New Old Directions

On January 1st I sat in the studio looking at pile of porcelain pieces I had been working on. At that moment I was really into the the whole "it's a new year, time for new ideas and new inspirations" thing. I thought I had done just that - created a new look for my line of jewelry, pushed my own boundaries and was actively moving beyond the same old, same old. By all appearances that is just what I was doing, but the reality was that I was simply bringing to life ideas that I had been hoarding away in my brain for months. The designs that laid before me were nothing new to me, in fact, they were long overdue.

For me the creating process is often one of holding back due to the fact that I simply have too many ideas coming at me all at once. It can be overwhelming and intimidating, especially when there is a chance that a design will not work. Jewelry, at its best, is wearable art - which means not only does it have to function from an aesthetic angle but it also has to be comfortable to the wearer. These two requirements are not always happily married.

As I sat in the empty studio that New Year's Day I forced myself to abandon the worries, to forget about logistics and simply create for the sake of creating. Soon enough the old ideas materialized and new ones started to formulate.

Not every design I made that day works as a piece of jewelry. Some are just too odd or cumbersome, some are too weak and just ugly. But they all served a purpose that day. They gave me that "it's a new year, time for new ideas and new inspirations" kind of feeling. And they cleared my mind for the next round of inspiration.