Oriel Pendant Challenge -- Week 5: Snake Charmer

Snake Charmer Oriel Pendant and Matching Itsy Bitsy (front of both pendants)

This week's pendant is taken from a photo of a dance I performed a number of years ago. I played a snake in a Don't Quit Your Day Job Dancers performance about "fractured" fairy tales. Snake-y, beautiful music with Doree Clark choreography that utilized some of my belly dance training. And of course I crawled all over the stage. I made an Itsy Bitsy that could be worn with the Snake Charmer, using bits of the ribbons used on the front and back.

Snake Charmer Oriel Pendant and Matching Itsy Bitsy (backs of both pendants)

Oriel Pendant Challenge -- Week 4: Serpent Eagle Custom

Custom Philippine Serpent Eagle (Front)

Last week I was finishing up on a custom oriel that a friend asked me to make as a gift for her brother's girlfriend. She owns one of my oriels, a custom Golden Eagle, given to her by a group of friends. Her brother's girlfriend fell in love with it, so Bonnie wanted me to create something similar for her. Since this woman was born in the Philippines I went online to look at birds that are indigenous to the islands. I was struck by the fierce beauty of the Serpent Eagle. What a gorgeous bird with its golden eye, raised crown of feathers, and the white dots that decorate its neck, "underpants," and wings. As this is a custom animal totem oriel, eagle energy represents strength, ferocity, vision, and endurance. This is power that needs to be handled with respect, and I saw the bird wheeling in blue skies surrounded by the light of blue crystals, which call forth the clarity of higher knowledge.

Custom Philippine Serpent Eagle (Back)

Oriel Pendant Challenge -- Week 2: Harem Wish

Harem Wish Oriel Pendant (Front)

This is a 3-D oriel that I just created. It still seems unfinished to me, but I'm posting it anyway. I'll let her sit around for a while, maybe even wear her and perhaps the inspiration will come. The front of this oriel features a beautiful harem girl. It was taken from an advertisement, probably from the 1920's. I like her open face and the colors of her garments. She is resting on the middle pane of glass. A fused ribbon and Swavorski crystal rhinestones ornament the bottom of the oriel. On the reverse is another harem dancer, this one is an Erte drawing, also from the 1920's or 1930's.

Harem Wish Oriel Pendant (Back)

Oriel Pendant Challenge -- Week 1: Flowers Perfumed Her Hair

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" -- Frida Khalo

This new year I am restarting my personal Oriel Pendant Challenge to create one new pendant design a week. I may not achieve that, but that's what I'm going for! In this last week I finished one that features Frida Khalo. I used an image of her from one of her self-portraits, placing it on top of two ribbons fused together. I added tiny dried flowers to her hair, the kind that manicurists use to ornament fingernails. The back of the oriel shows the words "Perfumed with Flowers".



This pendant is also my submission for Day 4 of the 2010 Creative Every Day Challenge.

"Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality." -- Diego Rivera on Frida Kahlo

A Busy December for Kentucky Girl Oriels

This past Christmas season I had the pleasure of creating quite a few custom oriel pendants. I so enjoy making custom oriels for people. It is an opportunity to create a beautiful piece of jewelry that showcases something they love or treasure. People have told me that their pendants hang close to their heart and whenever they touch them the oriel reminds them of a specific love, feeling, or memory.

I will first scan the photos or take the jpegs and reduce them to an appropriate size, print them, and cut them out and place them on my work table. I often sit with the images for a while and let them "speak" to me. This is such an interesting process, often filled with playful humor. What bubbles up is often surprising -- colors, collage materials, background images, beads, crystals, charms, even words -- just seem to appear from out of my stash and fall together to form a collage that once completed, resonates not only with me, the artist, but with the person who is receiving the pendant.

People send me images of their animal companions, near or gone:

Flash

Butch

Angel

Milly

Sammy

Rudy

They'll send me photos of their loved ones:

Josh

Billy and Aubrey

...the memory of a special place they've visited:

Venice

Paris

...even favorite movie stars:
How lucky am I?

Custom Oriel: Harry and Scruff

This custom Earth Angels oriel is a Christmas present for a customer's best friend, featuring her friend's retired show horse, Harry, and her dog companion, Scruff. Once I decided on which photos to use, the oriel came together easily. The animals are just so happy with what they are doing and who they belong to, and they are just so darn personable that they needed very little ornamentation. I used beveled glass on both the front and the back of the oriel. Happiness is beauty and these two Earth Angels just shine with both!

Custom Oriel Earth Angels: Spencer and Monty, and Princess

Here are two more of my custom Earth Angel Oriels, which I love creating for people. The first necklace combined two animal companions of a friend, all three of which I love deeply. Spencer, a brave, strong Tabby, is shown on the front of the oriel with miniature dried yellow flowers over his head, almost like a halo. Why? Because in spite of Spencer's sometimes gruff behavior, he is a sweetheart of a kitten. Spencer tolerates me kissing him on the head as long as no one is looking.

On the reverse side is a picture of Monty -- who has departed this realm, although his energy is very much around. Monty was very jaguar-like, yet somehow, he also required a flower -- this one red to match his collar.

The second oriel I made as a birthday present for a friend. It shows her late, great, Abyssinian cat, Princess. And yes, she was a princess from the tip of her toes to the tip of her tail. And probably the most alert, present, and daintily affectionate cat I have ever known. I have shown her on a piece of vintage lace that I bought at a London flea market. I dangled beneath her Beth Hemmila's Flaming Heart Milagro Charm (visit her Hint Jewelry blog for more info on Beth's charms). The Flaming Heart milagro speaks to compassion for the human condition, and I always felt that Princess had great compassion for us silly human beings.

"Tiny Dancer" Oriel Pendants

Modern U

Dream Girl

Tango Dream

Ballet Green

Audrey Hep Jazz

I am excited to announce a new line of oriels -- Tiny Dancers -- that I have created exclusively for Stage Dor Dance Studio and Performance Space in Sausalito, CA. I have been dancing with the owner, Doree Clark, for over 20 years. Doree is an inspiring teacher who believes that anyone can dance if they have the desire to! And if you look at the people who come to her studios -- you realize that this is true -- they come from all walks of life, have different careers as well as unlikely ones, varying degrees of talent -- yet they all have the desire to move to music. It's a wonderful mix and many of us perform in front of the public several times a year with the Don't Quit Your Day Job Dancers under her direction.

Doree loves my jewelry, and asked me to create a line of oriels that features dancers from various dance disciplines. The dance styles featured (so far) cover: Lyrical Jazz, Ballroom, Tango, Cabaret, Broadway, Modern, Hip Hop, Belly Dance and more -- most of which are taught joyously at Stage Dor! If you are in the area, drop by and see my Tiny Dancer necklaces, try out a dance class, or come see our November show: Earth Girls Are Easy!

The Bird and the Rose: Pendant Challenge -- Week 8

I decided to keep working on shadow box-style oriels. I had a pin I purchased in Mexico a few years ago and thought it might look good in a 3-D. I took a pair of pliers and snipped off the pin-back and glued the bird-rose pioece to a rust-colored, embroidery type ribbon. For the back of the oriel, I found this verse from a poem: "the bird and rose in rapture sing...." and glued the phrase to a piece of scrapbook paper. I sandwiched the two pieces between a beveled glass front and a plain glass back, then wrapped them both in copper foil making sure I left an even space around the whole oriel. A green-enameled leaf branch, a red bead, and a pewter bird charm complete the oriel. I really like the way this turned out, and it is fun to wear on a big ball chain necklace.

Chrissy's Custom: Pendant Challenge -- Week 7

My blogger friend Chrissy asked me to make a custom oriel pendant of her 4-footed companion, Kalei, and her 2-legged, long-distance love, Eric. I started out with a photo Chris had taken of her beautiful cat, Kalei. I saw her in Chris's Southern California garden. Chris's photos of her garden's blooms are breath taking, so I took a few of her blog photos and miniaturized them in my creativity software program. I also added these cool miniature dried flowers I found in Mexico (they are used by nail manicurists!). I made this oriel 3D, so that it seemed as if Kalei was looking through the flowers. The more I worked with this oriel, the more it seemed that Chris's boyfriend Eric needed his own oriel. So I used hand-dyed ribbon and more dried flowers on the back of Kalei's garden pendant. I added a sterling silver flower charm and Swavorski crystal beads as a dangle.
I also made this oriel 3D. Eric lives in Hawaii, so I placed him in front of a crashing sea and sprinkled a few stars around him just for fun. On the back I put a picture of Chris and Eric -- when they first met. I added Swavorski crystals in sea colors and a sea turtle charm by my friend Beth of Hint Jewelry (by all means check her Etsy store and blog out!). The oriel is almost charm sized, but I liked the intimacy of that.

This is another one of my personal art challenges: to create a minimum of one oriel pendant per week. You can learn more about my oriel pendants by visiting my Kentucky Girl Etsy Shop. I find personal and communal art challenges an inspiring disciplinary approach to fostering creativity. My personal art challenges ensure that I do not put my art on the back burner -- wonderful new directions emerge as a result of stepping over my ambivalence and tendency towards self-criticism. Community art challenges have been a wonderful means of discovering creative friends and positive feedback. Another wonderful benefit of the internet!

Custom Oriel: Monty the Magnificent

I was commissioned to do an oriel pendant for a woman whose cat companion had passed on. This beautiful animal actually belong to three people who had homes on the same property, and he would go from home to home as it suit his mood. But this woman had had a very deep bond with him, so her neighbor and friend had asked me to do a necklace of him for her. I knew Monty -- he was very sexy and slinky, but had a powerful, sage-like personality as well. I remember being over at one of the houses, and Monty came wafting into the room, like Errol Flynn or Cary Grant, throwing himself down by my feet and batting at them. Shameless! One day, I happened to have my camera and snapped a quick photo of him lounging on a bed pillow (his pillow). I didn't mean to make this custom oriel shrine-like, but that's how it evolved. I placed Monty's image on a pink red tapestry ribbon, topped with a piece of vintage gold lace that I purchased in London this spring. The back of the oriel shows a red ribbon rosette from a fantastic piece of ribbon yardage I found in my travels; the rosette is pressed flat by the weight of the glass -- it almost appears as a relic. To top off the oriel I chose a silver charm engraved with a lotus blossom, which speaks of Monty's wise persona. I think Monty would have approved!

Happy Saturday!

Photo by Michael Serecsko

I have to say that I am very happy when I am making my oriels -- especially when I am making customs for people. I love taking an image of something or someone that a person loves and turning it into a piece of art that can be worn as jewelry that they can keep forever and pass on to those they love. I am very, very lucky woman to be able to tap into the Universe's creative energy and make beautiful, personal things that people can enjoy and treasure. It gives me great pleasure and I am grateful that I am finally at a stage in my life where I can pursue something I love to do and makes me happy in the process. Thank you Lisa for hosting Happy Week -- it has been very thought proking and enjoyable!

Custom Oriel: A Heart for My Sister

A friend of mine asked me to make a custom oriel for one of her sisters, the one who lives in North Carolina. Her last trip there had been one of those life-affirming joyful moments, all three sisters were together, enjoying the air, the beaches, their husbands, and the time together. One day, while walking the beach, my friend found this little broken piece of shell, shaped like a heart:

She brought it back with her and asked me if I could make a necklace out of it, something that her sister could wear to remember their visit together. At first I wasn't sure what I could do, but I trusted that something would come to me. She suggested that I might make a shadow box for it. I picked a piece of pink, faded, vintage velvet ribbon for the heart shell to rest upon. I searched the net and found a picture of a pink sunrise over a North Carolina beach. I looked in my old Thesaurus and found words to form this phrase: "All the sisters forever love", then cut the phrases up and glued them over the beach picture. I liked how the pink of the ribbon and the pink of the sunrise seemed to cradle the heart and the sentiment. At first I thought I would build a shadow box for it, but I just took two pieces of glass, made a sandwich of the shell and images, and carefully wrapped it in copper foil, trying to keep even pressure on all of the sides. Soldered it, added decorative solder beading, added a dangle of a filigree heart charm and Swavorski beads, and a pewter star charm. This is what my friend said: "My sister loved her necklace and just as I suspected it made her cry! You did an awesome job. Picking the right photo, the right phrase, the right colors! Awesome and beautiful. You have an amazing talent! Thank you!" And thank you D. -- for giving me the opportunity to create something beautiful!

Red-Tail Hawk Totem: Pendant Challenge -- Week 7

I am behind in my posting on my weekly pendant challenge! Shameful, but I'm over it.

I have always had an affinity for Red-Tail hawks -- ever since my high school sweetheart introduced me to the art of falconry (and kisses in the back of his Dodge Dart). I even learned to mimic their cries, thanks to my grandfather who taught me how to call my ponies up from the lower pasture with high-pitched Indian whistles. Whenever I hear a hawk calling, I call back (you really can't say it's a whistle, it's more like a scream). Shocks the hell out of whoever is near me, but the hawks respond positively and we have a conversation back and forth until one of us tires of it. In animal shaman lore, Red-Tail hawks represent mystery and magic. So look for good things coming into your life when you hear or see one.

If you like this oriel and want to know more about it or purchase one, visit my Etsy shop.

A Kiss to Remember: Pendant Challenge -- Week 6

These two lovebirds have been sitting on my desk for a looooong time, and decided they needed to be memorilized. I just love this Hollywood still -- a fabulous, romantic smackeroo. I'm pretty sure this is Cary Grant, but I don't think this is Deborah Kerr from a Kiss to Remember -- the hairstyle seems wrong. But whoever it is, she seems to be enjoying the experience -- wouldn't you? I added little pink stars, and the lovers are resting on a pink brocade ribbon. The back features a sugar-coated flower on a yummy burgundy-pink wallpaper. A pink Swavorski pink rhinestone rondelle accent and a fun, crystal bead dangle finish this dreamy oriel.

The Maiden -- Pendant Challenge: Week 5

This is the oriel pendant that I created to go in my box for this year's Gallery Route One Box Show. It is a portion of a page from an altered book that I created, Deer Island. I called her "The Maiden of Deer Island". I added tiny green stars on top of the image, and the back is a beautiful plaid ribbon of green, brown and cream. I am creating another and offering it in my Etsy shop.

Pole Dance Diva -- Pendant Challenge: Week 4

This oriel is actually an earlier design of mine -- from my GlamGirls series. But I had to make a new one for a client and I decided to post it because it turned out so well. This beautiful Marilyn Monroe look alike, holding onto to her diamond-studded pole, is actually Russian opera star Anna Netrebko on the set of Massenet's opera, Manon. This photo illustrates to me the inherant beauty of dancing and one of the reasons why I teach it -- it is a physical prop that can be used to accent poses, illustrate a woman's strength, and serve as a willing (and uncomplaining!) dance partner.


Pole Dance Diva can be purchased at my Kentucky Girl Etsy Shop.

Stella in the Desert -- Pendant Challenge: Week 3

This week I completed a custom Earth Angel oriel for a fellow Etsy seller, Song and Branch. Karen creates whimsical, hand-thrown miniature ceramic animals. I love them and have purchased quite a few of her creatures for my own pleasure and as gifts for animal loving friends. Karen asked me to do a pendant of one of her dogs, Stella. I create my pendants from a very intuitive place, so I often sit quite a while with my custom requests, I let the images "brew" for a while, especially with the Earth Angels. Often I feel like the animal who is being featured "speaks" to me -- and I get very strong feelings about how they want to be featured, what colors to use, which charms and beads to select. It's very interesting how each animal's pendant evolves, and it is a very enjoyable process for me (and I must admit a little anxiety producing because it all comes down to whether the customer is satisfied with my depiction, or not). Stella was very "loud" in her pendant "requests," very much wanted to be featured in the forefront on both the back and front of the oriel, and what background I should use (and stars, there must be stars!). I have to laugh -- it may be all in my imagination -- but maybe, just maybe, there is some other wavelength I'm hooking into! I look forward to getting Karen's response as to whether or not I did Stella justice!

Three Earth Angels -- Pendant Challenge Week 2

I finished a custom oriel for a friend, which she is planning to give to her boss. It features her boss's three beautiful Burmese or Siamese cats. These three earth angels were a picture in themselves -- I really didn't need to do much to bring out their special qualities. My friend had asked for a green background, but I kept feeling that a light color -- sunshiney -- was needed. I kept being drawn to the center cat's gaze -- so openly bold, so wise, so centered. I was flipping through some images and found this photo of the interior of an Asian temple. It sparkled with light and you could see the face of the Buddha hanging on the wall. Somehow it seemed to be a fitting background for these Burmese companions. Were the other cats winking? I usually add sparkles or gems to my pendants, but they just didn't seem right. Instead I found a pewter mandala for the dangle and crafted an alter-style attachment for the necklace to attach to. Because one of the kitties has passed on -- I added a silver swallow to indicate the soul's release. Once completed, I pulled my hands to gether in a prayer shape and bowed to the enshrined meowsers. Purrrfect!

If you would like to learn more about my custom oriel pendants, please visit my Kentucky Girl Etsy Shop!

A Crystalline Love -- Pendant Challenge: Week 1

This my first pendant for my Pendant a Week Challenge. This is a personal art challenge of creating a minimum of one oriel pendant a week. I created this Twilight-inspired piece in an hour. What is the fascination with vampires? I don't really know, but it has been a literary and movie subject that I have been engaged in for many years. Wierd, yes. But I am someone who was raised on Thriller, Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone. So vampiric lore is not so out of the oridnary for one such as I. And it seems to have come back full circle with the arrival of the True Blood and Twilight series. Crystalline Love is a 3-D oriel. It features Bella and Edward sharing a moment together -- the moment just after he reveals to her his sun-reflecting, crystalline skin. He thought she'd be horrified -- instead she thought he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The 3-D layers give the oriel a shadow box effect: the image of the lovers is merged with a redwood-edged green hill. The bottom layer is a foggy woods, sprinkled with golden strands that seem to reflect light. The glass front is bevaled. The oriel is embellished with a Swavorski crystal pendant, a small pewter heart, and diamond AB crystal beads.