Happy New Year! I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season.
I've been quiet on this blog and social media, but not IRL.
I had a few custom orders to complete before Christmas (see below) and a couple of shows during the last part of this year (in addition to my "day job"), so something had to fall off.
These are the stones they picked out with draft designs
Anyway, I'm back now! One of the special orders was a pair of pendants. A couple of old friends whom my husband and I hadn't seen for more than a dozen years came to visit last summer. While catching up, I showed them some of my recent work and my studio.
Later, they picked out a couple of stones from my stash and asked me to create pendants for holiday gifts. Here are the stones: One is a snowflake obsidian and the other is a jasper or agate. The unknown is one that my mother cut and polished, but she couldn't remember what it was or where she acquired the raw stone.
Here are the finished pendants.
I sketched some basic designs -- simple settings that highlight the stones -- and emailed them for review. They were happy with that, so I got to work. Here is the work in progress and the finished pieces. I'm happy to report that I completed the pendants in time for Christmas, and my friend/customer was happy with the result.
Looking ahead to the new year, I have a few goals (not resolutions). Here they are:
Make more rings! I made a couple as experiments and my friends loved them. I sold the first three I made, then got an order for six more for Christmas. I guess rings are like earrings -- you can never have too many!
Start offering my best-selling designs on this website. I'll have a bit of work to do to get the store ready, so stay tuned.
Look for opportunities to get my work into more galleries and retail outlets. This will be the biggest challenge, as I am not the best salesperson.
If you have tips or suggestions about where I should try, please send me a note or comment on this post.
Thank you for reading. May your new year be happy and art-inspired.