A Jeweler's Journal On Making Art and Living Life, Thoughts & Images from Alexa

7/1  DANCING EARRINGS • • • • • • •

• I have been developing a series of pieces that are expressive of a central theme in my life – motion, more specifically, movement that is playful, joyous and multi-directional.  I begin every day with wild, spontaneous  movement to world music with a strong drum beat to guide my feet, my arms, my body.  Observing, you would call it dance.  I think of it as an extension of walking to the rhythm of a heart beat.  With every beat I return to my connection with earth.  Unlike yoga or other forms of dance that I have done, I am never suspended above the ground, either by jumping or leaping or holding a pose.  ♥(Under the Browse by Subject link, choose “Dance Music” for a list of my favorite world beat C.D.s for dancing.)

• So,  I am watching as my current work in jewelry explores similar territory, playful movement.  However, because this series of pieces is so far all earrings, I get to play with suspension.  In a way it is like reversing gravity.  The technical challenges of creating movement, especially in more than one direction, are somewhat daunting.  However, I am persevering because the results delight me.  These are like miniature kinetic sculptures.  Here is the series so far: ↓ ↓ ↓ I welcome your comments.

7/ 7  UPWARD MOVEMENT • • • • • • •

• As I continued to refine this series of earrings, it dawned on me why I had based an exploration of dance movement on an upward pointing arrow.  It seems that whenever we pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio or TV or have a conversation with a colleague we hear about all the downward movement … in the stock market, in the economy, in the real estate market, in consumer spending, in consumer optimism.  In the midst of all this, probably thanks to the influences of my Mother and the years of yoga and meditation, I have remained steady and, yes, optimistic.  And I realized that my upward pointing arrows are an expression of this attitude, combining movement with the symbol for “upward”.

• I have finally been able to bring all the elements together.  Here is the evolution from the original designs in which the arrow head and the shaft of the arrow were cut out separately and the squiggle made from a wire, to a design with a squiggle that was cut out and mounted with a stone, and then to the last design with a corrugated arrow cut out as one piece and oxidized black.  It also has a cut out squiggle that incorporates a stone.