Millions of Daffodils

I have to warn you that this will be the first of several posts about flowers and blooming trees, because I love spring! My allergic body doesn't love spring so much, but I think the beauty outweighs the sneezing. A couple of weeks ago we went to visit Gibbs Gardens, a new garden that just opened in north Georgia. Thirty years ago, Jim Gibbs, owner of a landscaping company, purchased over 200 acres for his home and future gardens. He's spent the last 30 years developing the land around his home, and this March he opened them to the public. The grounds now have 20 million daffodils--probably 1/3 of them were in bloom when we were there. It was like rivers of flowers, one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen. He also has a gorgeous Japanese Garden (if you know me, you know I love Japanese gardens and my jewelry has been greatly inspired by them). So, here are a few photos from our excursion.

Daffodils as far as the eye can see

Weeping willow and lantern in the Japanese garden

River of daffodils

We took our art supplies for a little sketching session.

New Year, New Look, New Resolutions

I am back, trying to reinvigorate my blog once again! I realize we are already three months into the new year, but my goal is to post more regularly about my jewelry and other creative pursuits.

So, for my first post of the year--transforming my business "look."

Late last year I decided my logo and brand identity for my jewelry business needed an upgrade. The previous logo wasn’t easy to reproduce, and it was black and white. I wanted something more streamlined and something in color. I also wanted to change the typeface I was using from a san-serif to a more modern serif font. For those of you who don’t know the difference, serif fonts have little “feet” and extensions from the letters. San serif fonts don’t have the “feet” and therefore look more modern and streamlined, much like my jewelry.

Old Business Identity

So I began the process of working on my new logo. First I decided I wanted something either geometric or something organic. Either would represent my jewelry, which has both components.

I came up with one idea of interlocking squares with rounded corners, and a few ideas involving leaves. Once I had some ideas, I started playing around in Adobe Illustrator to draw them digitally. I should say that while I know Photoshop and InDesign, I had never used Illustrator before. So I watched some video tutorials online about creating simple logos, then had a go at it. See some of my ideas below.

Playing around with logo ideas

In the end I chose a logo that combined my two ideas of geometric and organic—three leaves inside a square with rounded corners. I had long ago decided on green as the color, specifically a sage-y green. Not only has green been my favorite color since childhood, it accurately represents the large part that nature plays in the inspiration for my pieces.

After designing the logo, I then designed new business cards—green logo and dark brown text. Century Gothic is my favorite san-serif font (okay, I’m a little bit of a font nerd), so that’s what I used. I added my tagline, "modern jewelry, traditional craft." Credit goes to my husband for that! Along with the business cards, I made round stickers, reversing the colors (green background, white logo and brown text). These are for the dark brown boxes I use for my jewelry. Then I designed some postcards using several images from my collections, with a short artist statement/description on the back. I had all of this ready for the holidays and the couple of shows I did in November and December.

New Logo with Tagline

New Promotional Postcard

Postcard-back side

In January I updated my website with the new logo. I’ll probably continue to tweak the site design as the year goes on, but for now I am quite happy with the updated look. See for yourself: www.annewalkerjewelry.com.

Foldforming

This past weekend I took a day-long foldforming workshop. I wanted to learn something new, and it had been ages since I took a class to learn a new technique. Foldforming was invented in the 80s by goldsmith Charles Lewton-Brain (click here for more info on foldfoming on his website). It's a surprisingly easy way of manipulating sheets of metal into three-dimensional forms. Metal is folded, forged, annealed*, folded (or unfolded), forged, annealed, etc. in various ways to achieve interesting shapes.
*Annealing is heating the metal to soften it. Manipulating the metal hardens it.

The photo above has some samples of techniques I learned in the workshop (all done with copper). None of these are finished pieces of jewelry, but hopefully I can apply some of the things I learned to finished pieces.

These are organic, leaf-like forms.

Both of these pieces started with a "t-fold." The one on the right was then put into a hydraulic press to puff it out.

Some basic folds (above and below)

International Left-Handers Day

Today I celebrate being left-handed, along without about 10% of the population. I've always heard that left-handers are more likely to be creative, because the right side of the brain (the side known for creativity) controls the left hand. In reading about this, I've found that it may or may not be true--and certainly there are plenty of creative right-handers out there too. There's an interesting article here about brain lateralization and handedness.

I Googled lefthandedness and decided to ignore the articles that say lefties are more likely to have a shorter life span, be more prone to certain diseases, have more accidents. Yikes! I sure hope that isn't the case. Scientists haven't yet determined a genetic link, but say that left-handedness does tend to run in families (my three year old daughter seems to be left-handed). However, I read that there is a high tendency in twins for one to be left-handed--but my twin brother is right-handed (and I would say we are both creative--but I am probably more so). As with many lefthanders (I think), I have learned to do some things with my right hand out of necessity--it's not always possible to find tools made for left-handers, like can openers, cameras, and scissors.

You can find a long list of famous left-handers here (including President Barack Obama--actually there have been a lot of left-handed presidents). There are some interesting tests online too; try:
"How Left are You?" and "Lefty Brain Teasers"

The Beauty of Excess

I'm trying to reinvigorate my blog. I can't promise my posts will be frequent, but I do hope they will at least be occasional.

I love kid art. I love the imagination, the color, the scribbles, the freedom of expression. A few weeks ago, my three year old daughter and I made a drum for her out of an empty coffee can. She wanted lots of glitter, so we used glitter glue, and every sparkly sticker she had.

Balancing Art and Life

It's a tricky balancing act. When I started this blog a few months ago, I thought it would be no problem to put a post up every week. Wrong! I am trying to balance time with my wonderful toddler daughter and husband, my day job, time to create in my studio, time to exercise (essential for my mental well-being), time to eat, time to do chores, and time to just relax. I have lots of ideas for posts, but not always the time and energy to sit down and do it.

Luckily, my creative mind can work even if it's not producing something tangible in short order. In the shower, during the unfortunately long commute to my day job, while washing dishes--my mind comes up with all kinds of ideas for jewelry and other creative projects. That can satisfy until I have a few moments, or, if I'm lucky, a few hours to actually create something (or write a blog post!).

I'm happy to say I have recently created a few new pieces of jewelry, and will try to post photos soon!

Cherry Trees

It was late fall when my husband and I moved into our house several years ago, so we didn't know exactly what was in our yard until the next spring. I was thrilled when I saw we had two beautiful cherry trees in our yard. Cherry trees are my favorite tree of spring--they are one of the first trees to bloom, and with their pale pink blossoms, they are just gorgeous and romantic. While I hate to see the blossoms disappear, there is nothing like the shower of petals falling from the tree that blankets the ground like pink snow.

Cherry trees in our yard (above)

A few years ago, I experienced cherry tree nirvana when we drove to Macon, GA for their Cherry Blossom Festival. Macon has over 300,000 Yoshino cherry trees, and we visited during the height of their bloom. Streets lined with cherry trees, yards filled with cherry trees--they were everywhere!

Anyway, my love of cherry trees inspired me to create my Cherry Tree Pendant. The trunk on this tree is a little exaggerated--I would say it has some "bonsai flair," but sometimes artistic license is necessary to make a piece work. The tree in the pendant is sawn with a jeweler's saw, pierced through an original drawing glued to the top of the silver. I finished with with a matte surface to give it a softer look. To me, it almost looks like a cherry tree in the moonlight.

Cherry Tree Pendant (available at www.annewalkerjewelry.com)