Barb's Weblog

It feels cold enough to snow out here on the rock this afternoon, and I haven't been extremely inspired. Good day to reorganize and pack the shipments, fill some orders! All I did constructive was polish and stone-set the orders and sizings from the last show...hold on everybody, they're coming!

I am planning the new additions to the website, introducing new wholesale variety packs of styles for the retailers, and getting all the new colored items ready to photograph.

The colored items are so pretty! They were introduced last July at Choochokam in Langley, and seems like they are a hit with everyone, young and old. I brush the color on, its a polymer resin, and looks to be pretty long lasting. Little flower posts in purple, blue, pink and sunny orange are 14.00 and the little leaf earring is the same, with one side of the center vein a delicate celery green. In the larger size they are 22.00, as a double leaf post they are 24.00.
I have few left over from the Flower Show, so if you want to get some now, I'll make the flowers and smaller leaf posts 10.00, and the bigger leaf 18.00, the double leaf posts 20.00. I can email you images if you want a look! Otherwise, just order from the website and in the comments box tell me you read about the sale prices in the weblog and I'll remember to give you the discount.

I hope to have actual images of them on the site within a month...so many new additions getting put on it, it will take a bit to get everything all organized. Those of you who know me probably already know how tough it is to organize ME! Ask Lowie, the long suffering bookkeeper!

OK gonna go now and get ready for Mom's ambrosial vegetable soup! No mere mortal could resist!
Barb

4:56 PM — e-mail me your comments

A very exciting thing happened last fall during the time of the Seattle Best of the Northwest show.
I had been looking at designing a new advertisment for our annual ad in the Artist's Guide published by the NWCA. I really had a need to do something new and surprising.

Lucky for me I had a victim in mind to model, one with a sense of fun and adventure. And luckily he happens to be the one in charge of the publication...so I ran my idea past him and he loved it! The goal was to present my soft curvy polished jewelry against a really industrial background, shown on a person comfortable wearing it, not just set on a plain safe neutral backdrop. Yawn.

He and I scouted out locations around the old military base at Sandpoint on Lake Washington where the show is held. I was looking for nasty gritty peely paint walls with metal all rusted and wood exposed, but I happened on an old dirty machine painted a fabulous red, all covered with pipes, wires, grease...it was altogether lovely and I loved it instantly! My victim/model had found a scary room filled with chain link cages, old wood and concrete, cold, grim piles of old stuff and also a pitch dark stairwell with the peely paint walls I had started out looking for.

Then I begged the victim not to shave for a few days, go get a painful hangover (I wanted him looking and feeling his best) and on the last evening of the show we slipped away behind the curtains with Ralph and with the help of Morgan, good friend of the model, and a staff person at the show, lights were set up, stages set and the shoot began.

All done with a digital camera, Ralph and the model were amazing. Very natural and in an almost zen-like state, the model was so natural and gorgeous, with a certain immediacy about him where every emotion and impulse was seen by the camera and Ralph got great shots!

We shot him against cages, stripped him naked and locked him in (NO, you can't see those!), dressed him in leather chaps and cold dirty water, smeared him with dirt and grease and literally hung him from the pipes and beams. Some were spotlit with theater lights, some by hand with this long greenish light...whatever we tried yielded interesting results.

Oh yes, and the jewelry looked amazing! I chose 3 pieces for him to wear, a fabulous sexy armband he had commissioned that I made especially for him, it shows my work in its most wild and indulgent way, maybe my favorite thing I have ever gotten to make. Also, a fossilized sand dollar framed in branches and hung on black rubber cord. The last one was a huge honker gold ring set with an enormous cabochon garnet. My favorite image showing the ring was too intense to use...yum! Its a keeper.

Out of nearly 200 images and 10 lbs of batteries, I choose about 30 to print and get a better look at. After weeks of study and asking around, I narrowed it down to one image, and Ralph took it from there. With his magic he has turned it into the most amazingly beautiful ad we have done to date! He always makes great ad copy, but wow, this is so nice!

Then I began the begging in earnest as my female victim/model was convinced to pose. She is an absolutely gorgeous woman with this ability to go from ingenue' to sultry Cleopatra. I had planned a wedding shot, and an Egyptian shot. I bought yards of golden and translucent sparkling stuff to wrap her in, bought makeup, painted the background and chose the jewelry.

The resulting images were lovely, so 2003 with a spiky hairstyle, but makeup demure for a bride. She looked so sweet and innocent! So beautiful! After the bridal stuff was done, we set up the Egyptian shoot, filled her parents house with drifts of golden powder for which they probably still growl at me, but we achieved such riveting images!

Ralph and his digital photowork and imaging skills have turned the chosen shots into seperate ads, she is simply too beautiful to do just one!

As it turns out, there will be 2 full page full color ads, and the little quarter page alphabetically as well. The new Artists Guide will be out the first of May and available at the Spring Best of the Northwest in Seattle at the hangar in Magnussen Park, on Mother's day weekend. The show is at www.bestnwcrafts.com (sorry I couldn't get it to make a link). If you would like me to send a copy to you free of charge, email me from my website www.shadowfaxjewelry.com to request one. I'll send it in May.

Please share this weblog with your friends, other Barb Fans and anyone you know interested in art and fine crafts. Check back often, and I will archive the old listings in case you need to see something old! I will be adding sale items and other images soon!
Barb

2:26 PM — e-mail me your comments

Shaping up do be another spectacular sunny day on the island! So beautiful it reminds me of a quote I read in a book given to us by a friend recently, a book of amazing art by Thomas McKnight...it went something like "The soul is born in beauty, feeds on beauty, requires beauty for its life". It was attributed to Thomas Hillman, now I'll likely get the trouble of quoting something somebody would want permission for...but it so suits the day and ART, that I couldn't resist. Too much beauty out there!

Anyway, the sea is blue, the sky is blue, the birds make it sound like a party outside and my crow friends are swooping madly at the window to get my attention for a treat or 10. The grass needs cutting and the daffodils are up and at 'em.
So cool.
Barb

8:31 AM — e-mail me your comments