It’s not often I remake a piece of my jewelry
I pride myself in being careful and meticulous when it comes to making jewelry. Also, while making jewelry I try to put myself into a Happy Place. I try not to watch TV as the abused animal commercial may come on; this tends to depress me no end, The happy place is where I need to be.
Even though my design may seem good; sometimes after looking at the design the next day, I think “You can do better” or on rare occasions “Man, that’s butt ugly”. In the case of “Butt Ugly”, I usually cut the pendant up and start anew. I really do not want to make a Butt Ugly, because the price of precious metal is way high right now. I make very few Butt Uglies anymore,
Last week I wrapped a beautiful Agua Nueva Agate from Mexico. My initial thought was it looks good, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought something was wrong with it. It was not “Butt Ugly”, just something my senses did not like.
I slept on it, and around 2:30 am, I woke up with the solution. The top of the pendant was too big, and the pendant looked top heavy. Design wise, if you have a pendant that is skinny at the top, you just can’t get away with a big amount of wire at the top. I see many wire wrappers make a design mistake doing this.
Allow me to show you what I did, and how it was corrected.
Since I made this change, I’ve been sleeping better, waking up more rested, refreshed, and ready for whatever the day brings. The pendant now brings Smooth Jazz into my head, instead of hearing that sad melancholy music from the abused dog commercial.
I have also made pendants so over-the-top, that I was not able to sell them (Yet). One, from a decade ago (2011) was an attempt to make a Squash Blossom from Turquoise. I saw many old Squash Bloom pendants made by Native American Silversmiths out on Arizone, and was inspired to make one in wire. As I recall, this one took about 30 hours, scattered over a week’s time. I used rare Western all-American Turquoise in this pendant.
I received many compliments on the piece, but no takers. This could be your brag-about statement piece of jewelry. It has a wonderful array of rare Southwest Turquoise. I’m not sure why it has not sold, though it is $889, so it’s not for everyone. Consider the time and components in it. This pendant my just be the best bargain on our website. The pendant was very large, and I think too bold for the average person to wear. Lastly our business is not located in an area where there is high demand for Turquoise jewelry.
As I was looking for the above Turquoise Blossom picture, I re-discovered many pendants I forgot about, from the past, that I really liked. Here’s one.
I may seem a bit particular about my pendants, but there are few wire wrap artist that do what I do; and you know what? That’s just perfect for me.