After yesterday’s post you might be a little curious about that “D” I got for my technical skills in my metals class many years ago. Let’s just say I’m not really at ease with a torch.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m game. I jump right in there and spark that flame and get down with the flux and get jiggy with the solder. But the whole thing makes me very uncomfortable and I hate the way the pickle smells (weird I know because I really love pickles). And then there’s all the work before you even get to the part where you can seriously burn yourself. There’s the sawing, and the breaking of all those saw blades; and the chasing (that’s hammering the metal with special hammers) and getting the pitch out from under your fingernails. So I guess it’s not just the torch it’s the whole process, and it probably doesn’t help to have a voice from the past screaming “stuuupid girrrls” in my head whenever I smell the acid from the pickle or the rouge from the buffers. But I digress.
You could say that the “D” that Don Douglas gave me was for Determination. I was determined at that point to make it in the field of jewelry design and he was truly in my corner.
Unfortunately without his mentorship it became a “D” for Defeated, and I moved on. Not so much from jewelry and it’s design, more from metal as its medium. Hence the Baker’s Clay jewelry I sold at Pike Place Market way back then, and the embroidered and beaded fabric bracelets and necklaces, and bead and charm earrings I make today.
Jewelry is only one thing I make. Usually just a few pieces I wear myself or make for my daughter, my mom, or my best friend. And fabric and thread and beads are a familiar and comfortable medium to use. You could even say that “D” now is for domestic. No fire. No acid. There are needles. And it IS annoying whenever I prick my finger and fall into a deep sleep…What’s that? I wasn’t asleep? That wasn’t a dream? That was a Netflix marathon of Sons of Anarchy?
Oh well, I have to have something to watch while I stitch. Who says the Domestic Arts are for the faint of heart?