It happened again last weekend

It happened again, and I just want to tell the story.

When I work on the jewelry pieces, I’m in my studio, by myself, squirreling away. I work on one color combination per week, and make as many pieces as I can in those colors. So it was silver and gray week, and I had this fabulous strip of dried acrylic paint which I had peeled from the palette. It looked a little drab, so I coated it with resin and sprinkled on some glitter. Then it wanted to be adhered to a frame of handmade paper, and then backed with painted artist canvas. Now it was beginning to get an identity! Because of the rectangular format, I chose to suspend it from a smaller rectangular piece of textured silver clay. Then I finished it off with a strand of harmonious beads of paper, clay and metal.

By then it was time to clock out for the day. As I was cleaning up and organizing the work space, I took one more look at the piece I had just finished. And then it started: that internal dialogue... "Who would wear THAT? What were you thinking? Are you crazy?”.... and so on and so forth.

So that was a year ago.

Last weekend at the Talbot Street Art Fair in Indianapolis, here she came. The woman I had made that piece for a year ago! Had we ever met before? No! Did she question my sanity? No! Did she ask me what was I thinking? No! I showed it to her, she tried it on, and the connection was made. She even took off the piece she was wearing, which she had purchased at a prestigious art show, so she could wear this new piece. I said to her what I look forward to saying to at least one person at every show:
“I made this for you before I met you !”

It is extremely gratifying to me as a jewelry artist to make this connection with my customers. It’s why I love to do shows and plan to continue the show circuit for many years.

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