Do You Have Your Artist Eyes On?

Happy Friday the 13th! (bum bum bummmm.....)
It's been a good few days! I made my first sales on the Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shops/WillowFishJewelry. Two pairs of earrings and a necklace, and I couldn't be more thrilled with these sales.

 These earrings are turquoise and silver beads- very Middle Eastern bazaar, don't you think?

 These swirly ones remind me of cozy sweaters on a cold day...

And this one is a tribute to hidden treasures in ordinary places... who would look for a fairy in a pomegranate?
I have so many more ideas knocking about my brain, it's hard to keep sketching them all! Inspiration can and does come from EVERYWHERE, as long as you have your "artist eyes" on. Artist eyes is a phrase I coined originally to describe my feelings wandering the streets of Paris in college. I lived in the city for a semester to study art history and studio art and French culture (bien sur!)
The light is different there, softer, fuzzy around the edges be it a cold, grey, rainy day (which they usually were in November), or a bright and sunny day. In that light ordinary objects took on a special significance, I SAW them. Most of us rush through our days with a hundred little thoughts bombarding our consciousness, and we don't see the world around us. How many times have we stopped and said, "Gee, I didn't even know that was there!" about a lamppost or mailbox or handpainted sign that's been there for ages. In Paris I saw everything as it was in that moment, and so I say I found my artist eyes there.

The footbridge to the Louvre on a sunny morning....

...and the same bridge at the same time another day.

Notre Dame cathedral from the river Seine on a sunny day

Amazing sunlight on a building on a walk home from classes one afternoon.

And who can go to Paris without visiting a gargoyle or two?

Many people become very nervous when the term "artist" is thrown around. They immediately think, "Oh, I can't draw a stick figure, I'm not an artist, so I can't have artist eyes..." This is completely incorrect- we all can have artist eyes, if we slow down enough and LOOK around us.
So I plan to keep my artist eyes on and open from now on...

New, New, New

It's hard to believe that Christmas and New Year's is over with... pack up the decorations, clean up the wrapping papers, cards, ribbons, boxes, and confetti for another year... Vacumn up the pine needles on the living room floor, and re-stock the pantry with "regular food." I've always liked this time of year, cleaning up physically and mentally from the past year, it gives me some mind space to roam around in for a while...

Some new things from 2011 (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Met and fell in love with the man of my life, moved to PA, became a stepmom, and got engaged. Lost my job, started a new business, learned how to re-finish a wood floor, went into a sweat lodge ceremony. Watched my mother struggle with surgery, chemo, and a radically changed life, met my new cousin Easton, and wrote a children's story.

It's been two weeks since I've been in the studio to work, and I'm getting twitchy. Thank heavens school starts again tomorrow, and life gets back into it's usual routine! I have a hundred new ideas for designs and product lines, new photos need to be taken, new items need to be posted on etsy, and applications for summertime art shows need to be written and sent in. Submissions to magazines need to be mailed, and planning for new projects need to be started.

I wish everyone a (belated) Happy New Year and the wish that 2012 brings health, happiness, and prosperity to us all.

Creating Creative Spaces

Every artist needs a creative space, a refuge where the mind can relax enough from the tangle of daily living to let new ideas flow. My refuge is the attic, a classic hideaway, to be sure. Our house is an old frame house built at the turn of the century. (How do I know this? Some of the original wiring knobs are still in the basement, and the rooms have external conduit wiring, no comfy built-in outlets for me, thank you very much! This leads to amusing situations in the kitchen, but that's for another post...) The attic is really the third floor, mostly finished and filled with stuff... my stuff, his stuff, Nevaeh's stuff, the cat's stuff... you get the idea. The space is divided into two rooms, and my studio is the second of the two, it even has a door! (Hallelujah!)
I have my worktable and rolling chair, stack-able plastic modular shelves to store trays and trays of beads and crystals, and finally my most prized studio possession, a wooden watchmaker's cabinet where I store my tools, findings, stringing materials, precious metal findings, odds and ends and bric-a-brac.  This is a place that I can escape to, to sketch, design, and create my jewelry pieces. It's not off-limits to the rest of the household, either. Nevaeh is welcome whenever I'm in there, and Gizmo the cat serves as my fuzzy muse, sleeping on the rug in a sunbeam.

My radio is usually on the oldies or country stations, and there is a supply of bottled fruit-flavored water and Werther's hard candies to suck on in times of great concentration. My inspiration board is tacked to the wall, and I study it nearly every day.

As wonderful as my studio is, there are some problems with it- There's only one little window with a view out onto the neighbor's backyard (it's where the kids play, so I can keep an eye on them while I work), and a single electrical outlet for my radio, beading lamp, hot glue gun, etc. There's no closet space to speak of, just one cubbyhole of a closet where the Christmas decorations are stored. The floor is old grey unfinished wood that swallows dropped beads, wires, stones, etc. I have watched as a bead has fallen to the floor and disappeared before my eyes... note to self: grey is NOT the color to repaint the floor! My art history, beading, jewelry, and general inspiration books are lined up on the floor because I don't have my bookcase yet, the two long walls are slanted in which means I can't hang anything on them, and I'm still looking for a futon to stretch out on, but the space is very nearly perfect for me, heaven on earth.

New Adventures, New Paths

This is my first-ever blog post, so I should start by introducing myself, right? My name is Sara, and I am the founder/creative director/person on whom all success and failures depend of the jewelry design company Willow Fish Jewelry.

My goal for this blog is to post articles that are smart, funny, and creative, and give you an inside look at what a newly-hatched artistic endeavor looks like, warts and all! I feel like I'm writing on one of those "Hello! My name is..." sticky-note labels.

I've been thinking about adventures recently- what is an adventure? Jumping out of a plane? Learning to surf? Moving to a new place? Or maybe an adventure is simply stepping out of your everyday routines and mindsets to try something new-to-you.

Here are some of my personal life adventures: studying art in Paris for a semester in college, travelling alone to England for a week of touring Bath, Stonehenge, and Avebury, playing volleyball on a local league during one summer (I am NOT an athletically-inclined woman!) , spending a week at a retreat center to practice the art of creative living (and yoga), and becoming a stepmom to an incredible little girl. None of these are earth-shattering events really, but they have helped shape who I am today, and isn't that what an adventure is supposed to do?

For me, starting Willow Fish Jewelry is an adventure, it has all the elements of a "classic" adventure story- suspense: will she succeed? romance: thank goodness for a supportive and very patient boyfriend! thrills: my first home show! conflict- can she build a business while being a stay-at-home stepmom? 
I invite you to share this adventure with me, maybe we both can learn something from the inevitable stumbles, leaps, wobbles, and wins that are coming my way. As Joseph Campbell so elegantly stated, "Follow your bliss"- all the way home.