Re-Thinking MY Craft

So, if you've been reading recently, you'll know that I'm having a "clearance sale" in my Etsy shop for the month of July.


Some of the items on clearance are some of my 'signature' items, and I may keep them around after the sale is over. Or, I may retire them for a while. I'm thinking about it. The ones that I am definitely not keeping are going to be cut up, scrapped, and/or recycled into raw materials for new pieces.

Why? Call it evolution. As I have evolved as an artist in the last few years, my style and aesthetics has changed a bit. When I first started making jewelry, I was inspired by clean lines, bold shapes, and satin finishes. Now, I'm intrigued and inspired by texture, dark spaces, color, and negative space. I still love the design attributes I loved before--they are a part of who I am and how I work.

I find that as an artist, I need to stay true to myself in order to keep my drive up. So, instead of working with the intention of becoming a production machine, I am leaning towards creating one-of-a-kind pieces, along with more production-oriented pieces in editions of 10, 25, or 50. I am not opposed to retiring pieces for a while and bringing them back into my practice. It keeps things fresh.


Throughout this month, I've also been working on finishing old projects. More photos will be available soon--I have to wait for some materials in order to complete a few things. One of them is this boat I made last semester. I need to remove all of the colored pencil (not as difficult as it may sound), clean up some of the seams, apply gesso, and re-color it. It is currently colored to match the drawing it was inspired by almost exactly, and I've been considering using brighter, more bold colors more in my palette, but ones that are reminiscent of the original drawing. We'll see. The stand also needs to be re-made.