We're All Ears :: September :: Ode to Autumn

Well, Autumn has not disappointed me yet! She has been mercurial...one moment prancing around like summer rising and the next moody, misty and damp. The colors are just starting to make their debut, while at the same time leaving a crunchy carpet underfoot. She never ceases to amaze, delight and surprise me.

For this challenge - this Ode to Autumn - I decided to sit down with art beads that were leaf shaped. What I came up with for my "leaves" was, at times, surprising.

Resplendent

This first pair started with those handsome carved blood red tiger eye leaf beads. I never know what I am going to find when I sit down to do this, and that bag with the burgundy colored leaves (I also have them in a creamy mother of pearl) literally fell into my lap! I have a little bead shop in my town called the Blue Bead, and although they don't carry much that I like to use, I still feel compelled to go in every now and then to buy something. These were the best find ever! I went over to my tower of black jewelry trays - there are about 8 of them all stacked together with the little flocked inserts holding layer upon layer of art bead treasures, like a sort of beaders' archeological dig - and spied these tiny ceramic flowers. They are from Summers Studio. Miss LeAnn Weih was the artist and I got to know her a bit many years ago when I first started out. I loved her ceramic treasures. But she stopped making things like this back in 2013 or so. I do miss her, so wearing these would remind me of her.

Forest Tapestry

Another artist whose work I have hoarded and who I admire very much is Nancy Adam of Round Rabbit. She is also not making new ceramic treasures. So whenever I unearth them in my tower o' art beads, they always take me back. Typically, I have one-offs and orphans in my collection, but I was lucky enough to have a pair of these marquis-shaped charms (I also have them in a rich purple). I know that these are not leaves, per se, but they have that leafy shape and the colors were just perfect for this season. I paired them with tiny celadon-hued jasper briolettes (at least I think this is a jasper...as I have a whole strand that are each a little different and no notes on where I got them nor what they are called). The design reminds me of intricate tapestries as well as the intricate veining on leaves.

Leaping Greenly

The title of these earrings is a reference to my all-time favorite poem by e.e. cummings, the first stanza goes like this

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
 

These charms really look like the real thing, don't they? I got them from Terri DelSignore of Artisticaos. The finish is very matte, almost chaky, and I wonder if they were actually made from molds of real leaves, because they look so realistic. I paired them with some dichroic baubles from Maryse Fritzsche-Thellens of Glass Bead Art. I originally bought an entire set of these fabulous beads in a variety of rainbow colors. These remind me of glowing embers in a fire.

Thanks for taking a walk with me and my forest of earrings! I am looking forward to seeing how you interpreted your own Ode to Autumn. Here's to the return of sweaters and glorious sunsets and apple crisps and the forest's foliage at its finest! Happy fall!