tribal curiosities

First some Dayak ear weights... might turn them into pendants but there is no way I'd wear these as earrings... The Dayak people consider long earlobes as a sign of beauty..

And a child's necklace from Papua New Guinea...it is supposed to protect against bad spirits... it's vintage (and smells like it!) from the 70's

raw

I "needed" some new earrings... so I took apart some old ones and made these :

raw amber, sterling silver

ostrich egg shell, old ivory tooth picks (thank you Suzanne) and sterling silver.


And carved a faux lion tooth (more of a lion cub tooth, it's about 2") out of reclaimed ivory, aged it with very strong earl grey... and off it goes on the monster!

Have a great and creative week!

never ending story...

busy, busy, busy... so not much time to make stuff although I have a project in the making... something to go with my monster... and while working on that project I changed a few things on said monster...

Hope you all have a nice weekend and time to get creative or to do the things you love...

Oh and thanks for the comments on the previous post... I was not sure how it was going to be received... :)

slippery soapbox

Everything looks the same and it’s depressing. This neo-shabby-grungy-romantic style is everywhere (thank you the internet, thank you etsy, thank you belle armoire and the likes). It was quite fun when it first appeared, a nice change, some fresh air but now… everyone seemed to have jumped in the bandwagon..Similar components, similar style, similar background… That you’re inspired by someone or some style is fine per-se, that is how you progress but what I see is more than inspiration…it’s not trying to interpret something you like…it’s channeling something you like and that sells… to me it’s equal to selling your soul… I know, there’s nothing new under the sun… I know there is some kind of synchronicity… I know there is coincidence… but in this internet age, it’s hard to believe in coincidence… do a search on etsy, just a few key words and you’ll get the point… I know, I know.. you have to make a living but does that mean you have to sell your soul in order to sell your stuff? I can understand the appeal this kind of stuff has for both the seller and the customer, and maybe that appeal has to do with synchronicity… you know, these things that tells stories of a glorious past… We live very troubled times, we’re insecure about the future, a lot of us don’t know about our roots, a lot of us have hardly anything left from our ancestors (because those things were deemed as garbage a few decades ago and were thrown away) so we need comfort and we invent a past that never was or we romanticize a past that did exist.. And I’m no different… I love things of the past, things that have lived, things that tell a story… I only wish that the stories told with the stuff I see everywhere were not the same… To me creation, considering there is nothing new under the sun, is about taking some ingredients that exist and making something new from them and it is not taking some ingredients that exist and making something similar (and I don’t say the exact same, I say similar… like it could have been made by the same person) … but don’t get me wrong… to learn a technique you sometimes make things that are similar… but you don’t go selling it and boast about it as being original.. you try to mature it first, to grow out of it ( literally) … but then again… it might not be about creation…just about making a living in a trouble economy, just about being part of the rat race (hope I don’t offend any real rats, they are real cute little creatures)… I talk about the neo-shabby-grungy-romantic style but I could have talked about the steampunk style…but the story is quite the same… a very nice and welcoming change that turned into something close to an indigestion…
Feel free to comment, feel free to throw virtual stones at me, feel free to add nuances to my point of view… and feel free to correct my pidgin English… feel free to share your point of view...

addendum : this post is just a rant... nothing more... It saddens me to see conformity when we ought to see diversity... this said I know there is another side to the medal... I know there are some very creative people out there... I just wish there would be more of them... and all the people linked to my side bar fall into this category... :)

for your ears, for your soul...

close

Ingredients : hand dyed cheese cloth, glass beads, bone beads, fox bone, buffalo teeth, wolf teeth, turquoise, coral, shell, ostrich eggshell heishis, brass bells ( the one in the center is a very old chinese bronze bell), raw amber, old coins, tiny old medals, tiny silver bells,...

This was also my very first attempt at the "lazy stitch"... and rather enjoyed the technique... what I really liked also is that there are many layers of fabric so the necklace is more or less like a tiny quilt...
I'm still not sure about the clasp... so will post a picture of it when I make up my mind about it...


I have decided not to worry anymore about prospective buyers or exhibition or "wasting materials"... so I will make more pieces like this one... pieces for which I invest a lot of time, a lot of materials and a lot of love...

A Sunday song for your ears... :)

tribal II

Tribal makeover of the very first portrait I made when I was an art student... some 15 years ago...

Making a monster of a necklace... I hope it will be finished by next week...