Creative Process

How do I create a piece?

It's a lot of staring into space with a glazed look on my face. Really. Something starts rolling around in my brain and possibilities start to form. I can look at a component on my bench and try to decide what can be done with that piece. Maybe its a piece of wire, a metal shape, a gemstone or a string of gemstone beads that gets me dreaming.

I love when my favorite jewelry magazines come in the mail or electronically. Some of them have simple projects that gets you thinking of something more sophisticated. Most of them have artist's work that leave you breathless with "how in the world did they do that!". My favorite jewelry books are the "500 Rings, or Bracelets or Earrings, etc". That gets my thinking cap working. (One of my elementary teachers would tell us to put our thinking caps on. I remember vividly what my thinking cap looked like. Kind of like one of those EEG caps)

My jewelry friends are an inspiration to me. They will suggest changes or challenges to my work. Or they will ask opinions of their own work which are creatively stimulating to me. My best ideas are actually my co-workers suggestions. That probably makes them their ideas, but they are all so generous they let me think that they are really mine.

My gemology teacher, Veronica Moody, taught us to take anything, hold up our hands to it, block part of it off and see the design in it.

I'm not a planner. I don't meticulously plan out a project. I usually haphazardly start hammering a piece of metal to see where it goes. Metal has a life of its own even though it is inert. The hammer moves the metal, it stretches it, compresses it. Fire softens it and the metal starts to move on its own as it heats. You start all over with the metal, stretch and compress it some more. You can't always tell how each piece of metal will react. I think there are metal fairies that live inside and change the crystalline structure just to confuse me. I surely can't get matching pieces of metal though sometimes I need to, such as when making earrings.

The need to create is strong. It is overwhelming sometimes. I enjoy going to work each day. I may not get a piece finished every day or even every week, but as long as I am working (sometimes I work on multiple things) I'm happy. When my mother was in her 70's she would work all day, then come home and stay up late painting. I hope I'm doing that until I'm 100. Well it might be hard to hold a hammer...