A Special Order

I’ve been away for almost a month having a real vacation in California with my sister- eating oysters and drinking Prosecco to my heart’s content.  I thought I’d continue to write my blogs but of course vacation mentality grabbed hold and I never seemed to find the inspiration. 

Marigold Buddha with Koi

Home now in lovely Bali, I’m surrounded by a luxurious garden and my rainbow of koi fish flashing about the pond. I arrived to flower petal hearts on the doormat and vases bulging with white roses, chrysanthemums and night jasmine placed around the house. The garden Buddha had been polished and festooned with marigolds for the occasion.  

My staff  has always taken good care of me but still after all these years it’s a surprise to be so welcomed. I love to go away and see new places or revisit old favorites and I love to come home - who wouldn’t with a welcome like this?

In California I’d had a few errands to run before vacation mentality got too strong. One was to mail a very special order. Seven months before I’d received this e-mail:

I hope you can help me! A year ago my husband bought me..as a wedding gift, a goddess necklace. It was a beautifully carved fossilized ivory goddess about 2 and a half inches long. It was a soft brownish color.The beads were lapis, ivory and gold (Id rather have silver). It came unclasped when I was wearing it and I LOST it...I cried for weeks as it was perfectly ME and such a loving gift. I just thought after a YEAR to try to find you! Duh.....I lost it a week after my mother died so I’m all tied up about this whole thing. Could you possibly make me another one?

-Sally

I love a challenge like this. And to do a special piece just for the person who'll wear it, gets my creativity thrashing, often leaving sleep out of reach.  Sally and I had many exchanges over the seven months it took to recreate her necklace.  I did several carvings trying to get the right color and feel.  I also did a few beading designs, emailing photos to her until we got just the perfect color and composition for the Goddess.

When Sally received her necklace she emailed immediately:

One Beading Idea

OH! I got the goddess this morning! SHE is gorgeous. I like the colors even better than the first one. This goddess is perfect. And you have improved the clasp. This one will NEVER fall off.

This arrived just in time for our Third Anniversary and it was a Wedding gift to me in the first place. Thank you SO MUCH>>>and keep me on your mailing list. please.

LOVE Sally

This is one of the reasons why I love my work. It feels like a gift and an honor to bring joy and beauty into someone’s life. These opportunities don’t come frequently but when they do and when they click, as this one did, I’m ultra-inspired to keep going, keep creating (as though I had a choice) and to be even more thankful for the life I lead. 

Thank you, Sally!

Treasures

I’m on vacation in northern California having quality time with my sister. We seem to be eating our way through the area, laughing, and having deep bonding.  We toast the memory of our mother and know she would love to be with us sharing in these good times.

I was here the same time last year for a wedding and to empty out and get rid of my storage. It was a painful process. (You can read about that at : http://susan-tereba.blogspot.com/2012/10/benediction.html). 

This year I’m going through the few things I salvaged and stored at my sister’s house. One of those is a set of ten large flat art drawers.  Last week I tackled the first five.  Today I started on the sixth. 

As I went through the drawings, preliminaries for watercolor paintings I’d done and sold over twenty-five years ago, a swirl of emotions over took me and soon tears were cascading down my checks. I sat back to sort out these emotions as colorful and varied as my paintings were.  These artworks were all done during my marriage, to John, an artist in his own right. The memoires of that life have grown thin leaving a vague otherworldly sensation.

But the drawings surprised me in their quality of execution – I wondered, “Who did these? They seemed to be from a distant me that I could hardly remember - a time of innocence and naiveté and youth of spirit.”

I wondered if I painted such happy paintings because I projected that as my life.  Of course in reality I dealt with fear, trepidation and self-consciousness – all aspects that have mellowed with maturity, aspects that don’t plague me as they did in my 20’s and 30’s. I was surprised at how much I liked these pieces and how they made me feel – happy as well as nostalgic.  And then something new stated to take wing.

I can see this as a pendent

If you’ve been reading this Blog you know I’ve been experimenting with coloring bone.  I see this as a coming back around to painting while still making jewelry. Looking through my old drawings I started to see possibilities for carvings that tell a story as my paintings did plus an excuse (as though I need one) to use color once again.

There were several images in these old drawings that could become pieces of jewelry. It’s strange to be inspired by my own inspiration. I usually look outside for that.

Tomorrow I’ll put music on, open the garage door for more light and pull out drawer number seven. I wonder what treasures it (and the other not yet opened drawers) hold for me.  What new inspirations might carry me off on new adventures.

Break Through!

I’ve finally found a product that works to color bone carvings as I’ve envisioned for over two years. It’s waterproof and lets the light of the bone shine through just like the paper's white does in my watercolor paintings.

I am basically a painter. When I was studying for my BA in Art - oh so many years ago - I ended up painting on my hand built ceramic sculptures.  I eventually chucked the ceramics and moved on to paper which thrilled me for years - and still does when I find time to use it. Painting on paper was more immediate than having to wait to fire the ceramics and hope with crossed fingers that it wouldn’t crack or the colors change dramatically.

Now I’m painting on bone. What a departure! And one I couldn’t have imagined without a crystal ball just a couple of years ago. However, I feel a bit hemmed in by the small assortment of colors I have after purchasing everything I could find in the local art store. I have no yellow or true red. So it’s on to Google Search for another source. 

It was such a thrill to have this click into place. I've been craving color in my mammoth jewelry which I’ve gotten using semi precious stone beads.  I still love the mammoth tusk and jet carvings but my muse is demanding something new. I knew abstractly what I wanted but didn’t have a concrete vision. That took time to come into focus and then ‘bang!’ it hit me that I wanted a watercolor look on the carvings.

The creative process is so exciting!  I love how stepping out of the way let’s the magic in - magic you couldn’t orchestrate on your own.  And often stepping out of the way is automatic - you don’t even realize you are doing it! 

Wings in Living Color!

 

I started posting about this process in July. At the time the colors I used sat opaquely the surface of the bone. Here's the entry I wrote and a photo of my early attempts:

http://susan-tereba.blogspot.com/2013/07/back-in-saddle.html

 

  

A Gift

I had hoped my book would be a instant wild success.  I’ve poured my heart, soul and energy into it for four years and was ready to send it on it’s merry way. Then a publisher friend had his editor read it and sent me a list of criticisms, detailing how to improve it.  I knew in my heart what he wrote was right but still it’s a blow to the ego. I felt so mediocre.

Now in the light of a new day I think, what a gift - to be told just what to do to make it work.  There were some positives in the critique as well but isn’t it strange how our minds gloss over the pats-on-the-back to focus on the criticisms?  I’ve realized minds are like that - they dwell on the negative, perhaps as a form of preservation and protection. If you wait instead of reacting to that initial response, a new more mature perspective takes root.

I'm ready to tackle this diversion from what I thought the road ahead would look like. There will be new scenery and leaning and hopefully more barriers broken as I traverse the land of book editors.  I need someone who can be ruthless but compassionate as we need to cut about a quarter of the words.

The current challenge is to find someone who believes in my book and with whom I’ll have a rapport to create a much better work - to push beyond what it is now to something greater.  I have an appointment with a friend who does this professionally. We’ll see if we can work together and if not I’ll be back on the hunt for the right person.

Found on Pinterest

That seems like a gargantuan task but one that must be done step by step. Making a list of what I want in an editor would be a place to start. Got any ideas, hints, or do you know of a good professional editor? Let me know if you do. 

In the meantime I content myself with creating new necklace designs and continuing in my experiments to color bone.

I wish you Happy Creating in whatever medium or mediums you use!

Metal Things

Here in Bali,Tumpuk Landup is a day that celebrates everything metal. Automobiles and motorbikes are embellished with hand-woven palm leaf plaits attached to their hoods and handlebars. Tools, electric and manual, and knives including the ceremonial kris, are given a good waft of sandalwood incense and a dose of holy water to cleanse and acknowledge the spirits inherent within. 

All Dressed Up 

 

I shudder as the matriarch of our Balinese family raises her weathered hand, a flower drenched in holy water held delicately between two gnarled fingers. She flicks the blossom, breathes out her ancient prayers, while liberally sprinkling the computer and printer three times. I cross my fingers that the blossom-studded offerings stuck with burning incense will stay put. 

Honoring the Flex Shaft 

In the workshop the electric flex shaft, used for making carvings and setting stones, seems miniaturized next to three large platters filled with cakes, a splayed crisply roasted chicken, fresh fruits, crunchy rice snacks and a rainbow of flower petals. This is a gift to the flex shaft’s spirit and a prayer that he’ll protect everyone you uses the tool.

Knives and Kris'

All the knives of the house are cleaned and gathered together along with the garden tools. They also have a special homage while the band saw at the end of the workbench sports an intricately woven palm leaf offering unlike any of the others. 

Band Saw Pretty

My Lovely Stove

The kitchen does not go unnoticed. A simple pinwheel of flowers placed there, seems to my mind, too small for the enormous pleasure my oven gives me and the many friends who dine at our table. As I turn to go out I notice the fridge has an offering balanced on its top corner edge. No metal that could cause problems to the household is exempt from being honored on this day.

Ancient and adaptable Bali merges with the modern world while retaining its unique rituals. How could this culture not influence us artists, musicians, and writers? The air breathes creativity infusing us with its electrons, edging us forward to bring life to new ideas, visions and dreams. I go to my beading table and put together a new bracelet, humming with the spirit of the place.

Ready to Launch

I’ve just sent my book off to a publisher friend to see if it is publishable. I’ve been working on “Piece by Piece - Bali Dreams, Love and the Land of Alzheimer’s” for almost four years. It’s been through two edits and countless re reads trying to seek out misspellings and gross punctuation errors.  I think the words conspire while I sleep to put commas where they shouldn’t be and to veil words so spell check can’t find them.

I’m ready to launch this effort to free up some time for other creative pursuits. The first time I thought I’d finished it, I felt like I’d lost a friend, like I was grieving. See my blog post on this at: 

http://susan-tereba.blogspot.com/2012/04/empty-spot.html

But this time it feels like it’s ready to leave home. I know there will be a lot of work to do to promote it when it finally gets published but the creative part is done. Now it’ll be the business of getting published leading me on and then the business of marketing.

Hand Painted Bone with Jasper

In the jewelry arena I showed some of my experiments of hand colored bone carvings to a collector and friend. She thought they were so nice she bought a pair of the earrings. That inspires and motivates me to get back to my experiments with color.  As much as I love our mammoth tusk carvings, I adore color.  I'm a painter after all!

In the meantime I have my fingers crossed that “Piece by Piece” will be well received and a constructive critique comes out of this professional reading.  I’m already dreaming of the next book - a cookbook with stories.

Creativity is my life and I don’t really care how it expresses itself just so it does.

How does creativity express itself for you? How does it feed you?

Dancing with Bits of Time

Sometimes it feels like life snatches away the creative moment.  I'm filled with inspiration and great longing to transform this into in-hand creations. Lately this strong urge seems to get usurped by other 'more important' issues.

Then I wonder if these are also part of the process - that it's like a boiling pot. The food will be done when it's done. Carrots take longer than zucchini.  And maybe some ideas, in whatever medium you are using, need their own time with interruptions part of that process. 

There's a delicate line between gestation and procrastination and I so don't want to fall prey to the latter, and at the same time, I want to honor the former.  At the moment I'm dancing between bits of time working on new creations and literally taking care of business.  It seems like the computer and emails eat big chucks out the day and every night as I climb into bed I think, "Didn't I just do this?"

'Heart Song'

'Heart Song' is a new design etched out of this dance between busyness and creativity. These earrings remind me to 'keep it light' and follow life's lead. You just never know where inspiration will come from.  Five months ago in California, a waitress was serving us brunch. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her earrings.  They inspired this design produced in Bali.  That’s why we’re called “World on a String”.