Year of Jewelry Week 1: New Beginnings

On January 12, 2012
Admittedly, I didn’t finish off 2011 as strong as I’d have liked. My part-time job was closing it’s doors, and the liquidation sale had me working long and agonizing shifts as my pliers mewled longingly from the toolbox. I swear, even now, when the house is still and the moon enshrouds the walls with its glow, I can still hear the sounds of their cries. Sniff.

Anyway! It was a month of creative inaction for me. And I entered into the new year with a renewed sense of determination and drive and a wild need to BE CREATIVE. Except, as I experienced the first day of my paid severance, and stretched into an extended vacation, I believe I had forgotten HOW. I held my pliers with the love and dedication of the starving artist I was, and nothing inspired sprang forth.

And then I was reminded of the joyous TRUTH that is Creative Wire Jewelry Forum and the Year of Jewelry Project, which I’d participated in only one other time in 2008, before life got in its own way of my enjoyment of it. I’d learned a lot during my time with this wonderful group of artists, and have carried that inspiration with me all these years since. And I was excited to see I hadn’t missed the sign-up for this years Year of Jewelry Project, and immediately hunted down the first week’s theme, which just happens to be (and appropriately so) “New Beginnings”.

I was immediately inspired to use this antique piece of clock mechanism my husband had stashed away for years. The concept of time, both symbolically and literally, seemed to be the best suited to this renewed sense of self that I was experiencing, having just been laid off and finding myself with an abundance of, ahem, time and energy I’d otherwise lacked the previous year.

A delicate pale Topaz-tone Swarovski crystal bead, and small burnt orange Swarovski crystal bead were the only accents with which I bothered, believing these colors to be understated yet remarkably warm. The passage of time is inevitably perceived a cold, unkind thing, but that is not the representation I’d hoped to make. I’d hoped to wrap this piece of oddly unmovable time in a warm embrace and convey a sense of hope, courage and simmering energy.

I’d like to think I achieved. I feel I have. Hello 2012. I’m here to stay!