wire! bend it. twist, hammer, wrap it. put some beads on it, connect, coil it. wear it.
the wiry art of creating jewelry. the artful wire art of jewelry.
the art and soul of creating. wire entwines. art and wire soul...

31 October 2011

were you a beginner once?


How well i remember getting started with jewelry designing! That historical event took place maybe ten years ago. Initial experiments involved stringing bracelets and necklaces, and an accumulating collection of interesting beads and findings. i’ve observed that that is where many jewelry makers get their start. It’s a great place to begin! Fall in love with beads! What could be better?! 
Spools of wire
Soon after, wanting to make matching earrings, i found i had to learn how to make bead drops. Those required wire. And that seemed to be when wire started to edge its way into my creative consciousness. Wire bending led to the discovery that ear wires were simple to make. Then i began to replace other bought findings with those of my own design. It all came together when i grasped that handmade findings could complete a piece of jewelry, where bought ones in the same place seemed like foreign objects. A piece then had a creative totality that had not existed before. 
After a lifelong experience with fiber arts; mostly embroidery, crazy quilting, and knitting; working with wire was a little different. For awhile i could only think about what it would NOT do. It would not relax and sew itself into the contortions i tried to consign to it. Instead of becoming pliable as i bent, wrapped, and coiled, it got more resistant. Until i learned to be a neat-freak about filing off burs, band-aids were constantly on the shopping list. And i ran through so many twenty-foot spools of wire i don’t know why it took so long to figure out the stuff has to be bought in quantity. In pounds, that is, not feet.
The whole experience with wire seemed at times dysfunctional. But new ideas kept coming into my head. There was no stopping the ideas! Falling asleep at night with jewelry ideas roaming through my head seemed to lead to waking up in the morning with variations on those ideas plus some new ideas.  
Proudly, i can now say that me and wire have worked through our differences. Learning is a process. It has its curves, ins, and outs; and sometimes you just have to assign it some down-time. Do something else. Rethink. And then jump back on the old apple cart and go for the next challenge of working out a new design idea. But, after even a short time away, picking up the chain nose feels like taking hold of an old friend.

26 October 2011

the many textures of wire


Three pieces, three textures

One thing i really love about working with wire is the variety of textures that can be gotten by using different techniques. This idea was a big part of the thinking behind The Art of Wire.
These three pieces show three different results because of the techniques used to make them. The cuff at the left is rustic-looking with loosely twisted wires and uneven wraps. It's an early piece and was an experiment in working with twisted wire and wrapping. It seems to have an innocent kind of rustic appeal. The other two pieces are in the book- they show the textures gotten from hammering wire and using fine wire in dowel knitting.  

heartstones bracelet


Heartstones bracelet with Autumn Jasper beads
The Heartstones bracelet is one of the freebies mentioned in the column over to the side of this page. There were too many projects for the book so f+w media graciously offered to present them as free bonuses to readers. A welcome idea as some of us might like free stuff...!  
Do you like the Autumn Jasper stones in this? This stone has the gorgeous colors of fall: mossy greens, appley reds, and there's some beigey-ness going on in there too. Semi-precious beads are natural stones (unless they have been dyed). There are a very many types, and some very beautiful ones. Wonderful to put into jewelry because they seem to go with anything. I love working with them. 
Earring of heart beads links
Will you make some earrings to go with the bracelet? Maybe a simple wrapped drop with a coil underneath? Or a loop and a heart and another loop and another heart and another... oh, you get it. And maybe add an apple-red bead to highlight the reds. Or two. Mmm, so many options...