The Day After Tomorrow Turns 20

If you’ve noticed that we haven’t been posting quite as many entries over the last week or so, there’s been a good reason. It’s because our official 20!! show season starts the day after tomorrow. Today being Thursday and Saturday Market’s opening day is, well, Saturday means everything begins the day after tomorrow.

The Day After Tomorrow has ushered in, gulp, twenty seasons and did you notice how perfectly the year aligns for us to celebrate this milestone? Since January first, it’s my habit to write our current blip in history of Two Thousand and Eleven with exclamation points instead of numeral ones.

We started our business of designing jewelry in 1991 when Groom and I were newly weds and college grads. As if to punctuate our 20th anniversary, the year of our Lord thoughtfully became 20!!

I enjoy words for groups of things like a murder of crows, a smack of jellyfish or a deceit of lapwings, but I’m not quite sure what the right one is for a group of many things that must be done: A nuisance of errands, a riot of hurdles, a siege of tasks?

Our “to do” list is longer than Santa’s scrolls of naughty or nice. The 8’ X 8’ wooden booth must be located, de-cobwebbed, tweaked, waxed, the fabric washed and re-fireretarded, the panels refurbished, the van repacked, all the accoutrements found and organized and there’s something else to do niggling at the back of my mind. What is it?

Oh yeah, stock to be made. Ha! I’ve been living on Fantasy Island for the past three months, studying and playing in Mexico in January, celebrating my birthday and Fashion week in New York during February and obsessing about my hair in March. Well, that’s another story, but I must confess, it’s been lovely to be at home these last few weeks, slowly getting into the swing of things whilst playing with friends and luxuriating in our final free weekends until Christmas Eve. Aaaaaiiiiieee, I’ve been a slacker!

Now the time has come and we must be ready. The house and studio are fairly tidy, we’ve made a few new pieces, but we’ve got to be more focused on designing NOW. With our newly emerging style and fresh jurying slides, we’ve been accepted into far more shows than rejected, so while that brings us tidings of joy, it also sets a little fire of panic, I mean motivation under our seats, so I’m off to get ready for a dinner party tonight, I mean, create more necklaces…

Salley Forth

I received an email this morning containing the following message:

This October is very special. It has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in 1 month. This happens once in 823 years. These are known as money bags. Pass this along to 8 good people and money will appear in 4 days based on the Chinese feng shui. No pass backs. Those who stop it will experience none.

Really? I opened my calendar and counted, and sure enough, five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. But I also happen to have my 2004 calendar open to October and guess what? Also five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I did the math and came up with only five years since the special, lucky “money bags” month occurred, not the reported 823. Wanna know something else? If any of us are still breathing, it’s supposed to come ‘round again in 2021, a mere egg short of a dozen years from now.

Of course, I do love fun numbers and alignment and had one of my heart’s desires come true last Sunday, on 10-10-10.

Last year, I bumped into a photo of a necklace that made my heart skip a beat. For years, customers have been requesting that I design necklaces and all I could imagine was taking one of our finished postage stamp pieces and stringing beads and the thought made me queasy.

You see, I didn’t want to make matchy-matchy and got stuck in my own mind’s quagmire that that’s all I could do. But when I discovered this photo of Richard Salley’s art, it broke something loose in me and like a warm summer rain, washed the mud away. When the rain stopped, my internal atmosphere cleared and I found a path to my own designs.

The term “sally forth” means to begin an adventure and for those of you who have recently discovered our blog, Groom and I set out on a new adventure this year in designing our 2010 collection, taking metalsmithing classes and setting up a working studio in our basement.

In the jewelry world, Richard Salley is known as a rock star. In all the time of staring at his work published in books and magazines (I’ve been carrying around this particular photo in my purse for over a year), it never once occurred to me that I might meet him, much less take a class from the metal genius, or even, hold my breath, ever have the opportunity to own a piece of his original artwork.

All I knew, while meditating on his stunning artistry, is that I desired knowledge and felt if I stared long enough, I would summon it to me somehow.

About six months into our new journey, led by the brilliant star of Mr. Salley, it finally occurred to me to see if he had a website. Duh! The first thing I noticed was a tab for “workshops.” I clicked on that page first and was thrilled to learn that this Santa Fe jeweler would be teaching a class, “Skulls, Wings and Rusty Things” at Art & Soul in Portland, Oregon during October. Groom and I immediately signed up, postponing our trip to New York until February 2011.

The highly anticipated day finally arrived last Sunday and we couldn’t have been more delighted (except for the getting up at O’dark-thirty and driving two and a half hours in the rain), but Richard Salley’s teaching style was relaxed and my hunch that he’s a bit of a rogue cowboy proved true in my eyes.

Taking his inspiration from wrought-iron work, he has such a high level skill set and knows intimately the rules of design, that he can bend them at will with fantastic results.

Not only did we have a chance to meet him, but we learned several valuable techniques including the very specific one I had hoped for all year, and I had the opportunity to purchase a necklace from him directly. Jackpot!

While planting seeds in the pure fields of possibility, we also learned that Richard, and his brilliant wife, Jane Salley, are co-teaching a week long workshop in sunny Mexico in January of next year. Oh shazam, would Groom and I like to attend…

The magic continued. For our anniversary last August, a photographer friend of ours in Portland, Miss Bee Bugg as we affectionately call her, gifted us with an overnight stay at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which included the $12 a night parking fee and a lovely complimentary breakfast. We decided to use it after the class Sunday evening.

So on 10-10-10, we stayed on the 10th floor in a beautiful suite with a sweeping view of the City of Roses.

The artist Tim Lord (that I wrote about on August 4, 2010), and his wife, Mary Gayle, on their way home to Spokane after another opening for his artwork, this time in Astoria, met up with us.

We had a chance to see a fresh print from his latest painting, Day of the Dead at the Deadwood Cemetery, a companion piece to his Wild Tea Party at the Deadwood Cemetary Alice in Wonderland themed painting.

We toodled up to Northwest’s Trendy-Third neighborhood and all agreed on the Chinese restaurant August Moon because of the red lanterns hanging in front. As you can see from his paintings (just click on them to enlarge), Tim Lord likes red lanterns.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but it had to be done. Saying goodnight, Groom and I spent a lovely evening in our fancy digs and enjoyed breakfast the next morning in the Crowne Plaza’s restaurant. As we were leaving, the server brought us to-go cups and filled them with fresh coffee - what a thoughtful gesture.

What trip to Portland is complete without a stop at the famed Powell’s Bookstore in the Pearl District? Touted to be the largest new and used book store in the world, it’s always a thrill to saunter through the maze, drooling at the sheer volume of books, suddenly in need of titles one never knew existed.

We finished our mini-working vacation with a mango bubble tea from Boba Tea and a bit of a shopping spree at Dazzle and Galore before heading home.

To close this interesting week, Saturday, October 16th is Sweetest Day. The purpose of this holiday is to make other’s feel special. It is a time to acknowledge family and friends who make your life special. I want to take this opportunity and wish all of you the happiest of Sweetest Days.

Making the Leap

There’s a term, schadenfreude, pronounced sha-den-froi-da, I believe, which means “pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.” A common theme feeding the tabloid machines and fueling gossip as a lucrative currency.

I just finished reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, which I loved by the way, but was saddened by this insightful sentence, “There are some who’d hardly lift a finger for kindness, but they would haul up a load of rock to dump on some soul they think’s been too lucky.”

As Kimmmm would say, “Le sigh…”

So what’s a term that means to share in someone’s joy? To root for them as they make a shift, to accompany them on their transformative journey of creative bliss?

If you’re not in the mood to read about someone breaking free from their own mental boundaries, by all means, make your escape. However, if you want to read about a favorite theme, Alignment, then welcome.

A friend recently confided to me that she thought every time we go out of town for a show, we do at least $10,000 worth of sales. Oh my heart is fluttering, what a thought! I have no idea where that came from, but I’m flattered.

This segues nicely to the phone calls I’ve been receiving. Somehow, and again, I have no idea, my name has been placed on a high-rollers list. I’m getting phone calls from movie producers, oil companies and other entities looking for large dollar investors. I mean, these guys are smooth, their voices like velvet champagne and honey, images of private jets and Rolls Royce’s sprinkled among “profitable returns yaddah yaddah,” until I am forced to interrupt them and tell them I am not their client.

They are puzzled at first, clarifying if I am indeed So & So? I tell them, yes, it’s me, but really, I am not their kind of investor. Oh, the disappointment and incredulity, as they stare at their list, wondering how they got it wrong? The honey and velvet dissipates quickly, iron and rust hardening into place. Their masks slip, revealing the rough beneath the smooth.

So while these calls threw me at first, I’ve started to look at them as forecasters of the future. While I do not yet have that kind of cash, it’s fun to imagine that someday I might and these tele-conversations are simply practice.

This again dovetails perfectly to what’s been unfolding. For the past two weeks, I’ve been inspired to design necklaces. I had a lot of fun until Friday night. That was when the pricing discussion with Groom occurred.

As this begins our 19th selling season, I must admit we have never priced a piece of jewelry over $90. We have had bookmarks for sale as low as $1 before, and our simple laminated pins start at just $5 and the rest of the jewelry has price tags in between, in other words, all within the two-digit range.

On Friday night, Groom became bold. As he priced and titled the necklaces, I gasped. “What are you doing?” I cried, (adding a little drama to the scene).

“Come now, Sweetie Blossom,” says he, “We’ve been under-pricing ourselves for years. With the new style of jewelry, incorporating metal work, antique components, pearls, sterling silver and fine gold finishing touches, we have to showcase them with higher prices.”

“But, but, the economy,” I sputtered. He smiled his sweet smile and continued pricing.

I went to bed feeling funny. I woke up feeling funny. I went to the Saturday Market feeling vulnerable. It’s one matter to create something and put it on display, but it’s another to design a piece and put it on display with a price attached.

Judgment about one’s creativity is akin to paper cuts compared with judgment about one’s value and worth. That’s a dagger to the gut. All day I was itchy and scratchy. Sure, Groom’s bravado was all well and good; he was safely tucked at home working. I was the one with my heart on my sleeve, for public display.

Sure enough, a man made a bee line straight for a necklace and mocked, “What is this?” He pointed and told me, “You start a design here and then stop. Start a new design and then stop. What’s your name, Collage?” He said the word collage like it smelled bad. “Oh well, just ignore me, I’m out on a day pass anyway,” he said and wandered off.

Gee, that was fun.

I understood in that moment, thanks to the guy with the “day pass,” that if I didn’t change my attitude and the signal I was broadcasting, I would continue attracting people into the booth that would validate my insecurity and vulnerability.

Time to Own It and step up my game or stay locked in to old, familiar patterns and prices.

And then the magic happened. A trio of women entered the booth, pulled in by the necklaces. One lady pointed to a necklace made with antique keys and tried it on. “How much is it?” she asked.

Gulp, the dreaded question. I pulled out the tag, hidden behind the counter, and said with as much conviction as I could muster, “This necklace comes with an introductory price of $185.”

“Do you take credit cards?” she said, and then told me to add in the pair of earrings I was wearing to match. She did not bat an eye, did not mock me, but praised the design with words and electronic cash.

With two bold moves, Groom’s for the pricing, and me for the adjustment in my psychology, we smashed the two-digit glass ceiling and made our first three-digit sale for a single item. Bonanza!

Chakra girl was in the booth at the time and noticed another person enter at the exact moment we broke our own barrier wearing a hat emblazoned with “Oregon Ki Society: Coordination of mind and body.”

This is sweet alignment. The necklace that sold was made from keys. The word Ki, which looks like it would be pronounced key, means energy flow or life force, and is pronounced chee. For me, it was a signpost that we’re on the right path.

After previewing the necklaces, a friend, Snow White, commented that I was “a conceptual artist.” I had to look that one up. Some of the other comments about the necklaces collected throughout the day included, Hardcore, I’ve never seen anything like it… It’s nice to see someone jumping out of the box… Steampunk… Sculptural, and oh yeah, “Collaaaaaage.”

When I told Groom about the man making fun, he said, “Sweetie Blossom, you’ve just moved into art. If everyone gets you, it’s a craft, if someone don’t get ya, it’s art!” Do you see why I love him? He always knows what to say.

Then on Sunday, when we went to the Flea Market to hunt for treasure, I had a very interesting response to a necklace I wore. A woman stopped me with a shriek, exclaiming, “That is the most freakin’ cool necklace I’ve ever seen in my life.” Verbatim.

Then, when she asked me where I got it and I told her I made it, she went on to say that if a celebrity were to be photographed in it, the necklace would sell for thousands of dollars. She said it would sell anywhere from $1,000 to $50,000. Okay, she might be prone to hyperbole, but the very idea that a design would be perceived, even by one person, to hit the four and five digit mark did something verrrry nice for my insides.

This encounter opened a portal to my psyche. I’m very comfortable selling 100 items for $15 each, but realized I squirm at the idea of selling one item for say, $1,500. I’m used to working hard to make lots of little things, but have not considered putting forth energy and creativity toward one really interesting piece.

The idea of placing myself out there to be judged on value and worth challenges me, but as I was talking to God’s Minion, a former metalsmith herself, she told me to blast out of my shell instead of peck peck pecking it to death.

“Be audacious, be bold,” she said, cheering me on. She’s very good at that. People have suggested she become a life coach and I think she’d do quite well.

Last Saturday, I took her advice and jumped into the audacious category, pricing some of the new necklaces even higher. Within the first hour of being open, we broke another record: the necklace “Day Pass” made fun of sold for $245!

Where in our lives do we set the bar and then complain things don’t turn out our way? If we are the ones setting the bar, then they do turn out exactly our way. Yipes!

It’s not like we priced things higher and never sold any, it’s that we never even thought of pricing anything higher. When we first started making jewelry, a pair of musical earrings, Do Re Mi, sold for $10. Nineteen years later, they sell for $10. See what I mean?

Perceived value. Whoa, a head trip. Talk about a journey…

Last Saturday, we sold a pair of Tree Frog earrings at the very end of the day (nice!). Moments later, my next door vendor-neighbor asked if I had my camera, because an itty bitty frog was poised at the edge of the fountain. In all my years there, I’ve never seen a frog appear. Curious.

So I looked up the symbolic meaning of frogs when I got home. Duh. Transformation. Metamorphosis is actually one of the four stages of their lifecycle!

They begin as eggs, then become tadpoles and eventually grow into froggies through “a dramatic transformation of morphology and physiology.”

I can make the leap. My thoughts start out as gelatinous blobs, then grow into polliwogs, and eventually, through a dramatic transformation (Hey, this is scientific lingo you know), becomes visible in the outer realm.

This suggests a four-stage development lifecycle of the psyche. The inner life of humans begins as spirit, becomes tangible thought, and through drama (emotions & feelings) births into physical manifestation.

Another signpost. Oh thank you little frog, Alignment makes me so happy!

Happy _______ Day!

Happy Administrative Professionals Day to you, formerly known as Secretary’s Day. If you do not have an administrative professional to appreciate or if you are a neglected AP, then perhaps you’d prefer to observe Patriot’s Day, the commemoration of the American Revolutionary War…

“Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.”

If the American War of Independence and cutting the apron strings to the Mother Country feels too much like ancient history, then there’s still Earth Day to celebrate, which is the same day as National Jelly Bean Day.

When I sat down to write this week, five pages came tumbling out. But it didn’t gel, so I’m facing an empty computer screen without time to start over as I spent waaaay too many hours on the other version.

What an odd place to be, so much to say and nothing at all.

Groom selected this week’s photos. Half are his and half are mine and they are displayed next to each other to show our different styles (or same).

Gack! I don’t even have an ending, nothing to wrap this nothing in. Oh well, I doubt it will rock anyone’s world. I’d like to think people are hanging on every word, waking up on Hump Day with gleeful thoughts of, “Oh boy, it’s Wednesday, I wonder what’s on the blog today, can’t wait to read it!”

Ha, we can all nurture delusions of grandeur with the greatest of ease.

So, without words to slow you down, you can glance at some of the new necklace designs and we’ll see if there’s anything to say next week. I’ll leave you wondering what in the heck inspired five pages of word frenzy and then declining to spill.

In the meantime, have a happy National Cherry Cheesecake Day (emphasis on the cherry, not cheesecakes in general), Pigs in a Blanket Day, Plumbers Day, National Zucchini Bread Day, Hubble Telescope Sent into Orbit Day, National Pretzel Day, Shuffleboard Day, Hug an Australian Day, National Prime Rib Day, and my favorite one of all, Write an Old Friend Today Day.