Isabelle Tuchban

Skip Measelle

Pablo Picasso, studio, La Californie.

Anthony Micalef

Le Corbusier

Jean Michel Basquiat

Judy Pfaff studio

Claude Monet in his studio.

Miró.

Pierre Auguste Renoir in his studio

Alexander Calder.

Anton Unai

Paula Rego

That this is supposed to be a jewelry blog.

I have reached the conclusion that this year has decided to fly past me, and while it might not be my most productive year, it might just be the most furtive.

Over the last few months, this just happen to go in the right direction and I am quite pleased with everything right now, I know! every time I actually write in this blog, I often comment on what I am trying to do to have some order in life and work

It has been an everyday process since last year.. remember the breakfasts ? Those still happen and have worked wonders, it is quite difficult to decide to do something, to change something and actually do it, how hard can it sometimes be to realize that knowing yourself and working in your well being is pretty much the answer to many problems, only now I am seeing the result.

Now although I have like 12 hours a week of true work, I am not stressing as much about anything really and I feel calm, so so calm,  this is because I finally dived into creative escapes, there is more drawing,more reading, more paint and experiments and all is so personal without that constant pressure of it all ending in a solid jewelry piece in my hand.

I will talk about this later with more detail.

For now, I am preparing for a couple of summer craft fairs so more groups like these will be more common around this place.

Some of these pieces will make it to the shop, before the end of the week.

I have to go work now, but one more thing!

Listen to her..

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.

It is a feeling that no matter what the ideas or conduct of others, there is a unique rightness and beauty to life which can be shared in openness, in wind and sunlight, with a fellow human being who believes in the same basic principles.

I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.

There are also seasons where I look at her over my shoulders (I think it’s a she) and feel distant and I don’t want to touch the computer, I feel trapped and little speeches are born inside my head where I justify why I shouldn’t be online, even when sometimes it is part of work…

This comes and goes and it has been the same for a few years now, first it was love at first sight  but over time the magic of the beginning faded and sometimes it feels afixiating.

Oh we have built something, without her help my story would be very different and like with any old friend, I am not planning to go completely away anytime soon, but let me tell you  sometimes I feel the need to open a window, breath and go back to those older times where we had no necessity of being in front  of a screen…

Piero Fornasetti tema et variazoni

Let me start by saying that 2012 was the year that turned me upside down, shook me and for a second it made me feel  like I was in the middle of a tornado.

Ermm a bit dramatic I know!

But anyways after almost drowning in all the madness, I found myself in total peace and looking at myself for who I truly am for the first time.

Today it makes me smile to write about this and to be able to share it with you, believe me  life never sends us anything we can’t handle, and although it might sound a bit corny every single day we have the chance to change.

I see my flaws clearly, I learned how  and why I react to things the way  I do, how by being hard on  myself I have harmed me,  and at the end it is all a process, It took me 7 months to adjust, moving to Spain, missing my family and friends, the fairs, the life I had made and was used to, the drastic change was not easy, it was not my first time moving away from my country but I guess this time changing a continent and knowing I can’t just grab a plane whenever I want made a big difference.

So I was stuck, with being  and dealing with myself and all these different emotions, to be honest with you the biggest problems I have is that I think too much, I am too sensitive, I can also be a little impatient,  as time went by I learned that our flaws are a part of us, is not something that we should try to remove from our personality but try to change the focus from negative to positive.

How can we use our flaws to our advantage?

This brings me to my resolutions, mmmm thinking to much, I know will keep doing it but I will try to keep my mind busy so all this rambling going on in my head will be put to a good use, when I am busy I don’t have time to think or make a big deal out of little things.

So I am back to studying, for the last two months I have enrolled in history lessons, literature and starting next week drawing lessons again, so this year I plan to keep that up, it’s wonderful because since I work from home, this forces me to come out of the house, grab a  one hour train to Valencia,  which give me two full hours for reading, without feeling I should be doing something else, I have to study, I have homework and again there is sooooooooo much to read, I am in love.

For the being too sensitive, I plan to let it all out.. how? by buying 27 boxes of kleenex and doing a crying marathon for two weeks, maybe not! …I think our emotions are important  and should never be hidden, expressing them in some way is truly necessary, there are certain things that feed our soul, music,reading,writing, I plan to absorb as much as I can and do my best to translate this to jewelry.

As for patience, I promise to enjoy the ride. Meditation helps so much to clear your mind and to slow down. Learning to live a  relaxed life  is not that easy but is possible.

This is all for now, Happy 2013 to all of you that have stopped by this spot. I hope that your never give up on your goals and that above all that you are and make those your love happy.

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.

Welcome to the woods!

Yesterday was an interesting day…

One time I was making small mushrooms for a ring and my teacher and I started a to talk about them, he told me about going to the woods once a year to pick a variety of them, how seriously people take this and I asked a million questions, little did I know two years later I would be doing it myself.

The most important thing is to go with someone that knows where to find them, location and the right spots and which  are the ones you can eat and which are poisonous, I was lucky to go with three men who had 50 years of doing this

They gave me a special knife, because they have to be removed from the stem, if you just pull them they won’t grow next year.

And a whistle, there were 6 of us in groups of two, so one blow meant we were around, two blows meant you were lost

They gave me a basket and then they left before I could ask anything else, in a blink they turned into little children right before my eyes and just left with their basketsl

I was faced with this:

Basket in hand just knowing I was to search on damp places.

I can’t describe the joy..

But I can show you.

So many different kinds, so many details, I found  many hidden under rosemary bushes.

The minute you moved them around to pick the rovellon between the damp smell of the earth and rosemary it was impossible not to smile, what a pure smell.

The whole place was the perfect scenario for a fairytale

We were there from 9am to 2pm having a little break in the woods for lunch under the mist and we showed each other what we had found

Here is a different variety of the ones we can eat.

Here is what I found.

It was such a lovely experience, specially since the people I went with knew so many stories of the place, they told me many recipes, how to clean them and store them even how to conserve them.

I agreed to come next year.

These are the moments I cherish.

I then had some time off, and found myself without knowing what to do, since one of my goals is not to pressure myself so much, I decided to apply the one advice I always gave some of my friends, I think that when you don’t know what to make, is good to think of something simple, once you find yourself working, you get the ball rolling and more ideas will come, the next thing you know the whole afternoon has passed.

So I started with cleaning my workshop, because sitting down in a workspace that looks like a tornado passed by it, is not very encouraging.

(usually there is no room for a needle on top of that bench, but that’s between you and I)

Anyways..

Thinking of something I like.

Its no secret I am in love with this book, and back in the day on my second jewelry class I remember telling my teacher I wanted to make something with the original illustrations, years passed me by and I guess I always wanted something so unique, so complex…that I never made it.

But sometimes we should just start, even with something simple like I said before, so it had to be the boa.

So it was time to work:

“I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered: “Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups’ response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

Then, I couldn’t let go of the last page, because I remember so clearly when I was little and I read this for the first time:

“This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared

Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognize it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.”

I probably was 9 and I remember telling my mom how he had gone back home, but that it was ok he was alive and he could return , later on in life after  reading it  over and over again it is probably my favorite ending of a book, it just brings me back to when I was a little girl and my first innocent impression of the Little Prince.