Do You Hear What I Hear?

What do I listen to in my studio while I work?  Well.......okay, my studio is in my basement, so there are lots of interesting sounds down there.  There's the clanking of the ancient furnace, the on/ off hum of the dehumidifier.  Then, there's the trickling sound of the french drains emptying into the cistern to be pumped out by the sump pump.  If you really use your imagination, it almost sounds like a fountain.  And most of the time, I hear the soft buzz of the baby monitor since I sneak in most of my bench time while my daughter naps.  Glamorous, huh?

While that's the literal lowdown, I'd like to speak to the more figurative.  I devote a lot of my attention to my inner creative voice, my Jiminy Cricket, if you will.  I listen to my gut about my designs.  I keep up with the trends, but it's really the original OOAK pieces I love.

With my Resurrected line, the pieces of silver speak to me, sometimes loud and clear as in this case.  The second I spied this gorgeous spoon, it screamed "I'm a pendant, a big, bold, beautiful pendant!"

Resurrection Upcycled Sterling Silver Soup Server Pendant

This piece beginning its life a soup server, the bowl was very deep, so it took much annealing and hammering.  But with every fall of the hammer, I could hear this spoon coming closer to its new life as someone's fabulous pendant.

Sometimes the voice of the silverware is more subtle like this one.  This tiny little pine branch demitasse spoon said, "Buy me.  I'm different."  So I bought it, but it took six months of listening to its careful whispers before it finally revealed, "I'm a necklace."

 

Recycled Sterling Silver Pine Bough Necklace

And sometimes, as in the case of this ring, the pieces continue to speak to me throughout the creative process. I had already sawed off the bowl of this tiny Mexican souvenir spoon when I heard it say, "Use my handle for the band."

Recycled Mexico Sterling Silver Ring

So even though I'm not sawing in rythm with Beethoven, I love my work and the melody it makes.  Do you hear what I hear?



 Here are some other blogs from my fellow Aspiring Metalsmith Teammates:
Kat - http://artistikat-scratchingpost.blogspot.com/
Stacy - http://www.formandfunktionaccessories.blogspot.com/
Clarity of Scrollwork Designs - http://www.thesquarepegnation.blogspot.com
Brandy - http://thefrogspond.wordpress.com/
Happy Tortoise Designs - http://happytortoisedesigns.blogspot.com
Claire - http://brightstar109.blogspot.com/
Silver Pearl Jewelry and Metalworks - http://silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress.com
Autumn - http://www.autumnbradley.blogspot.com/
hemlockhollow - http://gloria-hemlockhollow.blogspot.com/
Beatriz Fortes - http://cjbf.blogspot.com/
Resurrection Silver - http://www.resurrectionsilver.blogspot.com
RadianTrace - http://radiantrace.blogspot.com/
nancycreations - http://nancysjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com/
Jessica @ Abella Blue - http://www.abellablue.com/blog