The work is very meditative. I carefully twist heavy square wire into freeform rings, oval or round or teardrop shaped, but perfectly imperfect. I delicately hammer texture the metal to catch the light. Then I add small hand-sculpted components from my stash – leaves and flowers, birds and insects – to artfully dance across the open ring. Finally, I add a few other details – granules, tiny tube-set stones, larger rose cut gems in bezels or prong settings, as well as the necessary handmade ear wires or posts or jump rings and bails.
It’s the way my brain sees design, as a process. I want to thoughtfully approach each step of that long process, to assemble by a series of decisions and labors where I can lose my concern over a finished product and just focus on the one small step before me.
These laurel leaf earrings feature the unusual leaves of my Texas mountain laurels, just outside my studio window. They grow in groups, with each leaflet softly rounded at the tip and tapering at the base, a bit different from our classic concept of a leaf as pointy. It’s those details that draw my eye in the garden, and in the jewelry studio.
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