Marvelous Monday

Originally from Northern Ireland, Carla Pennie has set up her studio in her home located in Santa Fe, New Mexico (one of my dream locations).  Of the numerous techniques that she uses with her metalwork, I found her resin inlay work to have this quiet beauty about them.  I like how she incorporates gold and sterling as the material to suspend in the resin.  This first photo reminds of minnows shimmering as the light catches them.

Yet this black resin and ivory inlay is such a strong piece with a tranquil quality as well.  Carla recently began incorporating scrimshaw design in her work.

To see more of her work, be sure to visit her website here.  Hope you enjoy and have a marvelous Monday!

               

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I've got about 40 minutes or so before I'm off to a doctor's appt. . . my first post-op appt.  Which brings me to where I've been. . . for probably 20 years or so I've had a hip problem that went undiagnosed. In fact, labral tears were never diagnosed until three years ago. Long story short, it created a messy problem with my hip.  So much so that I had to have a hip replacement.  I had a scheduled surgery for late in May and am three weeks into recovery.  I spent two days in the hospital and then was released.  They teach you to go upstairs in the hospital, and as long as you can maneuver that, you're good to go.  I do have stairs in my house, so climbing the stairs as I had done in the past looked a little different for a while.  I tend to stay to the right side of the stairs so anyone coming up the stairs is in the left "passing lane".  My faithful dog Luca is the only one who wants to walk behind me.  In fact, he's always by my side.  He's the epitome of man's best friend.

I was able to get rid of the crutches at two weeks (and began driving again) and am now using a cane.  On good days, I try to walk without it.  I started outpatient physical therapy this week.  I'm looking forward to seeing my doctor today as I've got a couple pages of questions for him. . . fortunately, I did listen to my p.t. who told me to write down questions as they came up.

So, what does one do when recovering?  For me, for some reason I couldn't get into the book "Defending Jacob" as I had planned.  I've always seemed to need to get up and move too much.  Which really doesn't explain why I managed to watch way too much t.v.!  But as far as the studio goes, I really haven't spent much time there at all.  For the first 1 1/2 weeks or so, I had no desire to even turn on my computer.  Go figure.  Getting into the studio just feels like too big of a task at the moment.  So things may be quiet for a while - but I will definitely get back to at least my Monday posts.  Until then . . .

Marvelous Monday

I had all these intentions of scheduling numerous "marvelous Monday" posts during my recent unannounced break.  I even intended on writing a quick note to let you know I'd be gone.  But unfortunately, you know what they say about best laid intentions, right?  I promise to write about my disappearance from the internet this Wednesday.  Unfortunately though, it's totally unrelated to polymer or anything possibly artistic. I've only just recently started catching up with blogs for a little inspiration.  My life had been pretty uncreative for about three weeks now.  But it's good to be back.

So, seeing that it's Monday, I wanted to share the work of Angela Bubash.  She's a talented metalsmith professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.  I was instantly enamored with her "fins" line of jewelry - it's quite extensive - you can view it on her website here.  I swear I was hearing coral reefer music the moment I clicked.  And upon a closer look at her stones, I was surprised to see what some of them were - dyed feathers!  Would you have guessed?