why flowers?

i make jewelry  these days. 

bet you already knew that one.

i tend to use flowery motifs front and foremost. 

this is for a myriad of reasons. 

as an adolescent, 

i was privileged to watch my mother deal with me and my brothers

 in some positive aspects. 

of course there was the traditional yelling and 'wait til your father gets home' stuff.

our house was always in a state of combative chaos. 

my mother took to her exterior life. 

we had a bit of space around our house that was sloped and also flat. 

mom made that into her personal therapy zone. 

the flat part was lawn and in the back yard. 

our house had a back porch that stepped down to the lawn area. 

of course in the transitional space between the two,

 there was an opportunity for some plantings. 

on the side of the house, she shined. 

plainly and simply. 

there were tumbling areas of richly scented, big headed roses and

 a scotch broom that espaliered against the dowdy garage side wall. 

there was a winding path with my favorite hydrangea in the nook of one of its ess curves. 

it could change its bloom colors dependent upon whether mom added daily coffee grounds from her morning cups to its footy root area. 

from blue to pink and back again to blue. 

it reminded me of the 'horse of another color' in 'the wizard of oz' movie. 

{my sarcastic kids call that my 'happy movie', the little beasts that they are.}

she tried to make a small section of the garden into a formal knot garden... 

i was never sure that was a success. 

she loved herbs loads and would tend those as well... making weird tisanes and teas. 

mostly things blossomed and bloomed all year long... when the ground was arable. 

heaven knows how much she hand tilled and weeded those dirty sections. 

that was her form of therapy she would say. 

getting dirty and moving earth around allowed her to test her garden's 

return of sanity.

she could think there, unimpeded. 

we three were within a 5 year spread. 

so all of us in adolescence at once... caused for a lot of bumpiness. 

i am not kidding when i say that i was relatively easy to cope with as a teen. 

{my folks tell my sisters in law this as well as my brothers' kids.}

 i hid in my bedroom making stuff or reading. 

i sewed every night. 

i babysat every weekend. 

i actually studied without a computer or internet. 

my brothers were another story. 

they were feisty, 

athletic,

and not particularly academic. 

they were raging against the machine of the sixties and seventies along with many many others. 

it was so turbulent a time anyways, no one might have noticed. 

but as i find boys to be, 

they are pretty pure. 

what they think and do are not always all that complicated. 

  that is if you are on step with them to begin with. 

if you understand that they want to just 

stand on a mountain top and shout out their lungs 

or 

go to camp in the woods and read a book around the campfire...

well then you got a clue. 

so mom's gardens really had some giddyap when the boys were full of their craziest crap.

not that i would like to be in the middle of full tilt crazy, 

but i sure miss those pretty gardens. 

and now i strive to find ways to have them return to my life. 

this is how i have chosen to use flowers in my jewelry. 

i am a terrible gardener. 

no two ways about it. 

i can plant and plant and plant. 

and then kill most things. 

i just do not have adequate follow through or discipline to make it all work well. 

i accept this most of the time. 

metal flowers are much more stable for my lifestyle. 

and with these, i enjoy my little fantasy driven compositions. 

i feel them come together. 

i watch their funky colors align one layer at a time. 

and i enjoy the methodology of creating, composing and figuring out a structural system to make them do what i want them to.

hang together as a neck-side metal lei. 

beauty as we all know is in the eyes of the beholder. 

i find these old metal pieces to harken back to a more youthful part of my life. 

i get to re-set my clock when i play with old things. 

and i genuinely revere the things that have some age. 

they tell me stories. 

i feel their enriched patina grow as i examine things and turn them in my hands. 

i see sparkle where there is glass. 

i see hand marks of others on the brass of lockets. 

i see love that has passed by, yet marked by giftings of old jewelry. 

and i get to giggle as i see these things come together in unexpected new companionships. 

who could not love all of this?

one thing i am hard pressed to do, is use a lot of religious things. 

i am not christian. 

i am not a practicing jew. 

i am me. 

i have a personal quirky sense of spirituality. 

and 

i try to respect all of the other religions for everyone else's sense of personal introspection. 

so when i see jewelry made from old religious medals,

 i may love it... but feel i can't do make it myself. 

there is a deeper symbolism attached to these talismans 

than i can frivolously use for my own accessorizing needs. 

on occasions however, i do hunger for some of these medals and symbols in my life. 

it is because they are just made with love or are shockingly beautiful. 

and yes, they also tell stories of their former owners. 

i just do not want to trivialize deep feelings about religion. 

and lives that lived with it. 

i want to show respect. 

so flowers it is. 

who could really hate a posy?

i am a child of the sixties and make killer granola. 

i love peace signs. 

and i 

enjoy kindness wherever it may be found. 

i am 

simple

and yet 

complicated. 

and 

so there you are. 

my doctrine on why for me flowers fit the bill.

and now if you will excuse me, 

it is time to harvest some fresh metal blooms. 

xoxo. 

W.