OOPS I Forgot This Detail

OOPS.
Forgot I wanted to mention the great Farmers Market on Sunday morning in Montclair Village. LOVE it. Fresh oysters if you are into that.

Welcome Summer!

     Here is June. OMG do I say this every season? It just seems to go so fast.
      I went to NYC in May for Gramma Duty, and it was so great to get real family time. Grammahood was great, but the NYC subways certainly defeated me. I had a really difficult time keeping up with all the walking, and walking, and then walking and thinking. The two combined was really a challenge. At my sleepy quiet home, my only responsibility is the tending to and caring for multiple  cats. The sheer magnitude of noise, people and unfamiliar surroundings was absolutely daunting.
     But I survived. I didn't lose the grandchild, which was my number one priority. I came home exhausted but happy, and went back to they gym. The handwriting was all over the walls-- of the subway! Use it or lose it.
     So I hope to see you in Oakland this weekend, or in Tahoe next weekend. Summer is here!

Saratoga Rotary - New Booth Location

So this is going to be crazy. I don't even know where my new booth is on the West Valley College campus for this weekend's annual Saratoga Rotary Art Show.

Here are two maps that I hope will assist me ( and you ) in finding my booth.
In the first photo, almost dead center is a small  pink half circle, shaped like an eye,  that looks like it has black eyeliner on it. That is where I think my booth is. Good luck to us all.
I hope to see you. I hope I get there !

On this map you can clearly see the parking lots, and the North Walk. I should be along the middle horizontal walkway down from the N. Walk.
It seems the food trucks are around me somewhere.

2018- Spring is almost here

Its March!
 It's almost spring, and even though I am in sunny California, spring is always welcome. My usual start to spring is the Belmont Arts and Crafts show, which is a very small show in the Carlemont Shopping Center in Belmont California.
This year is supposed to be cold, and possibly rainy, but it will be so nice to get out and about again.
As much as I would like to be telling you about all the exciting experiments I did on my "winter vacation", I must report truthfully that I didn't do too much. Most of December is taken up with physically resting from the show season, and participating in the Holidays as much as my depleted energy will allow.
I went on  my annual pilgrimage to the Tucson Gem Show to restock my dwindling supply of unusual, or unusually beautiful jewelry components. I did some annual studio cleaning, and I created some new designs, and did some thinking about future designs.
Most of the winter I experienced a lot of grief related down time, and I have come to understand that I am pretty helpless when I am in it's grip. It feels like depression, but it's not really depression. It feels like lethargy, but not exactly the same. It feels like I can't get anything done, and that is the bottom line. One day I'll have a semi-normal day and I can cross items off the list. Lots of days I forget to do a list, and lots of days I lose the list anyhow. I am however much more functional than last year. I look back on last year and wonder how on earth I made it through. I must say a sincere thank you to all of you who patiently and kindly showed up and persevered with me at a show or two when I was completely overwhelmed. I made a lot of mistakes, but as I have always been fond of saying, thank the Goddess I am not a brain surgeon!
Hope to see you at an art show near you this year!

This weekend is the annual Crocker Holiday Craft show in Sacramento. The Crocker is a respected art museum in Sacramento, and this show benefits the museum. It is NOT however at the museum - it is at the Scottish Rite Center off of J Street. Very Googleable.

Here is a video I shot in Orinda after the show, so it is a good preview of some of the pieces I will have at Sacramento.
AND - since I have never worked with videos before, I am not sure if I have to post this first - then see if it works? It looks good now, but who knows if it will work?
So sorry to waste your time if it didn't. But lots of fun if it did!

Orinda Holiday Bazaar is Next Saturday Nov. 18

Here is a new piece for the Orinda Holiday Bazaar 2017. I was hoping it would enlarge so you could see the rich color of the Buffalo Horn Beands, that runs from a taupe, black to creamy beiges and a little bit of ochre.

I have done this Orinda Bazaar for ...EVER.. and it is fun every year. One day only, and I am in the very front entrance of the Orinda Rec Center. Hope you can make it!

Saratoga Map below - Shell Neckpiece - Detail

Here is a little better look at the shell necklace. AMAZING!

I am booth number 562- facing North College Ave

Menlo Park THis Weekend - And Friday

I will be showing my new work at the Menlo Park Sidewalk Art Show this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The show is downtown Menlo Park, and my booth is on Santa Cruz Ave. in front of the Wells Fargo at the corner of Chestnut.
This is a sidewalk show, so the streets are not closed, and there are no tents down the middle. I am on a comfortable corner, and across the street behind my back is La Boulanger. I face the Wells Fargo bank.
Hope you can make it!
My other blog is FunGirlsJewelryPhotosite.blogspot.com
Don't ask me why I have two blogs!

Photography

I am slowly getting the photography done for my website. There are a whole lot of things that haven't worked, but I am happy with some of the results so far.

My line of Sterling Silver Signature earrings is what I have been focusing on, and I would like to start with several pictures of each style on the website. I started using these green felt rocks, and I think that since the size of it stays the same, online shoppers will be able to gauge the relative size of each of the styles of earrings. The shadow things are irritating me, but I will just keep working on it.

Small Squiggle - Posts with pearls

1" twisted half hoops, with pearls

.

What am I doing??

I ask myself this question daily.
What ( usually with a TF added) am I doing today?

Lately the answer to this question had been "building my website".  I have talked about this for about 7 years or so now, and I am finally at it. It is everything I thought it would be...and more. I have invested hours just to learn how to scale a simple banner on my homepage. I have changed the design about three times now, and I hope I don't change it again.  I have agonized over font choices, and there aren't that many to choose from. I haven't even started the photography or writing yet, mostly because while experiencing this always -painful - software - learning curve, I am also in the studio actually making the work I am going to put on the website. Agonizing choices there too, I might add.

So I will be saved next weekend by the Sacramento Art Fiesta. This was one of my early shows, and I have always enjoyed it. It is a little smaller than in years past, and there isn't quite as much "Fine Art" as in years past, but it is still a fun show.

My booth is in front of Talbots, so if it gets too hot I run in there to cool off. This year doesn't look too hot, so I hope to see a lot of Fun Girls out for their jewelry fix. I will be focused on fun stuff next week instead of the website saga, so I hope you can make it!


Click here for a map to my location at the Pavillions

This is really a great turquoise/aqua jasper, but this photo is a little more electric than the actual stone.

Social Media Consultant?

     It was kind of funny at West Portal when a young woman approached my booth and asked if I was doing photos for instagram.
   Hardly. Who does instagram that is over 30 years old? No one I know anyhow.
She was a social media consultant, and I think that means she just graduated from college and is looking for a real job. She was darling though.
So I told her the only thing I did right concerning social media was a rule I created for myself....

NO BITCHING on social media.

    Of course, I just mean no "business" bitching on social media. I still feel OK about bitching on my personal facebook!

     So of course I want to bitch about starting early today on my newsletter, then losing all my newsletter photos and starting all over again, losing my headstart. So here I am blogging late, frantically working to get my newsletter out on time, and my HUSBANDS newsletter, then getting to work in the studio!

     So thanks for letting me bitch. I promise  to remember my no bitch rule in the future.

West Portal Sidewalk Art Show 2016

     Spring in San Francisco! I  always look forward to this show, and I always forget how challenging a show it can be.

     My booth is on West Portal Ave., right on the corner in front of Starbucks.  Obviously, this is a great location for selling jewelry on the sidewalk. However, anyone who lives near there will be happy to tell you  about the microclimate of that particular hilly neighborhood of San Francisco. It can be extremely windy, and extremely cold. One year it was so cold that I almost cried, really.

     One year, the wind blew up the hill so forcefully that it blew over one of my tables of jewelry, including the glass display case on it. The glass flew into the gutter of the street, and shattered, thankfully, into those little cubes. I stood there like a mummy, so horrified I couldn't move or speak. Luck for me, one  of my dear customers was there, and she calmly got a broom from Starbucks and swept up the mess.I think I snapped out of it when I realized the jewelry was all over the street as well.

     Wind is really one of the worst of all the uncontrollable elements of outdoor art fairs. When the wind is blowing, tables are shaking, and things are smashing to the ground, it is hard to maintain any focus on the customer who may not be noticing these things. Most artists hate the wind, along with the rain and the cold, or the heat, but as they say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Luckily in West Portal, I can get out of the cold or the heat by slipping  into  Starbucks for a small respite.

The Industrial Collection at the Fine Eye Gallery

   
     I am pleased and proud to tell you that my Industrial jewelry collection is now available in the Fine Eye Gallery in Sutter Creek. The Fine Eye is an award winning, American craft gallery in

The Fine Eye Gallery- Sutter Creek

the Gold Country's tourist mecca, Sutter Creek, for 26 years. The owner, Gail Pimlott indeed has a "fine eye", and has been bringing the best of American, and local craft to this part of California. I must say also that her staff are so helpful and knowledgeable that I could spend hours browsing and talking, and you all know how many hours I already spend at Craft shows- talking!

      I have expanded my line of industrial necklaces, and earrings to include a roll-on bracelet using various agates, and smaller necklaces that are great for layering. It would be great to have a photo of those here, but since I sent them all to the gallery, I need to make more! I will have pictures of the new work in my next newsletter that you can sign up for using the link here on my blog.

Industrial Frilly Lariat with Lampwork Glass

Orinda Clearance Sale this Saturday

     I am having a clearance sale at the Orinda Holiday Bazaar this coming Saturday, Nov. 21 at the Orinda Community Center -  248 Orinda Way, 94563. It is right next to the library.
This is a one day show, and the hours are rather short. 10a-4p.

     The show itself has gone on for many years  now, and it helps the Community Center there fund some of their programs, like the Orinda Music in the Parks series. So it is a good cause. It is a small show, and it is not exclusively "handmade" items. There are some interesting imports, Narsai David food items, and lots of locally made things.

     All of my necklaces will be 40% off, 50% for two or more. I will have a small selection of bracelets and earrings. The bulk of the sale will be necklaces, since the majority of my work is necklaces!

     I will have a few glass pendants available as well, but only a few. They will be 40% off as well, 50% for two or more.

   I am hoping to get some items on sale from my studio that just never made it to a show for one reason or another. I will be in the studio the next few days searching for these items, so I can't really list them yet. There may be earrings too!

 The Orinda Communty Center is next to the Library on Orinda Way. It is the first Orinda exit as you come from San Franciso on 24 east through the Caldicott tunnel. It is on the north side of the freeway.

Just in case these directions are less than accurate:

Here is the link to the Orinda Community Center's location.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Orinda+Community+Center/@37.8829462,-122.1878097,15z/data=!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x8f7f493a3edc67a3!2sOrinda+Community+Center!3m1!1s0x0:0x8f7f493a3edc67a3

New Word- Scatoma

I love it when I learn a new word.
At the Sacramento Arts Festival last weekend I had a FUN husband come along with his wife. He helped me out with a new word that I find  intriguing. Not only is it a new word, it is a concept that I was totally aware of, but had never actually thought about. I am sure you all will think the same thing.

The word is scatoma, and the best definition I could quickly come up with was "visual items in your world that you've seen so often that you no longer see them". I am sure if I went to the dictionary I could find a much more elegant definition, but this is my blog so I like my own description.

So in my world this helps me out a lot. I am not really a house keeper. The difference between everyone who says they hate housework, and me, is that I hate it, and so don't do it. Maybe I hate it more than most. Maybe it's because I never had children, and the thought of poisonous germs emigrating into small mouths was never a concern. Maybe it's because I never, ever wanted to be housewife, since growing up in th 60's, that is pretty much what was expected of me. Whatever, I just don't do it. I would like to tell you that I don't do it because I am self employed, and just too busy. While this is true, it isn't totally true, since I didn't do a lot of cleaning when I worked for someone else.

So "scatoma" really helps me out here. As my floors get dirtier, I really don't see it. As the refrigerator turns into a mess, I don't see that either. It is really a marvelous thing. How about a really new word : 

"scatomassy"- the messy actions of a person who is messy and doesn't see it. Used in a sentance - "She is very scatomassy and doesn't know it". 

Or, scatomatic, or scatomatossis,....I could go on and on. Now I'm going to have to go to the dictionary to see if these do exist!

San Carlos this Weekend

     The big San Carlos Art and Wine show is this weekend, downtown San Carlos. People LOVE this show. I hear about it all year. There is a diversity of work, from candles to sculpture.
     I had a busy week last week, with the Menlo Trunk show, and the three day show downtown Menlo Park. It was a crazy good week, so I need to get out to the studio and MAKE stuff for San Carlos. I hope I surprise myself!

   Here is a picture of Lin from the trunk show in her new Fun Girls Acid yellow crusty bead necklace. So fun on her!!

OH...my booth in San Carlos is #680 on Laurel St., near Cherry.

PLEASE post below if you think a Clearance Sale in Orinda this year would be FUN....

Global Warming Makes Artist Move Away From Coveted Location

     Sorry about the headline. I am feeling a little dramatic right now.
     This has not been a FUN year for weather. Doing business outside is a precarious thing anyhow, but this year has been difficult. While not as hot as other years, the wind has finally wore me down. Seriously. I give. And I have given.... many damaged pieces to the Wind Goddess this year, and I am done donating to her.
  This coming weekend in Montclair Village I have asked to be moved from a premium corner booth location  to avoid the wind. Pretty drastic, really, if you have any idea of how hard it is to relinquish that spot. But that is the way it is, and I will happily be located on Mountain Blvd. just a stone's throw away from that nasty corner. No more relentless sunshine, no more Chicken Roti truck rumbling in my ear during the Farmer's Market, and hopefully no more donations to the Goddess.

Manhattan Sea Shells

     I don't think I blogged about my trip to NYC last May. It was mostly a fun trip, but of course there were some jewelry related tasks that I wanted to accomplish while I was there.
    One of those tasks was to seek and find a mythical jewelry supply house somewhere in the canyons of Manhattan. I took two trains to find it, and of course with my mighty Iphone maps, it wasn't too difficult to locate. The "warehouse" was 6 rooms on the second floor of a many floored building. The elevator emptied right into one of those rooms. Stepping out, it was necessary to avoid tramping all over items spilled from one of the hundreds of boxes lined up against every wall, 3 to 4 layers deep. Some rooms were messier than others but it was so amazing to see something so much messier than my own chaotic studio! It was over whelming from the first step out of the elevator.
     I searched every room, but of course I didn't see a fraction of the merchandise. There was  pearl section, but it was easy to assess that not one real pearl lived there. That was easy to pass by. There was a chain "corner" of one room, and the walkway was carpeted with pieces of chains layered a few inches thick. Of course, there wasn't a piece of sterling chain in the place.
    After hunting for hours, looking for a treasure, it came to me that I was wasting my vacation time. But I had already invested travel time, searching time, and I was empty handed. How disappointing. I kept at it for a while, but it finally became obvious that this was where all the cheap, crappy costume jewelry parts in the world came to die.
     But then  the gift of absolute clarity came, that I used QUALITY components in my work- beautiful real pearls, authentic, unusual stones, my own one of a kind glass beads. Not this crap.
      I was free now to resume my vacation.
     But I did howeve find a few treasures from this frustrating search. I found seashells in a box  overflowing with really bad beads. I had to buy something, but I have never worked with seashells before. Capitola came to mind, and I thought it would be fun to make something beachy for Capitola. So the seashells came home with me, and I am so glad  now. The two pieces I made from these shells are so beautiful, and I find them quite different from other touristy shell pieces I have noticed. I hope you think so too!

She Looked for Me for 13 Years

   I was "waitlisted" for the Palo Alto show last weekend, and my name didn't get drawn from the waitlist hat, so I didn't get a booth.
      My husband does that show with his watercolors, so I was there with him anyhow, but it would be great to actually do that show. Maybe next year.

   It amazes me how relaxed the shows are from the other side of the "booth".  Of course, since I wasn't working, I was totally relaxed. I did meet a few friends and sell a few pieces, but the story I want to tell you about here really amazed me.

   I was sitting outside my husband's booth, people watching. Of course I like to look at everyone's jewelry, shoes and clothes. This isn't something I can do easily when I am working. The crowd was thin at the time, so I clearly saw a woman walking towards me from a good distance away, and something about her simple long necklace drew my eye. As she walked closer, I couldn't keep from staring at the unidentifiable object hanging from her long chain. I jumped up and approached her, and I could then see it was one of my glass hearts! I can't believe my eye knew what this was before my brain. Like a crazy person, I pointed to the heart and said " I made that!" I could tell from the size and color that it was a very early heart, made when I first started  the hearts.
         She said, "I am here looking for you!"
        What an amazing coincidence. 
         She bought the heart about 13 years ago at a San Mateo Italian festival my husband and I did only once. She said over the years she has received so many compliments on the glass that she wanted to buy one for her best friend. So she came to Palo Alto looking for me. She didn't even know my business name!
       So now I have a list for my next glass session, and these little hearts are at the top of the list. I love it when the Universe sends me an indisputable message of WHAT to MAKE! I also really admired the way she wore the heart on a very long simple chain. I think I will work on making those available too.

      I have had some of this unique pearl for a few years now.  It is so unusual, and I love to tell the story of how I found it at Tucson. If you have been in my booth in the last two years, you have heard the whole story.
      Last weekend at the Menlo Park show,  I was talking about this unique pearl and I said that it was a very good quality, very weird pearl, and that it took a long time for the mussel to make such a quality pearl. Out of my mouth came the statement that this pearl will either  be copied by other pearl manufacturers, or will never be seen again, once the original crop has been sold out.
      But I finally GOT  that this pearl may never be available again, I got home and  immediately called my supplier.
      I hate it when I am right sometimes.  They are gone. Perhaps we will see it again in the future, or  maybe not. I wish I had bought more now! I have a few left, and I will judiciously plant them in fabulous necklaces!