This is your weekly WAYWO diary; a place to share and promote your creative projects. Whether your creativity is expressed in clay, yarn, paper, ink, paint, writing, cloth, metal, topiary, stone, tofu ... the WAYWO Group wants to hear from you! Strut your stuff in the comments or boldly volunteer to host one of these weekly diaries yourself. Joining the group is easy! Simply contact our fearless leader. There's also a Yahoo Group which sends one reminder/week, and may be used to post when the diary is up.
My love affair with jewelry began soon after I began working with polymer clay, a little over 20 years ago. My first forays were made with polymer clay beads like this:
Eclectic Rosary
This is a rosary made with various clay beads. I made several of these and they were really popular. I even won a ribbon at the Evergreen State Fair. But I happened to luck into a huge stash of beads, mostly gemstones, at a second-hand shop soon before I moved out here into the boonies. That was the impetus for me to learn how to really make jewelry....
In the years after I moved to the "good side" of Puget Sound (little territorial rivalry joke there, sorry) I gradually learned techniques. I studied color and balance and learned the rules... so I could break them when I felt like it. I sold my work at craft sales and the local farmer's market and some online. All of my family expected jewelry for Christmas and I didn't disappoint them.
Some of you know of my love for Progressive Rock. Well, in 2007 one of my favorite Prog bands had reformed and was touring. The anticipation to see Genesis was sky high in our household - they are my daughter's favorite band, as she grew up on their music - and we traveled to L.A. to see them. For both nights at the Hollywood Bowl. The last two nights they would ever play as that band, as it turned out. Leading up to and for a long time after that, the songs of Genesis were on heavy rotation on my playlist. And some had such character that they inspired me to create jewelry. The first pieces I made were inspired by Afterglow, a popular show staple, always at the end of a medley of older songs:
Here is the second half of the medley - the part I want to show you begins at 8:15 (the ending). Note the colors of the lights and the screen:
Afterglow: Genesis, 10/13/2007
Those pink, rose, yellow and orange lights have always been the colors used for this part of the show. I tried to reproduce them:
Afterglow Necklace and Earrings: Swarovski crystal
This got me going and I made several pieces that were based on Genesis songs (I'll link to the videos rather than embed them so as to save room and bandwidth).
Ripples, another song they did on that last tour, inspired this set:
Ripples Necklace & Earrings: Celestial crystal, stardust gold, centerpiece is a found item
A song called
Heathaze off of Genesis' 1980 album
Duke inspired this:
Heathaze Necklace: autumn jasper, red aventurine, carnelian, smoky quartz
Domino has three parts (Hey this
is Prog, after all!). The first part,
In The Glow Of The Night, inspired this:
In The Glow Of The Night: Glass, garnet, star sitara, labradorite
Then, in November of 2009, my Mother died. I had turned her into a Genesis fan some time before then, making those Genesis songs difficult if not impossible to listen to (I still am unable to listen to Afterglow). But, as some of you know, another of my Prog bands came along in August of 2010, becoming the first bird to sing into my silence. After than Rush concert, I started creating again.
I started small. The first Rush album that I had sat down and really listened to was Hemispheres way back in 1979. The album cover is an perfect example of the use of opposites on the color wheel:
Hemispheres, 1978
So I found two strands of seed bead ropes the same basic colors as the album cover and connected them with loops, creating a simple necklace that can be worn several ways:
Hemispheres necklace: glass seed beads
One of Rush's fun songs is
A Passage To Bangkok, a journey 'round the world in combustibles. It inspired me to use some old clay beads with hemp leaves that I had hanging around and I created many individual drops with different personalities, much like the countries mentioned in the song:
A Passage To Bangkok: various glass, clay and gemstone beads with train charms
One of my favorite Rush songs is
Roll The Bones, which inspired this necklace:
Roll The Bones: clay, glass and ceramic beads with handmade glow-in-the-dark "bones"
Finally, the anticipation created by the new songs in 2011 (including
Caravan) and the then-upcoming album made me get more technical and create the Clockwork Angels piece:
Clockwork Angels: clay, ruby, brass with clock wheels
I can't sell this one because I used the actual logo from the Caravan/BU2B single release on the centerpiece. But I've worn it a few times. The symbols on the clay beads correspond to symbols in the Time Machine Tour program on each band member's photo.
So that's where I have stopped. I have a few more ideas, though... like Natural Science (shells and nuggets), The Garden (floral themed), Cold Fire (high glitter quotient) and Earthshine (green and blue and silver). And maybe Red Lenses if I can find enough red stones.
Thank you for letting me share my work with you. Now, what are YOU working on?