Week 1 YOJ

Year of Jewelry Project 2013

For the new year, I have joined a group on facebook called  "Year of Jewelry Project".  The goal is to make and post a picture of a new jewelry project every week.  I think this is an excellent challenge and will be blogging about the journey. 

This is not about competition - it is a personal study in commitment to my creativity and growth as an artist.  I will be trying old techniques and new techniques and finding my own personal style.  Some experiments will work, and some won't, but all will trigger growth.

Happy New Year to all and let the creating begin !

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I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up blogging !!  "Best laid plans" and all of that ... so here I am in Week 3 and posting about the previous weeks.

I did want to write about the processes I've gone thru the first two weeks of participating in the Year of Jewelry Project 2013.

WEEK 1

 Week 1 theme was "renewal" - I wanted to make a piece that challenged my wire wrapping skills and renewed my interest in creating something with wire.  Physical limitations have kept me from hammering metal and pulling wire and I have lost a few skills I had a year ago. So, with this in mind I decided to create a butterfly - which to me represents renewal in so many ways.

I started with a design in mind and planned to weave the butterfly body and attached it to the wings.  I've never done a lot of weaving so I was trying to learn a new skill and quickly found that I did not leave enough room in the weave for attaching the wings to the body.

Plan B -   I made a different style body - twisted one long piece of wire together and attached it to the wings.  The wraps were snug but the butterfly still felt very "floppy" so I sent out a facebook comment to my jewelry friends for their suggestions and received some much needed help.

I tightened the twisted wires a bit which pulled the wings closer to the body and made a better anchor for attaching the wings with wires.

Here is the finished piece - although I am still toying with the idea of attaching the leather strap in a different manner.

and the woven piece that started out to be the butterfly's body turned into a ring that didn't turn out too shabby !!

WEEK 2

The them for week 2 was "grace".   The first thing that comes to mind for me is God's grace, and of course the song, "Amazing Grace".  I spent the week working on a variety of crosses, some purchased and some my own design.  At the close of the week some are still in process and some are almost finished, and each have the same but very different look.

I chose to post this beautiful cross made from picture jasper to which I added a slight copper embellishment.  The cross measures @ 2" x 1 1/2".  I purchased this beautiful cross from http://www.magpiegemstones.com/ .  I hung the cross on a single wire torc I fashioned from 12 gauge copper.  I love that I am able to switch out pendants using this style of neckware.  The torc is a very necessary part of my jewelry wardrobe.

Here is a picture of the other crosses I worked on this week in various stages of completion.  I will definitely finish them but not today !!

L to R  - picture jasper cross,  unakite cross, solid copper cross - the idea here was to create a cross that looked like a tree branch, an "old rugged cross" so to speak, and copper cross with hematite beads.  They are all MUCH prettier in person.  Once they are finished I will take better photos and post them to my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/kookykardinal .

Time to start thinking about Week 3 and Music.