Georgia Helen Griffith, a Locket

This locket was created as a portrait of my great-grandmother. I never met her, but she was an impressive woman. Educated and independent, she traveled to Jamaica in the 1890's as a Quaker missionary. The reverse of the pendant is an antique map of the Caribbean.
Materials: sterling, copper, antique compass, garnet, sapphires; cast, etched, and fabricated. This is one of the pieces featured at Point of Contact Gallery.

December Events

Hello and Happy Holidays. Stop by Plowshares Craftsfair and Peace Festival this weekend at Nottingham High School. Today is the last day. 11-5.

Also, next Friday evening is the one night only opening for my graduate seminar. Everyone is invited. The show will have new pieces of mine, plus the work of 5 other very talented MFA students: sculptors, fiber artists, and metalsmiths. Hope to see you there!

Autumn in Upstate

 

We're heading into holiday season, and everything is busy as always. Autumn has been really beautiful here though. Neon tree colors, and lots of crisp sunny days. I went to D.C. recently with the SU Metalsmithing students. We visited an awesome contemporary jewelry gallery called Jewelerswerk. It's in Georgetown. Check it out!

Otherwise I've been up to my ears in projects for my grad class and custom orders. One of my projects is inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead, when they celebrate and remember lost loved ones. This cuff was inspired by that tradition, and also honors Frida Kahlo's last painting, "Viva la Vida" (Long Live Life).

Happy Autumn!

Ravens

The fall is here and gorgeous in upstate NY. Friday night we will be having a First Friday opening at Gallery 54. I will be presenting a few new pieces on the theme of Ravens and Crows. Some of them feature photographs taken at Oakwood Cemetery by my brother Kevin Blythe, who is a talented photographer. Oakwood is an historic cemetery a short walk from our house. It is a favorite place for crows to roost. These jewelry pieces incorporate cast branches and handmade sterling bezels with jeweler's grade resin sealing the photographs. Come and join us for a glass of wine and fine art if you can.

I've also been continuing to work on a series for my graduate seminar creating jewelry which honors different ancestors. Currently I'm creating a necklace that is based on the life of one of my great grandmothers. Stay tuned......

Sonnenberg Gardens

The Sonnenberg Gardens show has come and gone. It was a nice weekend despite the rainstorm on Sunday. The organizers did an awesome job and it was the first show I've ever done where we were given a catered reception, including sushi. Yum. So the summer is drawing to a close. A couple of my favorite pieces are still available at Gallery 54. This one is done with cast twigs and leaves. The stone is sonora sunrise. I was asked by a few people about the stone so I did a little research. It is found in Mexico, and is a combination of chrysocolla and red cuprite - all natural color.

Here is my show set-up, with the new banner.

Another piece of good news: I've been invited to take a graduate level metalsmithing class at SU this fall. I'll have access to a the campus metal studio which is awesome. I find that being around the school keeps my creativity from getting too static. I have a lot of new casting projects planned, so stay tuned~

Just a preview of what's coming out of the studio...

The summer has not slowed down a bit, but here, finally, are some new photos. Just a note about the photos - I take them all myself, and I am a very amateur photographer, but I do my best. Jewelry is hard to photograph for many reasons, esp. size and the reflections on the metal. It's fun to keep trying though.

Lately, I seem to be in the mood to work with turquoise. Perhaps it's nostalgia for my time in the southwest. This stone is really gorgeous. I decided it was so beautiful that a simple setting was best.

The Octopus's Garden.....and another cuff bracelet. This photo really has room for improvement! Inspired by snorkeling in St. John (years ago) and a recent trip to the Cape.

Happy August. For those of you in CNY, come see me at Sonnenberg!

Oh so busy!

Wow. Things have been super busy at the gallery!! The town of Skaneateles had it's annual sidewalk sale last weekend and the shop was booming! I sold my scarab beetle which was designed after an ancient Egyptian piece of jewelry. Artizanns gallery sold one of my cicada pendants. These are cast in solid sterling silver from the body of a real cicada and the wings are hand-pierced and are moveable. These are two of my very favorite pieces, time consuming to make, but so fun and unique when they're done. There is a lot of sybolism behind the images of both these insects. The cicada is an ancient symbol of "immortality, resurrection, and spiritual ecstasy". The french often give something in the form of a cicada as a housewarming gift.

On August 21 &22 I'll be at the Sonnenberg Gardens Arts at the Gardens show in Canandaigua, NY. http://www.artsatthegardens.org/. This is my first year there. I'm very excited as it is a big juried show with a very good reputation, not to mention that it's in a beautiful historic setting. I'm really looking forward to it, but I need to work work work until then so I have a good inventory for the show!

sweet birdy!!

This is part of a series I've been working on this summer. The bird was originally hand-formed in wax, then cast. He (or she!) is soldered to a cast twig; the original was picked in my front yard. Each one is a little different. This birdy is my favorite. The long skinny beak reminds me of a kingfisher.

day one!

Today I start this blog. I want to provide a place for friends to have insight into the creative process behind my metalwork, to see projects finished, in process, and the journey of creating them. This blog will for now be in place of a website, and I encourage communication, questions, etc..

I sometimes think about design aesthetics of many different mediums, and how they relate to each other. For many years I was a pianist. (I'm terribly out of practice now). I'm fascinated by the relationship of sound to visual design, how the two are so closely linked. I think that the same elements and patterns that are found in music are also found in the visual arts, architecture, design. Maybe this seems very abstract. I spend a lot of time pondering rhythm, balance, symmetry, and asymmetry. Do these elements when applied to sound, design, or for that matter, stories, narratives, even life patterns, all evoke human reaction in essentially the same way? For instance, if a person is attracted to discord, will that person seek the same rhythms of discord in music, art, and the rhythms of their life? I think that many questions like this can be explained in mathematical terms. For instance, Beethoven, certainly a genius, had a divine ability to create. His music is a journey through symetry, asymetry, pattern, rhythm, discord, etc, and all these relate to the intricate psychology of human pleasure, and human struggle. Clearly he was a tortured man, but out of his struggles he created intense beauty. So what does this have to do with math? I think that the rhythms of life are in a sense mathematical. But in this context, math is not reductive, but infinite. This is what I woke up thinking about. Now I will have more coffee and work on some metal...perhaps with a Beethoven cd to keep me company!