"I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free".....Michaelangelo, artist, and architect of the Renaissance is credited with this quote..I believe it is a bit of a paraphrase....but a friend recently asked to see a work in progress....so here it is....
I have been working on this cuff bracelet that will feature a bird of paradise flower in the centre segment. I don't know why I have been obsessed with these lately, so I did some research on their meaning and lo and behold, in the language of flowers, they stand for 'joy'!
Jewelry artisans generally work in one of two methods...fabrication, which means the work is created by manipulating sheet metal and wire forms with hammers and other tools, and wax carving which is my current preferred method ( though I can fabricate up there with the best of them, and some fabricating of my carved parts will happen later).....I am just in love with my wax....and, it helps me to further my mission....)
My particular artistic process is a slow one....my carvings can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to complete. In addition, this particular piece is in the very beginning stages, where my carving parameters have been laid out, I have begun the work, but it just doesn't look like much at all....a friend of mine, who is a very well known teacher in the jewelry world, likes to call this particular stage
'amateur hour'....
Every time I think of that, it makes me laugh...'cause its so true.....the work just looks like a big ol' mess, as I am removing all the levels of wax that need to go....so much so, that even I will look at things and think, "what on earth am I doing?"....then, somehow, in what feels like an instant, it will begin to come together...
Sometimes I wish I had a faster process, so I could produce new work to show you more quickly....but if I changed, I suppose that would also change the nature of what I do...so for now, this is who I am...this is my meditation, this is what comes from my hands, to your heart
If you squinch your eyes, you can see the flower in there....in the meantime, it is sitting in my minds eye, as perfectly as I can imagine it, waiting for completion...the journey is what its really all about anyways, right?
namaste