I probably shouldn’t say this, but I love amazonite. There. I said it. This is how prices of gemstones go up: one person loves it and then another and then, next thing you
know—
Except that’s not really how it works (outside of Hollywood). I’ve been in stores where someone holds up a bead and says, “Isn’t this great?” And I say “Uh-huh,” because it is great—to her. To me? Okay. Meanwhile, I’m going bananas over something else.
Is everything, in the end, like dating?
So you might not like amazonite. But you still need to hear the story about my amazonite rondelles (roundels, if you want to be French about it). Think flat discs.
I have loved that stone ever since I first laid eyes on it a few years ago. Opaque. Marbled. Aqua. At a show a while back I found some puffy rondelles around 5/8 inch in diameter and 3/8 inch deep.
Think hockey pucks. Kind of chunky. Don’t really go with anything. Trust me. I’ve tried. But as we have established, I am stubborn (some would say persistent), and recently I’ve been thinking, “Turn it on its side.” The other night I decided to give that a try.
I’ve been doing various kinds of wirework for many years now, so I thought I knew how this operation could work. Tilted the rondelle, wove the wire through a couple of different ways, put it atop an agate cylinder—
And it was wobbly. I tried various techniques to stabilize it. Nothing doing. This is what I call the “science part of the program” (it’s actually physics, usually found in the “math” section, but if you ask me physics is where math meets science). The construction did not work and would not work, no matter what I did. (One reason: veddy small opening in the bead. Yes, theoretically you could drill it further, but no. Another time, we’ll discuss why not.) Before I got into metal fatigue—where the wire snaps because it’s been bent one too many times—I took it apart.
I started to feel bad about it, and then remembered my friend Rosalie’s wise words, from the time she was a potter (most of my friends have done many things; yours, too?): “You have to learn to break pots.”
Also true in Jewelry-Land. Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t want you to break jewelry. I really wish you wouldn’t pull those necklaces over your head instead of taking a minute to use the clasp, because you are inviting the necklace to break.
But I also have to tell you that the reason handcrafted work—at least, custom work—costs what it does is that you have to break some pots. You have to pull out the stitches. You have to unwrap the wire and do what you can to return it to its earlier shape and then use your tools to straighten it, if you’re lucky and haven’t moved into the MFZ (metal fatigue zone).
Then you might, as I did, create a brand new pendant design using that very same agate that has been a problem child forever, a design that knocks you on your keister because it is so beautiful. (Or you might not. It might just be a disappointing day. I was lucky enough to study with the wonderful writer Richard Hugo, who told us, “The poems that come easily are a result of all the times you sat there and nothing worked.”)
And if everything came easily, worked every time, would we ever know the exhilaration that comes precisely because it doesn’t happen every time?
Mark Rothko said, “The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his (or her) ability to produce miracles when they are needed."
True. But maybe not in the way one might think. Miracles happen all the time—the amazonite rondelles are still on the table, waiting for theirs—but if you want to say we “produce” them, we do so in the way one might produce a show or a film: we create the conditions that allow the miracles to happen. It’s not brute force, or the artist’s will, that makes something come to fruition.
So what does? Call it chance. Call it grace. Whatever it is, it’s what most of us live for. And breaking pots is a time-honored way to get there.
Except that’s not really how it works (outside of Hollywood). I’ve been in stores where someone holds up a bead and says, “Isn’t this great?” And I say “Uh-huh,” because it is great—to her. To me? Okay. Meanwhile, I’m going bananas over something else.
Is everything, in the end, like dating?
So you might not like amazonite. But you still need to hear the story about my amazonite rondelles (roundels, if you want to be French about it). Think flat discs.
I have loved that stone ever since I first laid eyes on it a few years ago. Opaque. Marbled. Aqua. At a show a while back I found some puffy rondelles around 5/8 inch in diameter and 3/8 inch deep.
Think hockey pucks. Kind of chunky. Don’t really go with anything. Trust me. I’ve tried. But as we have established, I am stubborn (some would say persistent), and recently I’ve been thinking, “Turn it on its side.” The other night I decided to give that a try.
I’ve been doing various kinds of wirework for many years now, so I thought I knew how this operation could work. Tilted the rondelle, wove the wire through a couple of different ways, put it atop an agate cylinder—
And it was wobbly. I tried various techniques to stabilize it. Nothing doing. This is what I call the “science part of the program” (it’s actually physics, usually found in the “math” section, but if you ask me physics is where math meets science). The construction did not work and would not work, no matter what I did. (One reason: veddy small opening in the bead. Yes, theoretically you could drill it further, but no. Another time, we’ll discuss why not.) Before I got into metal fatigue—where the wire snaps because it’s been bent one too many times—I took it apart.
I started to feel bad about it, and then remembered my friend Rosalie’s wise words, from the time she was a potter (most of my friends have done many things; yours, too?): “You have to learn to break pots.”
Also true in Jewelry-Land. Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t want you to break jewelry. I really wish you wouldn’t pull those necklaces over your head instead of taking a minute to use the clasp, because you are inviting the necklace to break.
But I also have to tell you that the reason handcrafted work—at least, custom work—costs what it does is that you have to break some pots. You have to pull out the stitches. You have to unwrap the wire and do what you can to return it to its earlier shape and then use your tools to straighten it, if you’re lucky and haven’t moved into the MFZ (metal fatigue zone).
Then you might, as I did, create a brand new pendant design using that very same agate that has been a problem child forever, a design that knocks you on your keister because it is so beautiful. (Or you might not. It might just be a disappointing day. I was lucky enough to study with the wonderful writer Richard Hugo, who told us, “The poems that come easily are a result of all the times you sat there and nothing worked.”)
And if everything came easily, worked every time, would we ever know the exhilaration that comes precisely because it doesn’t happen every time?
Mark Rothko said, “The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his (or her) ability to produce miracles when they are needed."
True. But maybe not in the way one might think. Miracles happen all the time—the amazonite rondelles are still on the table, waiting for theirs—but if you want to say we “produce” them, we do so in the way one might produce a show or a film: we create the conditions that allow the miracles to happen. It’s not brute force, or the artist’s will, that makes something come to fruition.
So what does? Call it chance. Call it grace. Whatever it is, it’s what most of us live for. And breaking pots is a time-honored way to get there.
©2013 Laynie Tzena.
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