The samples got shipped on Friday afternoon.  I ended up only getting five catalogs printed.  I wasn’t sitting right there watching the printer and the paper was not feeding consistently.  So when I went to start collating the catalogs, there were missing pages, then the next page printed on the wrong page, which meant messed up page order – grrrr.  Buggered pages or not, I do like the look of the new catalog.  I’ve changed the look of it a bit – fonts and a different type of cover image.  I usually do a nice staged product shot.  This time I went for a nicely arranged ‘pile’ of jewelry.  I’ve switched from Riverside as my main font, a nice handwriting font that I’ve used for years, to Copperplate Gothic light, a clean all caps serif.  The text body is still Moderne, a nice clean sans-serif.  Here’s my cover image – all new work …

Fall 09 catalog cover

Fall 09 catalog cover

I really love these three pieces … especially the folded planks.  I also made a bunch of beads to resurrect an old classic style that I called ‘Le Monde’.  I used to do everything highly textured – I called it ‘textural collage’ … pompous.  I really enjoyed making these so very plain – the only ‘texture’ is my fingerprints and I smushed and pinched the beads a bit so sections end up looking like draped fabric frozen in silver.  There’s also a cool thing that happens when the cork clay cores  and the PMC are not completely dry – the precious metal clay surfaces get little bumps from the moisture trying to break through – sort of looks like irregular reticulation.  I also encourage some cracks.  Little wabi-sabi girl me.

So, the work looks great and I’m really pleased with the range of new work.  Hopefully the reps and galleries will agree.  That makes the $80 shipping a bit less annoying.  I’ll be spending another chunk to get the rest of the catalogs and CD’s to Portland by Thursday.

Yesterday was the wake/luncheon/gathering for Dave’s Aunt Ruth and then a big family dinner last night.  Today, we’ve got one more family lunch and then we’re back to normal.  Although this will be the new normal.  Turns out we’ve inherited a new car – an almost new Subaru Outback.  Picture Dave and Kathy stunned and overwhelmed.  It’s a gift outside of the will, which I guess makes for less technical stuff.  I think it’s getting signed over to us on Tuesday – crazy.

We did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Biltmore Village Craft Fair … very disappointing … boring.  I’m continually surprised by how little artists’ work has changed in the last six or seven years.  Then there’s the head dude of the fair and owner of Asheville art world mainstays like New Morning Gallery, Blue Spiral 1 and Bellagio, John Cram.  Mega powerful and exceedingly unpleasant.  I had been thinking about making an appointment to show my work to Bellagio, very upscale art-to wear boutique, but after seeing Mr Cram ‘holding forth’ at the festival, his palpable disdain and basically rude behavior oozing around his little entourage … well, I don’t need any of that energy in my life.  I’m beginning to wonder if my work fits in anywhere around here.  Apparently, my work has a very urban, contemporary look to it – who knew?  Oh well, I’ll figure it out eventually.

For now, here’s my three favorite necklaces from the new work:

Coin spiral on braided silk …Coin spiral

Folded Planks  on nylon cord …Folded planks

Le Monde  …Le monde

I’ll be back up and running in a couple of days – new goodies for Etsy will be showing up later in the week.

until then ……..

blessings,

kvk