Summer Sale through July, 31 in my Etsy shop.  Use code SUMMERSALE.

I had a bit of free time at the studio on Friday so I decided to work on a fun project.  I'm really excited about how it turned out and I think it might be a new series.  For now you can find it on Etsy.

I've been working on new series of designs, inspired by famous artists.  I wrote about the first piece, inspired by Miro, last month on the old blog.  Since today is the anniversary or Calder's birth, I thought it was the perfect time to share my newest piece with you. I've always been fascinated by kinetic art and Calder is one of my favorites.  The enameled geometric shapes are perfectly suited to jewelry, especially earrings so he was a natural to include in the series.
Calder was born into a family of artists on July 22, 1898 in Lawnton, PA.  He was encouraged to create and showed a natural inclination towards kinetic sculpture from an early age, although his original focus in college was engineering.  While working as a mechanic on the ship H. F. Alexander, Calder had a life changing experience.  He was working on deck early one morning, off the Guatemalan coast, and saw the sun rising and the moon setting on opposite horizons.  He referred to this experience many times throughout his life and it was soon after this that he decided to pursue a career in art.

Calder moved to New York and studied at the Art Student's League.  In 1925, he took a job at the National Police Gazette, where one of his first assignments was sketching the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.  This assignment would lead to a fascination with the circus that was apparent in many of Calder's works.  The following year he moved to Paris and began to give performances of his Cirque Calder.  Calder became friends with a number of prominent artists Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp who "shocked" him into embracing abstract art.  It was around this time that he began making his kinetic sculptures which revolutionized the world of art.  Duchamp would later refer to them as "mobiles" which means both motion and motive in French.
When Calder died in 1976, at the age of 78, he left behind the products of one of the most prolific and innovative artistic careers of the 20th century.

The first set of Calder earrings I made were actual mobiles, but I wasn't happy with them.  They seemed too much like literal copies as opposed to an inspired tribute.  So I went back to the sketch book and came up with these.  Though they don't have movable parts, the asymmetrical balance and they way they hang from the ears give them a sense of movement.  I was so happy with this design that I've decided to add a slightly shorter version, in various colors to the Metamorphosis collection.  I'll be listing them on Etsy next week.

This past week has involved quite a bit of traveling.  From one side of the state {for Big Crafty, in Asheville, last weekend} to the other.  This weekend was my sisters bachelorette weekend in Wilmington/ Wrightsville Beach with several of her friends.  It was a lot of fun, the weather was perfect, and the food was excellent.  We even saw the sweetest proposal at dinner on Saturday, that included a show by the Coast Guard.  {I should have thought to take a picture}  But today its back work and will be a long day in the studio while I try and catch up on all the work I should have been doing while I was soaking up the the sun.

This past weekend we traveled to Asheville for The Big Crafty.  It was a quick trip, but I managed to find a few spare minutes to snap some photos on the Blue Ridge Parkway and around town.

Two sets of train tracks run behind my studio and I often find myself taking a break from my work to watch the trains roll past.  On one particularly nostalgic day, I remembered a time from my childhood when my Dad showed my sister and I how to smash pennies on the tracks.  I was amazed by this concept and kept that penny in a box with various other treasures that I collected over the years.  {I still have it}
I began to think about how I could apply this concept to jewelry and headed down to the tracks to experiment.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but the lovely organic shapes left behind provided the perfect canvas for my new designs.  I love the process because so much is left up to chance.  Sometimes the pennies are hardly smashed at all, sometimes they wind up paper thin.  It all depends on the the length, weight and speed of the train.  I'm excited to show you what I've made so far and excited to see where this technique will lead me.

Pierced and Stamped Pendants made from pennies smashed on the train tracks.  Available now in my Etsy store.