“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
Ansel Adams

Sunday morning I woke to an amazing view of frost on the trees. Other than taking pictures of my jewelry for inventory purposes, or to list for sale at Artfire or Etsy, I don’t take many photographs, but I was definitely inspired by the lacy beauty of the frosty trees, so despite the frigid temps I put on the layers and headed outdoors.

We have a windmill and some outbuildings not far from the house, and though the windmill is no longer working, and we aren’t using the well, either, I decided it would make for an interesting focal point, since it is flanked by two big trees. I took the photo, and then I thought of Ansel Adams and his glorious black and white photos, some of which feature frosty trees. So here’s the shot of the windmill between the trees–after I changed it to black and white in Photoshop, of course. The fun thing I noticed is that editing the photo and making it black and white caused the outbuilding on the left and the water storage tank on the right to darken, creating two anchors, like the bottom two points of a triangle, which corresponds with the top point, which is the windmill wheel. Love when those accidents happen.

After that, I took pictures of the leftover coil of barbed wire hanging from a fencepost, and the top of a fencepost itself, because the cracked and checkered texture of the old juniper post contrasted so nicely with the lacy skirt of frost clinging to the wire.

I posted the windmill photo to my personal profile on Facebook, saying something like: “I’m no Ansel Adams, but the frost in the trees inspired me to go black and white.” The photo generated lots of likes and comments, but my favorite was the one by my writer friend Janine:

“Ansel wasn’t Ansel–until he was.”

That’s a funny way of saying something pretty profound, when you think about it. Though I don’t intend to change my creative focus to photography, the truth remains that no matter what we choose to do in life, we have to start somewhere. Ansel certainly did; I’m sure he wasn’t born taking perfect and beautiful pictures. So we shouldn’t let the fact that we don’t measure up to some creative icon–an icon who’s had years of practice and dedication–make us feel uncertain or embarrassed to spread our creative wings on occasion and fly somewhere we don’t usually fly. Being creative should be fun. I certainly enjoyed my little creative departure!

I folded up the pieces of paper with the names of entrants on them, tossed them in the air, let them fall on the floor, and picked one up with my eyes closed. And the winner is . . . Lorelei Kingsmore! Congratulations, Lorelei. I hope you enjoy your “Faerie Carnivale” print.

Kelley

To celebrate my silver medal success in the Fire Mountain Gems contest, I’m offering a free 5X7 watercolor print of the cameo artwork titled “Faerie Carnivale.” Why is the fairy wearing a mask, you ask? You tell me in my blog comments, and you will be entered to win. On July 1, 2010, I’ll put all the names of those who have told me their fairy mask stories in the proverbial hat and have a drawing. The person whose name is drawn will win a signed 5X7 print printed with Epson archival inks on Epson watercolor paper. Now, use your imagination and comment away!

Summer is my favorite season, and it always takes its sweet time getting to my neck of the woods (and it never sticks around as long as I would like), so I’m always thrilled when it finally arrives. I was no less excited to work with the items I chose for the Summertime Blogging Fun promotion for Artbeads.com, featuring charms, pendants, and glass beads. Landlocked ocean lover that I am, I love paua shell and dolphins, so I combined two loves  in the Paua dolphin pendant I chose. The pendant comes plain with the paua shell on the front and black acrylic coated resin on the back, like this:

This dolphin pendant is pretty on it’s own, so I could have happily put a jump ring in the hole and threaded the pendant on a chain or ribbon, but of course I saw the pendant as part of a larger picture. So I finally came up with the idea to create a polymer clay and domed resin pendant piece with wire curls that simulate stylized ocean waves so that the paua shell dolphin would look like it was leaping out of the ocean. Combined with some seed beads, seafoam green ribbon,  shell beads, crystals, and blue pearls, the final design came out like this:

And would summer be complete without butterflies? Of course not. Lately I’ve been admiring the necklaces I’ve seen that feature decorative clasps somewhere in the front of the design, so when I saw this Sterling silver 3-strand butterfly hook and eye clasp, the design idea came pretty quickly. I’m primarily a wire wrapper, but in this case I thought a lot of wire work would just detract from the beauty of the butterfly clasp, so I kept the design simple and elegant, using some cyclamen colored Swarovski bicones and Czech glass maple leaf beads that I chose from Artbeads.com to go with the butterfly clasp.

When I ordered this clasp, I couldn’t really tell how it worked from the pictures on Artbeads.com, but when it arrived I figured out how simple it was. The clasp is well hidden. The middle ball of the butterfly’s body hides the eye, while one wing hides the hook, and when the clasp is closed you can barely see the seam. The butterfly has a slightly oxidized appearance, but parts are still shiny and reflective, as you can see in the pictures; the colors are a reflection of the aqua and purple fabric I used on the surface where I was photographing this piece. Though I chose to use the clasp in front, I could easily imagine how beautiful a necklace would look with this clasp in back, either with short hair or an up-do. Perfect for a summer wedding.

And anyone who knows me knows how much I love hummingbirds, so from the extensive selection of charms, I chose this sterling silver hummingbird charm to work with:

In my opinion, this is one of the prettiest sterling silver hummingbird charms I’ve ever seen. I’ve used other sterling hummingbird charms, but none had quite the detail and graceful appearance of this one. This one is very dimensional–so dimensional you do need to be careful how you use the charm in your jewelry, because the little guy’s beak sticks out and could be a bit uncomfortable. This would make a nice bracelet charm, and the attached hidden loop on the back is perfect for threading the charm on a chain or ribbon, but because of my penchant for complicated jewelry, this is what I ended up doing with it:

Though I sometimes receive free items because of Artbeads.com’s blogging program, I also order other items from them on a regular basis because of the quality of the items I’ve received. I’m thinking these items have been some of my favorites so far. Plus, you can’t bead free shipping in the United States.

Disclosure Notice: The sterling silver butterfly clasp, the paua shell dolphin pendant, the Czech glass leaf beads, and the sterling silver hummingbird charm used in these pieces were provided free of charge by Artbeads.com for my participation in the Artbeads.com blogging program. I have not received any payment from Artbeads.com, and this post represents only my personal opinion.

Artbeads.com is celebrating ten years of business. Would you like to help them celebrate by taking a chance to win a $1000 shopping spree? Then hurry, because the Artbeads 10^th Anniversary Sweepstakes will be ending Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 11:59pm (PST).

I’m late blogging about this, but last weekend I attended the 2nd Santa Fe Renaissance Fair at El Rancho de las Golondrinas sponsored by Open Hands, a charity dedicated to services that assist elderly and disabled New Mexicans. I had a great time sellling my jewelry there, and I was able to get pictures of some elusive characters, as you can see by my picture with “Merlin” here.

I met “Wishteria,” the Wish Fairy from the “Kingdom of Larkspurshire” (in Colorado), who had an absolutely beautiful costume with wisteria-draped wings. She was gracious enough to allow me to take her picture. It’s difficult to catch fairies on film, you know, but I was successful!

I didn’t get a picture of the king and queen of the fair, and I missed my chance to catch the clumsy traveling scribe, but I did get a shot of the bellydancers, a couple of dragons, and one picture of a very tall peg-legged pirate, who blamed his long legs on an overzealous ship’s carpenter.

All in all, a very enjoyable weekend. Next Ren Fair will be the Dona Ana Arts Council Renaissance ArtsFaire in Las Cruces at Young Park, November 7 and 8, 2009, where I hope to sell lots of jewelry while also taking more fun pictures, like these from a past year:

It seems ages since I’ve posted! I’ve been busy getting some polymer clay wire wrap combo pieces done for a gallery show at Oso Arts Gallery in Capitan August 9. The theme is “Zen,” with dragons and dragonflies abounding–right up my alley. Finished the pieces, delivered them with the help of my daughter, so now I will be one of the artists whose work will be featured in the show. Yay!

And so I’ve been falling behind everywhere else, including my email. But today I was reading the July issue of Ann Kullberg’s online magazine (Ann Kullberg is a fabulous colored pencil artist who also has several books published on her technique), and she provided a link to a fun interactive website called The Color Test. Want to have some fun with the struggle between the right and left brain? The first time I took the test I bombed. And then I read the instructions more closely and did better. Ahem. Did I ever mention I don’t always do so well reading instructions? I seem to remember a certain report card in grade school with the teacher’s comment “Doesn’t follow instructions.” LOL Anyway, have some fun with this test. I did! It’s more difficult than you might think.

This was certainly unexpected! I have an account on Flickr, and a few months ago I posted some photos of Old Town Albuquerque from my digital photography class a couple of semesters ago. For the most part I just wanted to share these photos with any friends who wanted to see them, but yesterday I received an email from an editor at Schmap Guides, an online travel guide, that one of my photos taken in Old Town Albuquerque had been “shortlisted” for possible inclusion in the fifth edition of the Schmap Albuquerque Guide, to be published at the end of July. I had never heard of Schmap, but of course I was flattered that one of my pictures had been chosen to be in their contest. Of course I could decline to have my photo considered, but after checking out the site and verifying its authenticity, I decided to go ahead and allow the photo to be entered. So we’ll see what happens. I’m not a “real” photographer, but I still think it would be fun if my picture were included. Above is the photo the editor shortlisted, and here’s the link to my Flickr photostream where you can see other photos I’ve taken. Most of them are of my jewelry because of the groups I belong to, but there are more Old Town Albuquerque photos as well as photos of other places and things here in the Land of Enchantment–including a photo of the New Mexico state bird, the roadrunner, which I took on the arbor outside my front door. 

 (photo from IMDB.com)

I don’t get to watch many movies when they’re first released (it’s a two-hour drive to the nearest theater), so I watch a lot of movies on pay-per-view, or I get them through Netflix. I just watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, and despite some bad reviews, I thought it was fun, and it had a great message: “Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”

Something often happens to many of us on the way to adulthood–we lose faith in the powers of imagination we had as children. But somehow the 243-year-old Mr. Magorium (played by Dustin Hoffman in an offbeat role that reminded me of his talent in Tootsie) has escaped that trap, because his store is filled with magical toys, and he spends most of the movie trying to convince his 23-year-old store manager, Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), that she has all the magic she needs to take over his business.

But Molly’s going through what a lot of us go through. She’s “stuck.” She’s lost her “sparkle.” When she was a child she was a music prodigy full of potential and no fear of fulfilling it, but now that she’s an adult she can’t seem to finish the piano concerto she’s been working on. Chopsticks is about all she can manage, so she thinks “It’s time to get serious. It’s time to get practical.” Sound familiar?

“Practicality” has its place in the adult world, but so does “play,” and the joy of this movie is the reminder that the happiest adults are the ones who haven’t forgotten the power they had as children when they believed in their God-given gifts to dream and to create, and when they believed that their life truly was an occasion to celebrate.

If you’re feeling “stuck” or all together too grown up for your own good, I recommend a visit to Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.