Custom Gothic Bauhaus Bat Ring

Crafted as a special custom order... It flew off to it's new home last night. ~X~

Vintage Dragon Necklace

When I found this Vintage Dragon, I had to get it... it seemed to be floating on a cloud. I wired it in Sterling with Eye Agates, black Obsidian & Onyx. With a Serpent S Hook, with the largest Eye Agate drop.
It ended up being a Crazy Chunky piece... & pretty weighty.
~X~

I <3 Copper Lust

The color of Copper is so yummy & warm, especially joined with Garnet.
~X~

New Catalog sections almost finished...

It is taking me forever to build the new catalog... so far I am almost finished with the first Altered Art Collage Jewelry section. There will be MANY pages within the Altered Art Collage Jewelry section, as there are multiple sections with the AAC area & many pages within each selection. Phew... As well, the Bridal Collection will have about 2 pages (of classic Eyescream Jewelry mostly Pearl & Sterling Circlet & pendant designs) though the designs listed could also be customized in other stones & colors if inquired.
So I have a few more pages to type up descriptions, then onto creating the Paypal order buttons for each.
wish me luck.
~X~

New Site LIVE

Well, as of last night my new website is Finally LIVE. It took another full day of republishing it over & over to fix site bugs & such. There will still be some links that either lead nowhere or don't exist yet. Now the tedious task of rebuilding my catalog.
Thanks for everyones patience.
More to come & back to the grind...
~X~

Sterling Rings Grouped together for show

Just for fun, here is a pic of a lot of ring designs... most dating back to 1992 styles... that are still repeated but with slightly varied creations. As well as some one of a kinds created for 2007. These are a mix of soldered with a jewelers torch, cast, and wired. From the simple to the ornate. And just a grouping of rings that I had created a while back & never did anything with the image. Wheee.... Clustery goodness & Fun times.
~X~

Lusting after Labradorite

So while looking around at older shots of some past pieces. I came across this old custom piece I created over a year ago. A Labradorite & Sterling Horned Moon Goddess Circlet Creation. I had forgotten about it.
It was a truly beautiful piece... as I hand chose the most Amazing Labradorites with such intense fire & flash.
~X~

Finding your Jewelry or Art Niche'

{The following is from a letter I wrote to a lovely young woman who was inquiring any info from me, as she was writing her final for jewelry class on me & my business. I was flattered, though tired at the time that I wrote this... but thought it might be nice to share with others.}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First of all, you should do what you love! Too much time is wasted being stressed out in life & not following your dreams or ambitions. Most of this might be due to necessity. But if nothing is holding you back....

If you want to excel in Jewelry creation or any art form as a career and earn a living from your art, & if it is the type of art that you feel is a bit different than the norm (or not), then Find your niche' and Do it Well! Without a good niche (something that you feel might be a bit different in the market place) then you are just creating what everyone else is, hence you may not be filling a void that may well be needed somewhere (in whatever niche' or genre you choose).

(added: though it is nice to just be creating & fueling your art & following your dreams, if you wish to have your dream earn you enough money to not have to work for another, than you definately need to find your niche')

Though in the beginning, you may need to work for others or take on jobs, customs, or repairs & sometimes it may not be what you want to be doing. Look at every project or job as a new lesson to learn. Take everything in, you never know when you might need to apply it to a future project or experience.

For myself I find that although I create in many mediums from what I call Embellishment piecework, to torch work/soldering, or carving in ACS or PMC, Resin, photography etc... I always attempt to try something new. I strive to learn a new technique when I can. I pick up books for inspiration & tutorials, and even if I do not set out to follow a tutorial, I am still inspired by the process of individual techniques to produce something. The books can be anything from jewelry techniques, benchwork, Art Nouveau & art deco or wrought iron designwork books, arts & crafts zines, painting & photography, my sketching journals and so on. (and for my geekier side, I love it when they have some heirloom piece of jewelry on the antique roadshow, or going to some museum exhibit to see some old viking or egyptian jewels). Whatever inspires you!

When I feel I am becoming somewhat stagnant or repetitive (having created jewels for over 20 years in various forms, & having multiple orders over & over for some similar jewelry styles), I search out something new to tempt my eyes and hands. Without a steady flow of the new I don't know where I would be. It can be hard to challenge yourself if you do not sometimes place an interesting obstacle in your path.

So basically, be yourself! Find your Niche'! Do it well! Try something new! Inspire yourself & hopefully you can inspire others!!!

I wish you much luck in all your artistic endeavors!
~X~



__________________________________________


As a side note: There are always negatives (sorry not all roses)....
I wouldn't trade my work hours for anything. I am happy just to continue to create what I love & earn a living from my art. (being my own boss, way flexible hours, although It can be negative at times running your own business, especially dealing with the 'business' end of things versus the art, or dealing with unscrupulous people who wish to copy above & beyond flattering, and it is a LOT of work, but I still wouldn't want my life any differently).
As soon as you put your work out there & on the internet... there will always be others who copy you. It is a fact that some others can't seperate, inspiration & learning techniques... with exact duplication.
Karma has a way of coming back around. So be good to others as well as yourself!

New Eyescream Jewelry Logo & Website concepts

So I am still plugging away at creating my site from scratch. I am really getting into learning a lot as I go along. I am just not so hip on the actual 'uploading my site to the host' & figuring out how to add the shopping cart feature. Making my head swim.

I may end up going with the paypal payment option & add buttons to the site. Which would mean opening up multiple windows for editing/transfering/copy & pasting my current item info for each new buy it button from paypal. phew. Not may favorite thing I can think of.

I still have SO many (literally hundreds & hundreds) of new items to edit pics & write new descriptions. Most likely my new site will be an intense shell of itself for a while as far as how many items in the catalog I have. Until I have time to keep adding more.

So for now, I will continue to get the base of the website created (without the catalog) & then switch to cleaning up the items pics & descriptions/cart concept later.

Here is my new Eyescream Jewelry banner/logo heading for my website that I just created. I was going for a sort of Medieval/Nouveau/Gothic Arty style idea. The White Eyeball/cone is hand drawn. Also, wanted it to be fresh & Pop!
And although may not be noticeable, the Cone is actually an eyeball turned to the side. This is an old design logo idea I had created about 15 years ago... & have FINALLY brought to light & worked on it.
I was also going for a subtle wrought Iron sign post idea... though I had wanted the Eyeball to sort of hang down from the long side arm of the sign post, but then changed it as it brought the image down too far & thus would have made it longer.

I am not sure how the new site design will be received... everything is always a work in progress & something to learn from. Back to the grind.

Any thoughts are welcome...

~X~

Eyescream Jewelry Customer Gallery Slideshow

I've just updated the Customer Gallery Slideshow... and although with the new style & look... there are no more color photos so you can't see the color of the pieces or the stones, But I love the new look anyway. Classic, looks like a silent film. Love the movement & the Black & white highlights. As well, you can actually read the script written for each & even the cute little scrolls under the words.

So here it is ~X~