Controlled Chaos

So much of what we do as artists boils down to this: controlling the chaos. 

Come on now, you know what I mean, I know you can relate. You have all these ideas and inspiration bubbling around in your hot little skull and they just won't give you a moment's peace:

• You caught Blade Runner on TV the other weekend and its gritty cyberpunk cityscape has been haunting you. 
• You were cleaning out the garden last spring and came across a fragile translucent snake skin snagged in some brush. 
• While you were driving to your parents' house in the country you passed this dilapidated barn half-covered with peeling crackled paint, half-covered with moss.
• After you finished reading Suttree, you couldn't stop visualizing that ragpicker passage over and over again. 
• That head of romanesco cauliflower you roasted for dinner yesterday--remember the fractal peaks and whorls that seemed otherworldly?
• That dream you had the other night...wow. 

For those with artistic inclinations, it can sometimes be challenging to organize all these ideas into a coherent vision that translates into our medium of choice. I have days where I flit from one project to another like a hummingbird. It's thrilling to have ideas popping into your head rapid-fire, but it can also be exhausting. Learning to take a deep breath, focus, and hone in on one vision...well, it ain't easy. Sometimes we have to be willing to let some go in order to fully realize others.


This week's pair of earrings is a metaphor for that attempt to control--or better yet, to be at peace with--that chaos. Any metalsmith will tell you that reticulating silver is an exercise in...blind luck. I created each charm by carefully taking a piece of silver through the process of reticulation with repeated heating and quenching to obtain the crumpled topographic texture that you see. I quite literally had (almost) no control over what the melting metal was doing under the torch. Half the time when I reticulate silver I'm just hoping and praying that I get a piece that's interesting and usable. These two charms ended up being completely asymmetrical yet beautifully matched--a little miracle! 

 
I filed off the rough edges, oxidized to bring out the contrast in texture, sealed to protect the finish, and hung them from some of my long sterling silver ear wires. A much needed personal reminder that we must strive to both control and flow with the chaos. Too much of one and not the other, and we get lost down the wormhole.

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy

Pobrecitos

I was chatting with buddy Kim of NuminosityBeads the other day and she called something or someone a "pobrecito". Being from the Midwest, Spanish isn't as prevalent in my lexicon as I'd like it be. Since I'm a word hound and love to pepper my conversations with obscure underused linguistic gems, I immediately googled this funny little term. Turns out a "pobrecito" is more or less a "poor little guy". What a perfect expression!

 You stubbed your pinkie toe--it's a pobrecito.

Your basset hound puppy trips over his big floppy ears--he's a pobrecito.

You always got picked last for the kickball team in gym class--you're a pobrecito (or pobrecita).

As I was in the midst of creating a silverworked agate drusy earring series several weeks ago, I found myself cooing over this wee lilac purple pair. So tiny, so easy to overlook, so easy to underappreciate next to their bigger, swankier mates. The earlier conversation with Kim was fresh in my mind, and voila, a star was born. 

To create these teeny post earrings I cut, soldered, filed, and sanded sterling silver sheet and bezel wire plus trios of my hand-cast cratered granules. Such a soft spring hue to usher in all the budding flowers, bulbs, and blooming trees. Squeal-worthy little babies.

So now you have a new word for the day--use it with abandon!

Happy Wednesday,
Nikki
LoveRoot on Etsy