Merry-Go-Round

Jump on and join a group of artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's question: How do the seasons and weather affect your art and craft?

Well, I'll start with my 2 favourite seasons in Turkey: Spring and Autumn. They are both very similar in that they bring breathing relief thanks to cooler temperatures; Spring brings new life, new colours, new beginnings and new inspirations. The outdoor lifestyle is once again ours, as well as BBQ nights and lovely walks in the warm sun. Spring here is fabulous! It makes me look at stones with vibrant colours, crystals that have unbelievable shine and sparkle in the sun. I sit outside, look at my sketch books, watch the sea from our balcony and play. It's great! Colour combinations become more daring, designs get chunkier... Autumn is really like an Indian summer somewhere else, with temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius right until 3 weeks ago, but days are shorter, night falls earlier, so colours are more subtle. Autumn is when I like copper most. I'm drawn to long necklaces and lariats, darker stones like labradorite and onyx, and big hoop earring too, so OTT normally but that are only a hint when I finally can let my hair down, weather permitting.

Now Summer here is something else: It's HOT, I mean blistering, I mean I burn the tip of my nose whenever I go check the mail, my long hair is permanently up, or I risk heating up even more and become a new mutant version of the tasmanian devil, I'm sticky, I'm unconfortable, my lovely stones naturally so cool to touch become slippery and hot and difficult to handle under my sausage-like fingers, a project that doesn't run smoothly becomes a major harrassssssssment as my energy plummets and my temper rises as high as the temperature gauge... So, I think stupidly, let's go out and get inspired? Not in Bodrum, darling! The city centre's gorgeous and sweet narrow paved streets parrallel to the shore are littered with smelly tourists rubbing armpits to unlucky noses with debonnaire carelessness, killing inspiration as well as assaulting everyone's olfactory senses. The beach's no better. So big stones are out, coz they stick to my skin at weird angles, short necklaces are out coz I get strangled when it tangles up with my hair, in fact everything's out! I long for light and airy jewellery, thin cool clean-lined silver and natural small stones and crystals which will roll around and let my skin breathe. I hardly wear any jewellery in summer.

Now Winter's just about started here, and I regenerate, I've got my big stones back through Autumn and I'm happy. I read a lot, I want to try something new, I spend hours on the internet reading blogs, recording whatever inspires me in my sketch books, creating is faster, I feel I'm moving forward, I find new inspirations. But Sweet Shredded Coconut, I really do HATE the cold, so I can't WAIT for our looooooong 60 days of winter to be over... :)

Check out The Merry-Go-Rounders replies: direct links can be found on your right.
Thanks for reading, and happy Winter everyone!

Little Treasures/Petits Trésors

Little beads chosen for their colour, their irregularities, their uniqueness, transformed into 3D pendants made of woven and sculpted wire.

Des petites pierres et perles, choisies pour leur couleur, leur irrégularités, se transforment en pendentifs 3D uniques, en fil de métal tissé et sculpté.

An Eni Oken pendant for Feryal, one of my local stone suppliers.

Un pendentif Eni Oken pour Feryal, chez qui je trouve la plupart de mes pierres.

Deux pendentifs style sculpture, un avec une pierre que j’ai gardée d’une de mes premières ‘fausses’ ventes sur Dawanda (quelqu’un commande et ne donne plus aucun signe de vie…). Une pierre fabuleuse de couleurs, une fluorite, qui a besoin que la lumière passe au travers, sinon on ne voit pas ses couleurs…L'autre avec un jaspis aux tons chauds ocres et rouges.

Two sculpted pendants, one with a stone that I kept from one of my first ‘false sales’ on Dawanda (someone orders then disappears…). The stone is a fluorite, it needs light going through it to show off its colours…The other with a warm ochre and red jasper stone.

Custom Ring/La Bague d'Aurélie

Aurélie m'a demandé de faire une bague en argent qui irait avec son alliance en or blanc. Après lui avoir envoyé quelques idées, elle a trouvé bague-à-son-doigt: ce design tortueux agrémenté de deux pierres, labradorite et pierre de lune. Merci pour la photo Aurélie!

Aurélie asked me if I could make a silver ring that would look good with her white gold wedding ring. Afeter sending her a few ideas, she found what she was looking for in this tortuous design with two stones she likes: moonstone and labradorite. Aurélie, thanks for the pic!

Going back to my roots/Un pas en arrière...

In an effort to find myself again, I went back to making ornate pendants. I started making these after buying a fabulous tutorial from Eni Oken (the only tutorial I ever bought on wire-wrapping), and now I mix her technique with classic cabochon wrapping methods. Very satisfying to make, very versatile design, suits a multitude of stone shapes, all in under 3 hours. Baaaargain.



J’essaye de me retrouver, et je suis repartie vers les pierres hyper décorées que je faisait au tout début de mon aventure avec la méthode wire-wrapped, apprise grâce à un tutoriel d’Eni Oken (le seul tutoriel de wire-wrapping que j’ai acheté). Maintenant, je peux mixer sa technique avec la méthode classique pour sertir un cabochon – bien que ces pierres sur les photos soient percées… J’adore les faire, c’est un design qui s’adapte à beaucoup de types de pierres, le tout en moins de 3 heures. Le pied.