Caribbean Blue Turquoise Necklace
by Cherie Elksong.
(Southeast Arizona)
I don’t know how other folks handle their “duds”….that is to say, those pieces of jewelry you create, then can never move. Over the years, I’ve tried to fine tune my sense of the “viability” of a piece. Some pieces have, oh, a distant whisper attached to them; I know their person is out there & eventually, they will come & claim their jewel, even if it takes years! With other pieces, I’m quickly aware of a sense of “dead air”…there’s no soul, no vibe, no ethereal connection & I know at that point, the piece is just wrong.
So, that said, I never really mind re-creating, re-designing a piece. I think of it as adjusting the frequency, lol! Sometimes it’s a pretty easy fix; other times, I know there’ll be much more work involved, so I put it off as long as I can.
That was definitely the case with this necklace! The original design had a focal of etched copper. I put alot of work into, it was a combination of saw work/cut out & etching, a mountain scene background with cactus in the foreground. Or at least, that’s what I intended. What I got, was something that kind of made me wince a little, every time I looked at it.
The new design involved completely restringing the necklace (had to get the focal off), adding a bit more turquoise & a day’s work creating a turquoise/wire wrap focal. The piece of turquoise has been around a long time, so long that I’m not quite sure where it came from anymore. But I suspect it’s from Bisbee’s Copper Queen mine. It’s been laying in my “idea” area (my euphemistic term for the big pile of crap in the middle of my table!) for a couple years, staring at me, forlorn & pathetic, like a dog that can’t quite give up hope for the treat. So, when the spark struck for this re-do, it jumped right out at me!
Hours of fever-dream-wire-wrapping later, a piece with some soul emerged! And, was absolutely content & at home on the original (plus turquoise) strung bead necklace!
So, I’m curious; what do other artists do with their “duds”? Do you enjoy the process of destruction/recreation? Do you give them away as gifts? I’d love to know! 🙂
Cherie Elksong
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