Jealousy

It's annoying when jealousy rears its' ugly head. There is nothing attractive or positive about jealousy. Yet many of us spend our lives looking at things and envying aspects of them. Today I was jealous of Angela's wonderful work.

Angela is a terrific artist who lives in France and has a view on her art that I would never have. The paths that her brain takes are far different from my own. She works big and bold while I mouse into details. She incorporates a lot of different materials into her work where I pretty much stick to metal and glass in its' varieties of form. She deals with the sinuous, I stick with the planes and straight geometry. But I look at her work and love it. And I wish I had the time to be able to create my own body of work instead of running a store for most of my life. That's the jealous part and no - it's not attractive.

I should know better than to be jealous. I have a fabulous life that I'm grateful for every day. I've been blessed in so many ways and I do have some time to create - just not as much as I would like. My life has been generally placid and untouched by serious illness or sorrow (for the past few years). I've been fortunate. But I'm still jealous. I guess I really need to work on getting that out of my system and love where I'm at in my own life. But while I'm doing that, I invite you to take a look at her jewelry. Really wonderful things.

Designs and String

While working on the designs for the leather pouch that I need to have finished by the end of the month, I was amazed by how much of the patterning I could have accomplished using a simple string, pin and pencil. After all, a compass is simply a glorified and less stretchable version of a string and pencil. And with a compass, so many designs are possible. I'm busy working on some Egyptian motifs to go along with my hallmark on the front of the pouch, and the motifs are possible because of the geometric possibilitis awarded by the use of a compass. It's also a lot of fun, even though my good compass is at my home studio and I'm using the really cheap compass that I keep for emergencies at the shop.

I love geometrics. When I was drawing as a child, I always used templates, coins, my compass and protracter, and a ruler to produce most of my art. When I was accepted to art school, it was a geometric-based drawing that got me accepted. I didn't end up going to that school, and didn't end up focusing on that career path, but it's at least nice to know that the possibility was there. I'm having fun designing the rest of this pouch. And since she needs these templates quickly, I'll have to work on these for some of the weekend also. I hope you have a safe and creative weekend - play happily and artistically.