanese kimono. It's worn as a cuff with a button/buttonhole clasp. Again this is best worn with short sleeves. The design is painted free-hand, and Cary has made easily a couple of dozen of these. I'm just lucky to have caught her on a good day, and she gave me my favorite one.

It's not surprising when you see this that she now spends most of her time designing fabric. All of her patterns that are not already purchased by big dealers are available at http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/giltgoods . This should take you to see the most lovely stuff. My other sister, Marty, took one pattern and its compliment and had a blazer tailored in India with the design on the outside and the stripe compliment as a lining, and it's the loveliest thing.

handful of rings

I picked out a handful of rings from my own collection that for me express the Victorian aesthetic of mourning jewelry. These rings are not all Victorian nor are they all "mourning" but to me together they provide the right feel.

I included the purple jade since to me purple is such a mournful color and the pansy pinkie ring because even as far back as Shakespeare, Ophelia says, "There's pansies, that's for thoughts." There's something about grief that keeps you wound up obsessively in your thoughts. The black pieces are traditional mourning style pieces. The diamonds for inheritance. And the cut work silver piece struck me as ruminative.

This is another one of my sister's designs. I call it my memorial set. I like to wear it on the anniversaries of the death days of people I loved and on All Saint's Day and on other days when the past truly seems close to me.

The Victorians had their own mourning jewelry, usually onyx inset with pearls or small diamonds. I have a few pieces that I'll try to gather up and put up on this site. Frankly I love that black jewelry. It seems like just the right thing when grief has swept up your life and carried into some unfamiliar territory that you can't feel at home in but neither can you leave. Only time eases grief and not the severity of it just the frequency of its episodes. And in the mean time you've got to wear something. Your diamonds and black jewelry on somber purples and greys and of course your basic black says to the world: treat me with kid gloves, tlc, or at least a little distance. I'm not one of your kind right now. And may never be again.

For a while living with my sister, Cary, was like living with Faberge himself. She turned out new pieces of jewelry everyday. Only instead of starting with precious metals and stones, she spun flax into gold. She took clay, the humble material of the earth, and made it literally gold and other vivid colors as well.

Here is a simple heart pendant strung on a matching shiny ribbon. Because it's chartreuse it goes with everything. This is such a minor example of her work that I'm ashamed to introduce you to her magic with such a modest piece, but I just wasn't feeling up to trying to capture her really complex pieces with my little camera. I have to be feeling really ambitious to try that.

Cary has made jewelry out of many materials besides clay. But I think her clay things are my favorite. How often do you know someone who can turn dirt into jewels?