My Etsy Shop!

Oh, Half-Assed Mama community--I am so, so happy to announce the opening (finally!) of my Etsy shop, amymorgan jewelry. Please come visit!

Notebooks

(This essay is old, but I was thinking about it recently when I read Alice's post here, and then I found the pendant and used it for photo experimentation. [And I have to say, the photos are at least a whole lot better than they used to be!])



On the sofa next to me are no fewer than four journals of various sizes, all partially filled. There are also two sketch books (one large, one small), and a large pad of silky, sturdy graph paper that I like to use for taking notes and making lists and for sketching. In addition to the notebook pages that have been written or drawn on, each of these books has its own collection of scrap paper shoved into it, not quite fitting, getting worn and ripped around the edges that stick out.

I was looking for a list of words I’d written down at some point, thinking that I wanted to use them as the basis for a writing exercise. I scribbled them on one page or another, somewhere toward the back of a journal, or so I thought. But I currently have no idea where they are—I can’t find them in any of these books, and I can’t think of any other notebooks I’ve been schlepping around with me over the past year and a half. (I mean really, isn’t seven enough?) The rest of my notebook collection is neatly packed away in a box, historical documents now. But I came across my inspired word list just recently, so surely it’s in one of these living, breathing, and extremely disorganized books.

But if I can’t find the list, I have at least gotten a chance to look over a portrait of my brain as it really seems to work on a day-to-day basis, and I have to say, it’s a little distressing. For one thing, my journal writing has been less than regular of late. I know that my writing is better when I keep a more regular journal—and by “better” I mean that honest-to-God non-journal pieces of writing happen more often.

On the other hand, it seems that I never stop taking notes of one kind or another, even when the goal isn’t anything you could call “writing.” Example: My life is absolutely littered with tiny bits of paper covered in ideas about food. “Steamed carrots with vinaigrette/dill/etc.” says one. Another: “Greek style ‘yogurt’ with almonds and honey.” And then there’s simply: “coffee and chocolate frappé thingy.” The same page contains notes like, “get soldering stuff working,” and the somewhat cryptic-unless-you-live-in-my-head, “etsy!”

Other pages list the measurements of various beloved children for whom I’ve made clothing or plan to do so. Lists of spices my acupuncturist wants me to incorporate into my diet. Over-ambitious to-do lists that, I note, are in most cases still not completed. Almost dictatorial lists of life goals: “Learn to play the guitar/Make more of my own clothes/write more/learn to balance creative endeavors.”

The sketch books are just as overwhelming, with drawings for pieces of jewelry or clothing I want to make, various designs I’d like to turn into texture stamps for jewelry, not to mention all the things that aren’t sketches (more lists of food, more to-do lists, and the occasional more-to-the-point notes on soldering, polishing, forming a bezel, etc.).

So these notebooks are a mess, and I’m not sure what to think about that. My lack of focused writing frustrates me, and it’s super annoying not to know where things are when you want to find them again. I like to think I’d prefer to have one journal and one sketchbook and fill all the pages before jumping to new books. I’d like to keep my writing and sketching segregated from my to-do listing and recipe imagining. Surely I’d be way more productive if I had a place for everything and if everything were in its place.

And yet, just now I found a year-old sketch I wouldn’t have said I was thinking much about—it’s for a small, roughly drawn landscape pendant, with a tree in the bottom left corner, a hill behind it, and a moon in the top right corner. I hadn’t looked at it in months. But as it turns out, I took almost that exact pendant out of my kiln just yesterday:

I can’t consciously remember the words on that lost list, but maybe someday soon I’ll write something with them anyway.

Shattered

Whether or not you choose it, it seems shattering a life is much like shattering anything else.

The initial breakage is utter chaos. Your feet are bare, and there you are, standing in the middle of shards, that cup of coffee you were so looking forward to splattered on the floor, the wall, the table and chair legs. Who knew liquid could travel so far propelled only by the force of a mug hitting the ground? Who knew the pieces of the mug could bury themselves in dark corners, under the china cabinet, in the next room over? Who knew a mug could break into so many individual pieces, each one a memory of the lovely thing you once had?

And that’s the tricky part—the way the mug’s pieces are suddenly so lovely to you. Suddenly, all you can see is the work and love that went into this handmade thing, the investment of time and energy at the wheel and hope in the firings, the beauty of the glaze.

Somehow, in your grief, you don’t remember the hairline fracture that ran through the whole thing—the flaw that meant it was simply a matter of time before the mug broke anyway.

********************

When a favorite mug of mine broke a few years ago, I was devastated. I guess that’s a little odd, but my feelings about mugs run deep—I’ve made many of the mugs I own, and when I'm in my active pottery-making mode, I am, in fact, a little obsessed with the making of them. And while this particular one wasn’t made by me, it was one I loved dearly, and I’m sure most people won’t exactly be able to relate to the level of grief I felt about breaking it. I cried a good bit. I kind of hated myself for losing my grip on the poor thing. And I couldn’t bear to throw out the pieces. I had no idea what I would do with them—the mug was far beyond any hope of repair—but I gathered up as many pieces as I could, washed them carefully, and set them in a bowl on my kitchen counter, where they stayed for about a year and a half.

Over the next few days, I came across a shard or two of the worst kind—the little slivers that get stuck in feet or fingers and make them bleed. There weren’t many left at all—we did a pretty good job cleaning them up. But the ones I found hurt a lot, and they made me so sad all over again.

The other night, I was looking for a photo to use as a new blog header, and I kept opening photographs that were just like those little slivers of stoneware—painful reminders of something I’ve shattered. Unlike the mug, this shattering was done consciously. And somehow, that makes the shards feel that much sharper.

Eventually—just last fall—I had an epiphany about the shards of mug. It occurred to me that stoneware is fired well above the temperature at which I fire silver clay, which meant that I was easily able to incorporate those shards into my jewelry designs. I could create with this broken thing; I could transform the mug and my grief about it into something new and very beautiful.

Is grief always like that, on the other side? And is this what people mean when they say that you have to sit with grief? That you have to clean the shattered pieces, gather them into a bowl, and go about your life as best you can, taking whatever comfort you can manage in the knowledge that you needn’t throw out the pieces if you don’t want to?

And then one day, when you’ve seen that bowl so often that you’ve almost reached the point of no longer seeing it, you’ll glance in its direction, and you’ll see it as if for the first time, and with enormous joy, you’ll realize exactly what you saved those pieces for.

We're Still Here, and Gratuitous Jewelry Pictures

Yeah, so we're actually still here. Just in case anyone is reading out there--or trying to. There was travel (for some of us), and Thanksgiving, and more travel (for some of us). And then I basically got eaten by my own preparations for the yearly pre-holiday sale I do with a friend.

I make jewelry from silver clay, bronze clay, and a variety of other materials that inspire me. And yesterday, at this year's sale, I was actually able to get some pretty decent pictures of my things, which was lovely. Next step? Actually placing things into the empty, lonely etsy shop I created several years ago. (For the sad tale of why my shop is still empty and lonely, read here--but watch this etsy space, because with a camera this cooperative, there's no reason to leave the tumbleweeds in place any longer.)

And without further ado, and because I'm too tired and behind on other work to write anything more engaging, here are the gratuitous jewelry pictures. Enjoy. (I'm also too tired to add commentary to the pictures, but if you have questions, do ask! I'm happy to answer them after more sleep.)

Cranky

At the moment, nothing is working. I've been wanting to write something--anything!--here for a week, and nothing wants to get written. I've been trying to prepare jewelry for a sale I'm supposed to be having with a friend in, oh, two weeks, and nothing, apparently, wants to get made. Every new design I want to try (and one that's been limping along for some time now, refusing to happen properly) fails utterly. I could go into details, but they bore even me.

I'll just say that it seems mighty unfair when one isn't procrastinating, and still nothing creative happens. Cranky making. Almost as if one is supposed to be doing something else entirely--walking the dogs somewhere nice, say--and one is stubbornly failing to receive the message from the universe. Perhaps because one has one's metaphorical fingers in one's metaphorical ears, and is metaphorically sing-songing, "La la la...I can't hear you!"

Right now, I'm going to go put one small piece in the kiln to see what happens (a brazen waste of electricity, by the way). Maybe it'll work this time, and my day (week, month...year!) will be redeemed.

And if not, at least I'll have the satisfaction of smashing the glass cabochon out of it with a hammer in order to send the silver off to be recycled. Because smashing sounds smashing right about now.

The Right Tools

I'm convinced that having the correct tools for a job pretty much always makes a difference. A job that might have been difficult at best suddenly becomes not only easier, but potentially joyful. But I'm also slow to upgrade, even when the job I'm trying to do is pretty important to me. It's not just that I resist spending the money (though that's often the case, and that's a whole other discussion), but frequently, even when a task feels overwhelmingly difficult, it simply doesn't even occur to me that there might be something that would make it easier. Or that maybe I'm not just naturally terrible at whatever I'm trying to do.

For several years now, I've been meaning to get my jewelry up in an etsy shop. But the picture taking has sort of been killing me--I started out trying to get good shots of my tiny, shiny, glassy, silvery pieces with a little Canon Powershot thingy, and it did not go well. At all. A friend loaned me his Nikon digital thingy (as you can see, "thingy" is clearly a technical photography term--I apologize if my professional jargon is intimidating to you). The Nikon digital thingy was taking less than great shots, and since the camera was Big and Important Looking with many functions and features, I assumed I was just having serious operator error issues. (Frankly, the operator error issues remain uncontested.)

A kind new friend came over one day to try to figure out how I could get some better shots of my stuff with the Nikon, and she definitely helped me. (And she's still owed a necklace of little bronze leaves as a thank you! Yikes!) We figured out how to change the white balance on the camera, and that was helpful, and she showed me a few other tricks, and by the end of our hour together I had enough confidence to take some jewelry outside and squeeeeeeze a few halfway decent pictures out of the camera. I found Picnik for editing purposes, which also helped, and there was no denying the pictures were way better than I'd been getting prior to that day.

But. They still left a lot to be desired. And I've generally felt a low-level, background interference sort of discouragement and anxiety about the whole thing--like I was going to have to gain an enormous new artistic skill in order to sell my jewelry. A skill I'd very much like to have, but you know, I don't want to have to drop everything to become a photographer just so I can throw some stuff up on etsy.

Then tonight, my lovely sweetie gave me an astounding early birthday (Chanukah, New Year's, Valentine's, President's Day...) gift--a Canon EOS Rebel T2i (for those of you who are not intimidated by jargon and camera geekery). Mind you, I still have utterly no clue what I'm doing, but somehow this thingy feels more intuitive than the thingies I'd been using, and in addition, I'm quickly developing a suspicion that you actually can't take a terrible picture with it.

I give you two pictures of my jewelry--taken at night, indoors, under a mixture of compact fluorescent and daylight tube-type fluorescent lights. No editing to speak of. (Except to shrink these babies down, because the camera? It's an 18 megapixel monster of clarity. Even on the lowest quality setting these pictures are ginormous.)

It may be that something of my excitement will be lost on you if you didn't get to see the abysmal and then slightly less than abysmal results I was getting from the other cameras I was using. I realize the shots below aren't brilliant photography or anything, but you're gonna need to trust me, the difference is sort of jaw dropping already. I can't wait to see what I'll be able to do in daylight when I actually know how to work the darn thing.

Silver clay moon and tree pendant imprinted with a photopolymer plate

Silver clay twig with fused glass cabochon and bronze wire