Know What I Love? Art Nouveau!

There's something so rounded, lovely and satisfying about the Art Nouveau style. Art Deco is nice too but it's like the art world removed Art Nouveau's heart and inserted a calculator. This entry is nothing but an excuse to post pictures of beautiful Art Nouveau.

One cannot talk about the beauty of Art Nouveau without mentioning Victor Horta. He was the Belgian architect who is credited with bringing Art Nouveau into structures. I could fill ten blogs with his works but this staircase is my favorite. If I were to find myself ascending this staircase, I'd think I'd died and was on my way to heaven. I should find a smaller pic. Nah. This wonderful staircase deserves an oversized pic.

Alphonse Mucha was quite fond of women with long flowing hair with lots of flowers all around. I think he touched himself a lot while painting.

This brooch was made by metalsmith William Hair Haseler, who went by W.H. Haseler as would you if your middle name was 'Hair'. He's British and his stuff can be found at The Victoria & Albert Museum. I have mentioned this place before.

In the U.S., Tiffany became famous largely on the strength of its Art Nouveau works. Their famous lamps are in the style.

This is from France from about 1900. Dreamy.

So far I've got girls, curves and dragonflies. An entry on Art Nouveau cannot be complete without flowers.

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

Always use the right tools!

Being both cheap and impatient, I have a habit of improvising with whatever I have at hand instead of waiting until I have the opportunity and money to buy the proper equipment. And that's exactly what I did when I decided to try my hand at bead weaving.

Take my vast experience in sheer frustration, sewing needles and thread are not the ideal materials for bead weaving. Especially for rank beginners. Both the needle and thread are far too unforgiving and rigid. Beads will be flung and thread will snap. Oh yes, the thread will snap. And so will you, probably about the third time beads fly all over the place and then you too will fly off the handle and into a fiery yet impotent simmering rage. You will hunt down the nearest Nylonite and kill it for making such snappy thread. Kill it dead!

However, not only am I cheap and impatient (and prone to angry fits of frustration), I am also quite hard-headed. After my needle, thread and bead fiasco I did a little research (this is because I love to put the cart before the horse-- who wants to look at a horses ass, I say) and found these threaded beading needles for two-fiddy.

In less than 10 minutes I had this. Made a brazilian times easier because I had the right tools. Now all I have to do is learn how to match string color with the beads and how to tie it off. The instructions say to weave the ends right back into the beads but that only works for one end. It also looks a bit sloppy. Still, I will continue with this peyote shit until I make the earrings I have in my head and I swear to Mammon I'll sell them in my Etsy for ONE MEEELLION DOLLARS!

Let's Get Highfalutin'

My jewelry-making is right smack-dab in the 'craft' area. Wouldn't it be nice if I had enough talent and know-how to become an artiste? Then I'd be able to travel the world and gaze upon these gorgeous works of art. With a plane ticket and the price of admission, we can all become artsy-fartsy jewelry connoisseurs.


First we'll fly to England and check out the Victoria & Albert Museum's jewellery exhibits. Hey, that's how they spell it in Britian, don't blame me. And yes, that's exhibits with an 's'. As an added bonus, you must check out their What is craft? page. For this you don't need a passport or plane ticket. Here's a quote:

Edmund de Waal
Practitioner

'Craft is a starting place, a set of possibilities.
It avoids absolutes, certainties, over-robust definitions, solace.
It offers places, interstices, where objects and people meet.
It is unstable, contingent.
It is about experience. It is about desire.
It can be beautiful.'

While we're in London, we should stop off at the National Maritime Museum where they have a collection of nautical jewelry-- mostly pocket watches but some pins, pendants and bracelets.




What's that you say? You are not legally allowed to leave the United States? Well, luckily for you there are a exhibits right here in the good ole USA showcaseing beautiful jewelry.

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT is showing an exhibit called Bijoux: The Origins and Impact of Jewelry. Not too far away, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is showing Jewels, Gems and Treasures. Anybody near me who can drive want to make a weekend trip of these two exhibits? I mean, anyone near me who can drive who isn't a serial killer/rapist crazy person.


Lastly, we can check out the jewelry of New Zealand without having to beat off kiwis and Tasmanian devils. Just Packer fans. At the Racine Art Museum there's the Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry.


Are we ready? Let's go get us some refinement! But first, check out this lovely exhibit at my Etsy where you can buy some class. Low class, that is.

Yet Another List of Five Six Things.

For a while there, I was blocked. I could only stare at my wire and wonder why it was mocking me. Clearly, some inspiration was needed. I know, how 'bout looking at beautiful things? That'll work and even if it doesn't, hey, you've looked at a lot of beautiful things. Without further ado, seven photography sites with fantastic pictures!




Source: Hubblesite.org Hubblesite has all the pictures taken by the Hubble Space Space Telescope. Hubble will soon be replaced by Webb, a more advanced space telescope. Can you imagine even more spectacular pictures?









Smashing Magazine has many, many galleries of great pictures. This one is called Really Stunning Pictures and Photos.

50 Most Beautiful Trees gathered from Deviant Art. Makes me want to make tree-of-life earrings. Just gotta figure out how to make them a little more lightweight.







40 Beautiful Black and White Photos. Not only is it a beautiful photograph, it's a beautiful photograph of an Art Nouveau staircase. My next List of Things is gonna be on Art Nouveau.







Examples of beautiful aerial photography So lovely it'll give you vertigo.

Beautiful volcanoes. These may be my favorites. So powerful and destructive but, damn, they're gorgeous.

Sunday Sillies.

Last night I unblocked like a mofo and was up until 7 am (yes, three hours ago. I've had three hours sleep but I feel fine. Really.) making lovely earrings. I'm sure everyone is now breathing many sighs of relief. P.S., I'm not thinking about the shed at all. Nope. Not even a little. In fact-- what shed? Huh? I don't even know what I'm talking about. There is no unfinished shed in the backyard taunting me. Uh uh. Who needs to lay down some gravel and frame out a foundation? Not The Kid! No way, Jose. I'm just fine and dandy not thinking about the shed at all.

Today is the day of rest so, instead of my usual bullshit, here are some of my Sunday Thoughts-- TV Commercial Division.

• I wish my husband took Cialis. Not because he has trouble getting a boner but because it would be nice to end up on a beach or out camping whenever he does get one.
• I'll never eat PB&J sandwiches at the beach again. I don't wanna be tasty to sharks.
• If you pay me in gum I will kick your ass, I don't care how many layers it has.
• Back to school commercials in July are almost as stupid as Christmas commercials before Halloween.

Oh Please, Oh Please, Oh Please. . . Can the Shed Get Done Today?

The men in my life can't get it up. WAKE UP YOU LAZY LUMPS! We've got to go to Home Demon and get 2X4s, screws, exterior paint, gravel and shelving. Daytime is a-wasting.

The obsessing, it hasn't stopped. It won't stop until the dang-gone shed is done and it kills me that I have to depend on other people. Other normal people who work, don't get a project under their skin and lose their minds because it isn't finished after more than a week. Yes, it kills me to have to depend on my family. I'm an awful person.

Take this as an abject lesson: Don't listen to me, never take my advice and pay no heed to a word I say.


One the jewelry front, I did manage to get a little mojo back and make a few. However, I was feeling rushed and didn't take as care and time as I should have. Handcrafted shouldn't be synonymous with crapcrafted.

Every link should be checked, burs un-burred and crimp tightly crimped. If I had followed my own advice, I would have noticed that the loop holding the rosette to the upper 'horseshoe' isn't closed. In fact, it's wide open. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to sell that earring and have it fall apart the minute someone tried to wear it.

I also made these which are already up for sale, that's how uninventory I am these days. These are fun and easy to make and may possibly be the next tutorial. Well not these earrings specifically, but this style. You should tell me if you's want that. All 3 of you.

Tutorial, Fourth In A Bold Series of One Handed Tutorials

There's nothing more to do on the shed until more materials arrive and I have been ordered to stop obsessing over it. Because when one is obsessing over something, the only thing one needs to do to stop obsessing is for someone else to tell them to stop. It's science. The reason why I'm mentioning my shed obsession is to explain the fingernails in this tutorial. Ripping apart a shed is dirty, dirty business.

All my other tutorials leave out the ear wire. You can buy them already made but making them is easy-peasy. You can also make all kinds of ear wires using this method. You can make the loop open instead of closed, you can use not round things for part that goes in the ear, you could slap a bead on it. . .

Believe me, my fingernails were quite clean when I made the jewelry for sale here.