Lava, Raku and Hawaii

My husband and I just got back from the island of Hawaii. We spent the week there with our daughter, son in law and their adorable 6 month old daughter, who I'm completely smitten with! We were in the Kona area of Hawaii. If you've ever been to Kona, then you know that many (but not all) of the beaches and hills in the area are covered with lava.

The lava fascinated me. In some areas it was all broken up, sharp and rocky, as in the photo above. But in other places it was smoother and you could see how it had flowed and piled up. It reminded me of pouring just cooked caramel or pudding out of spoon and watching it mound and puddle up.

The raku beads in today's earrings remind me of those mounds of cooled lava.  Very organic and mounded up a bit. Perhaps I've got Hawaii on the mind and so I'm seeing Hawaii in totally unrelated things.  I've always had an active imagination! 😉

The lava, erm, raku beads were made by Xaz beads. The tops and bottoms of the beads have a definite metallic purple sheen to them. I emphasized that purple sheen by topping the raku beads with amethysts. The leaf shaped head pins and fancy, wire wrapped ear wires are from Handmade by JGL.

Linda Landig Jewelry

London Calling

A hint of sadness this week ....one of my all time favourite ceramic artists, Robyn Cove, announced some time ago that she isn't going to make beads or jewellery components any longer; she's concentrating on her beautiful and very original pottery.  Everything in her shop is reduced, so as soon as I saw this I hoofed it over to her Etsy shop RaggedRobyn pronto, to stock up as much as I could!
Robyn's work has inspired some of my best and most innovative pieces of work. I particularly like her spikes - the ones I used below remind me of an industrial skyline, rows of windows in a skyscraper.  Her work is just so different to anything else.

In my minds eye I see London - the tall buildings, the one they call 'The Gherkin' (30 St. Mary Axe - what a fabulous address!) represented by the faceted amethyst, the lovely eucalpytus pod connectors from Helen Backhouse representing the parks and public open spaces filled with flowers. The dark metal lever back earwires - the underground rail lines with their sidings and spurs. A whole city in a pair of earrings!

Hope you like them - they're available in my Etsy shop Precious Violet

 

See you next week  as I'm covering one of the extra days at the month end. February soon..........shall we do Valentine's Day?

 

Lindsay x

 

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