Creative Deadlines

The response to our intention of changing the blog from the weekly posting schedule to a more random, spontaneous format is making me laugh. One person sighed with relief as she let slip, “Oh good, your entries are SO long,” while another lamented that she wanted them even longer.

So while the idea in the very near future is to have much shorter musings with a photograph or two posted every day or so, this meantime finds us in a pressure cooker. We have until Friday to come up with a concept for jurying; a theme and focus which ties our different pieces together that we will have professionally photographed and then made Zapplication ready for the purpose of applying to the 2011 Art Fairs and Festivals.

This brief timeline until Friday is not just for coming up with ideas, it is also the countdown until we have transformed these various possibilities into actual photogenic pieces of jewelry, camera ready for their close ups.

We have an appointment to send preliminary snapshots of these gestating objets d’art to a consultant on the East Coast for his judgment, hence the fierce deadline. If he gives us the green light, then the collection can be shipped to New York for their photo session.

If we are given the red light, booed off the stage so to speak, then we must go back to the drawing board. If that were to happen, you’ll probably find me drowning my sorrows in a bucket of bleach water, scrubbing the floors like Cinderella pre-ball, or Joan Crawford a la Mommy Dearest.

So cross your fingers gentle readers, that today and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday) bring inspiration and that time opens itself up and reveals hidden and secret caves to play in and that by Friday morning we’ll emerge victorious.

a plus tard (see ya later)

The Need for Bead

“Keeping house is like stringing beads with no knot in the end of the thread.” – Unknown.

Oh, how true for us this week! We thought it would take two days (insert hysterical laughter here).

Groom and I consulted the oracle (our calendar), and although it was going to be a tight squeeze, we gambled the result would be worth it. So we set out on a two-day excavation of our basement which turned into a seven day rampage of spring cleaning. The weather here in Eugene this week has been stunning, giving us the much needed energy and motivation to see the project through to the finish line.

As you might notice, comparing le salon photo to the disaster zone in the previous posting, we managed to put Humpty Dumpty’s living quarters back together again.

No rest for the weary. Or is it the wicked? Regardless, with our claim ticket in hand to get our hour back from the Daylight Savings Time pawn shop, we spent our shiny new 60 minutes at the Piccadilly Flea Market (check out these groovy 1960’s flower power pins, booth #163), and then overspent at the Gem Faire. Groom and I felt hypnotized, drawn like magpies to the shiny pretty things.

Okay, time to continue working on updating our logo. See you soon.

We The Jury

The early years

For most of us, the word jury conjures up the official summons for civic duty, a mandatory “request” temporarily inviting us to join a group of our peers for the purpose of pronouncing guilt or innocence upon the accused.

For artists who’ve run away and joined the festival circuit, the term jury means almost the same thing.



A later incarnation

 Many times over the years, while Groom and I have been in our jewelry booth, innocent customers have asked the question, “So did you guys just show up here and set up your tent?”

Yep, that’s exactly how it happened, except for NOT.

Let me tell you how it’s done. First, we have to cultivate a list of viable shows. This requires a lot of research and sometimes money, because a few smart people - after having discovered how much effort it takes to track down the names of art fairs and festivals, who the promoters are, the dates of the show, the application process, the jurying fee, the deadlines, the criteria and etc., ad infinitum - have decided to keep this information secret and sell it for a lofty price.

Just because a person now has possession of the coveted list does not necessarily mean all of the shows are practical or profitable. More research is required, picking the brains of other artisans who may or may not have previously participated.

So much of one’s success depends on weather, the economic status of the town (or state as we have recently learned on a trek to California), the location of the show (shady park or sizzling street), the length of time it has been operating, how much advertising the promoters are willing to do, well, you get the idea.

In the Pacific Northwest, climate dictates the relatively short show season, so as is often the case, several prime shows occur on the same weekend which quite frankly is heartbreaking. If only they would stagger themselves on the calendar for a more user friendly dance card. It seems as though they all get bunched up at once, having us travel from one corner of Washington to the mid-section of California within the span of a week, leaving no time for rest, stock infusion or petting the cat.

Once the list is in hand, the calendar looking like a drunken game of connect-the-dots, the application process begins.

When we first made our debut, back in ‘91, we were selling exclusively at the Eugene Saturday Market. One day, a promoter of a local show invited us to participate and we were given a lovely booth spot and some column inch space in the newspaper as an “invited artist.” Wow, that was easy.

A promoter of another show saw our work and invited us to apply to theirs up in the Portland area, but said we’d have to take photos and fill out a form. Well, okay. So I just rifled through our box of stock and selected a few pieces that seemed intent on becoming our “best sellers.” Holding them in one hand, I just went out into the front yard and took the photo myself with the other.

Yes, I had to take the film to the drugstore and have it developed, but that was it. I simply dropped five pictures and the application form into whatever envelope I had and mailed it. We got in. The early 90’s were like that.



Nice hair shadow!



In some cases, we actually had to drive to the host town, such as Bellevue, Washington, months prior to the show so that the promoters could take a look-see at our work. If they liked it, we were in, which they did and so we were. Of course, this was expensive as we had to spend money on gas, hotel and food, plus take the time out of our creating schedule to do it, but that’s how it was done so we did it.

After a few seasons applying for shows in that fashion, things began to change. Instead of print photographs, some shows were starting to demand slides, so we had to invest in double the film and developing. After a couple few years of that, most of the shows got on the same page and they all went to slides.

Instead of a local promoter simply looking at the photos included in the envelope and deciding upon which vendors to include, now a bunch of slide projectors had to be set up, all the multitudes of little slides had to be placed into the slide projectors right side up and time set aside to look at them all, one right after the other.

Photographs allowed the promoters time to think, as they could look at them one by one as the mail brought them in until the deadline. They could put them in different piles to mull it over and see what else showed up. We usually got in.

When they switched to slides, suddenly the promoter (and probably some friends or family) had to sit in the dark and see one image after the other, or perhaps all of one artist’s projected simultaneously. Whatever the case, it was overwhelming and after awhile, they all sort of ran together and they got tired and we started not to get in.

After panicking a bit, this is our living after all, we learned that a panel of professional artists had been hired to look at the slides and weed the good from the bad. This was called a jury. Yep, they would pronounce sentence on our artwork and we would be allowed in the show and make some money, or rejected and allowed to starve.

More panic and research ensued. Those who were getting in were paying professional photographers to take the slide shots. For those in the jury, the quality of the slide is what became noticeable and separated the chaff from the wheat.

Suddenly, we had to fork out hundreds of dollars for what we’d been doing ourselves. But the quality of our slides went up and we were getting into the better shows, so it all paid off. Phew!

But evolution marches on and the digital age encroached upon us. Now, it seemed, it was easy peasy to take digital shots of one’s own work. This opened up the field and more and more people started applying to shows, creating a shortage of spaces compared to the overwhelming number of applicants.

We still managed to get in, until… Until those with advanced computer skills raised the bar and now the quality of digital shots had to be flawless. Until a company called Zapplication became the standard by which we all have to apply. Until we started not getting into as many shows.

More panic and research. One now cannot just have flawless digital images. One must create a body of work that has theme and focus. A collection, if you will. We cannot submit work that the customers like, no, because what do they know; they’re just voting with their money.

Insert ominous music here. THE JURY. A panel of our superiors passing judgment on those who will live and those who will die.

Even if the craftsmanship is impeccable, the theme must pass muster. As the jury has between 5-6 seconds (seconds, not minutes) to make their decision, they have been given a point system to use. They judge on a scale of 1-5 with no three’s allowed, which means when they see an image they either give it a one or a two or a four or a five. No middle ground, they either like it or hate it. At the end, those artists with the highest scores are in and those with the lowest…must I say it?

I have since learned that many themes are passé, such as dragonflies and hummingbirds. Juries loathe cute. If it’s popular, fogetaboutit.

The work must be evocative, but not provocative. Any religious imagery is out, for one member of the panel might be very religious and think the work is sacrilege, while another might be an atheist and find it offensive.

One cannot pull from pop culture like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz or Marilyn Monroe for they’ve been done to death. Or say familiar like the Eiffel tower, for one juror might have been engaged near the iconic structure and smile with passion at the reminder while another might have been jilted by a lover in Paris and seethe with anger and take it out on the applicant stupid enough to use it.

The secret unknowable list goes on, topics that are permissible and more that are not. The photographs also have to be composed in such a way that the first image points to the right so that the juror’s eyes follow naturally to the next, while the last image must point up and to the left so their attention does not wander. In the 5 seconds!

Also, all components must be handmade; no more commercial parts such as earwires, jumprings, chain, charms and beads.

And the background. Phew! One must know what the color du jour is a la mode before hand. One season it was all white, but now, any artist who has their work photographed in white does themselves and the artist following them in the lineup a disservice. Why? Because in the dark, a white background is so bright, that the jurors eyes don’t have time to adjust before the next set of slides appear and even if the next artist has done everything exactly right, they may still get penalized on the basis of pupil dilation.

Another year it was all black. Now the trend seems to be a gradient from white to black or some such thing. How to learn all of this before forking out the cash?

Even after the collection, or body of work has been artfully and creatively thought out, photographed by the best in the biz, the images must then be sent to another enterprising fellow for professional cropping, Photoshop magic and layout. Then those images must be sent to another consultant on the east coast for his opinion as to their merit.

It’s all so bloody time consuming and expensive.

And so, to answer that innocent question, “Did you guys just show up here and set up your tent?”

We wish.

Salley Forth

I received an email this morning containing the following message:

This October is very special. It has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in 1 month. This happens once in 823 years. These are known as money bags. Pass this along to 8 good people and money will appear in 4 days based on the Chinese feng shui. No pass backs. Those who stop it will experience none.

Really? I opened my calendar and counted, and sure enough, five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. But I also happen to have my 2004 calendar open to October and guess what? Also five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I did the math and came up with only five years since the special, lucky “money bags” month occurred, not the reported 823. Wanna know something else? If any of us are still breathing, it’s supposed to come ‘round again in 2021, a mere egg short of a dozen years from now.

Of course, I do love fun numbers and alignment and had one of my heart’s desires come true last Sunday, on 10-10-10.

Last year, I bumped into a photo of a necklace that made my heart skip a beat. For years, customers have been requesting that I design necklaces and all I could imagine was taking one of our finished postage stamp pieces and stringing beads and the thought made me queasy.

You see, I didn’t want to make matchy-matchy and got stuck in my own mind’s quagmire that that’s all I could do. But when I discovered this photo of Richard Salley’s art, it broke something loose in me and like a warm summer rain, washed the mud away. When the rain stopped, my internal atmosphere cleared and I found a path to my own designs.

The term “sally forth” means to begin an adventure and for those of you who have recently discovered our blog, Groom and I set out on a new adventure this year in designing our 2010 collection, taking metalsmithing classes and setting up a working studio in our basement.

In the jewelry world, Richard Salley is known as a rock star. In all the time of staring at his work published in books and magazines (I’ve been carrying around this particular photo in my purse for over a year), it never once occurred to me that I might meet him, much less take a class from the metal genius, or even, hold my breath, ever have the opportunity to own a piece of his original artwork.

All I knew, while meditating on his stunning artistry, is that I desired knowledge and felt if I stared long enough, I would summon it to me somehow.

About six months into our new journey, led by the brilliant star of Mr. Salley, it finally occurred to me to see if he had a website. Duh! The first thing I noticed was a tab for “workshops.” I clicked on that page first and was thrilled to learn that this Santa Fe jeweler would be teaching a class, “Skulls, Wings and Rusty Things” at Art & Soul in Portland, Oregon during October. Groom and I immediately signed up, postponing our trip to New York until February 2011.

The highly anticipated day finally arrived last Sunday and we couldn’t have been more delighted (except for the getting up at O’dark-thirty and driving two and a half hours in the rain), but Richard Salley’s teaching style was relaxed and my hunch that he’s a bit of a rogue cowboy proved true in my eyes.

Taking his inspiration from wrought-iron work, he has such a high level skill set and knows intimately the rules of design, that he can bend them at will with fantastic results.

Not only did we have a chance to meet him, but we learned several valuable techniques including the very specific one I had hoped for all year, and I had the opportunity to purchase a necklace from him directly. Jackpot!

While planting seeds in the pure fields of possibility, we also learned that Richard, and his brilliant wife, Jane Salley, are co-teaching a week long workshop in sunny Mexico in January of next year. Oh shazam, would Groom and I like to attend…

The magic continued. For our anniversary last August, a photographer friend of ours in Portland, Miss Bee Bugg as we affectionately call her, gifted us with an overnight stay at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which included the $12 a night parking fee and a lovely complimentary breakfast. We decided to use it after the class Sunday evening.

So on 10-10-10, we stayed on the 10th floor in a beautiful suite with a sweeping view of the City of Roses.

The artist Tim Lord (that I wrote about on August 4, 2010), and his wife, Mary Gayle, on their way home to Spokane after another opening for his artwork, this time in Astoria, met up with us.

We had a chance to see a fresh print from his latest painting, Day of the Dead at the Deadwood Cemetery, a companion piece to his Wild Tea Party at the Deadwood Cemetary Alice in Wonderland themed painting.

We toodled up to Northwest’s Trendy-Third neighborhood and all agreed on the Chinese restaurant August Moon because of the red lanterns hanging in front. As you can see from his paintings (just click on them to enlarge), Tim Lord likes red lanterns.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but it had to be done. Saying goodnight, Groom and I spent a lovely evening in our fancy digs and enjoyed breakfast the next morning in the Crowne Plaza’s restaurant. As we were leaving, the server brought us to-go cups and filled them with fresh coffee - what a thoughtful gesture.

What trip to Portland is complete without a stop at the famed Powell’s Bookstore in the Pearl District? Touted to be the largest new and used book store in the world, it’s always a thrill to saunter through the maze, drooling at the sheer volume of books, suddenly in need of titles one never knew existed.

We finished our mini-working vacation with a mango bubble tea from Boba Tea and a bit of a shopping spree at Dazzle and Galore before heading home.

To close this interesting week, Saturday, October 16th is Sweetest Day. The purpose of this holiday is to make other’s feel special. It is a time to acknowledge family and friends who make your life special. I want to take this opportunity and wish all of you the happiest of Sweetest Days.

Travels at Home

I dream of travel, the pull of far away places as strong as the moon’s hypnotic power over the ocean. I crave to walk among the moors and mountains of Scotland, experience the magic of enchanted gardens in England, have a picnic near the Eiffel Tower, and roam Italy. I hanker for the electric thrum of Manhattan, a chance to take in a Broadway play, to hunt treasure in The Village and take advantage of every pixel on my camera.

When the time is right, this will happen, and I’ve discovered that one of the fastest ways to manifest a trip is to be delighted exactly where I am. This is a win/win situation. I get to explore my native surroundings, discover new places, old things and put the camera to work where ever I am, instead of living life in a holding pattern, just waiting for the occasional trip. I get to be a tourist in my own life, examining it with a fresh eye.

You’ve heard the joke, “Kiss me where it stinks,” right? Well, sometimes that’s in Albany, due to the heady aroma of the mills, but they’ve been working hard to eliminate their bad smell reputation. So it was kinda funny to see a train passing through the middle of town, the words “stinky stew” graffitied on the side of a Southern Pacific boxcar. Truth in advertising?

This town -- south of Portland, north of Eugene -- was originally named Takenah by the Penutian speaking people who lived there, which loosely translated meant “hole in the ground,” something to do with a confluence of water that cut a hole on the river bank.

The Monteith brothers (Wally and Tommy), settled Albany the white folk way in 1846 and renamed it after their hometown in New York.

In addition to Stinky Town, Albany is currently known as “the rare metals capital of the world.” We were also hoping it was the “rusty metal capital of the world,” as we took a day trip there, searching for rich and strange things to transform into delightfully odd pieces of jewelry.

Instead of heading up I-5, we ambled the old Highway, stopping in Halsey to take photos and investigate antique stores. Again, we have paired Groom’s photos with mine. You can see our minds resemble each other, but have still retained our own unique perspective.

 If you want to enlarge the photos for detail, simply click on the image and then hit the back arrow to return to the blog. If you do that, you can see that “red” must have been the theme of the day, as in Red’s Barbershop and Antique Store, and big red Boda furniture.

With mixed feelings, we discovered a fun store in Albany called Opulence Eye Candy Antiques. I say mixed feelings because the place was so cool, yet it’s going out of business. So while the prices were definitely right and we found some treasure (like this sparkly retro hat), I’m sad to see such a beautiful place fade away.

Ha! I’m not the only one who enjoys donning a chapeau. Lookee Groom trying on one of Lil Bo Peep’s top hats. But I digress…

Walking through downtown, we had fun noticing the historic touches, harkening to days of yore when ornate buildings, curvy windows (and top hats) were a la mode.

Many hours later, we drove home through tulip fields, well, not through them, like some dinkwad did through Monroe Park this weekend, but past tulip fields, stopping to document les fleurs.

Back in Eugene, we spent the majority of our week’s energy creating jewelry and preparing for the Saturday Market. You can see the crowd of non-reserve vendors huddled around the information booth, counting points, hoping to get a spot. Thankfully, with gratitude in our hearts, we do have a reserve space, the same 8’ X 8’ square of prime real estate we’ve paid rent on for upwards of 19 years.

Two young University students stopped by the booth and interviewed me for a school project. During the Q & A phase, they asked me if I’ve ever considered moving to a different town and trying a different Market, and I answered, “Yes, I’ve thought about it, but I’m feeling loyal, this is home.”

I am happy to report that our new style of jewelry has opened to good reviews by Grant & Franklin, the maestro’s of green. Here are a few examples of what we are doing with our recently acquired metalsmithing tools.

I’ve got butterflies and fairies in my stomach, I’m so excited. For years, customers have been requesting necklaces and I’ve wanted to design them, but I’ve held myself back by the idea of matchy-matchy.

Clarification, what does that mean? Confession: I didn’t want to sit at the beading table, counting a precise number of beads and stringing them on equal sides around a square, resin-coated stamp. There, I said it.

However, in the last week or so, the Muse has finally given me her blessing and understanding that I do not have to make necklaces in that style, but can design them asymmetrically and fabricate any number of creative components for the lace around the neck, not just beads. This simple tweak on my outlook has opened a new portal and I am levitating with inspiration as I walk through it.

I could spend all day here at the computer, clacking away on the keyboard, but my hands are itching to get back to the studio and create, so for now I’ll say Ciao.