holy crap

my bf's a good photographer.

kime buzzelli

I must admit to being just a twee bit obsessed with everything kime buzzelli touches these days. her shop, show pony, which I mentioned visiting here. her gorgeous and inspiring blog, the moldy doily. her color sensibility, which has greatly turned me onto aqua. and most of all, her luscious paintings. were I not in the midst of launching my fall line and watching my budget, and let's say it was around the holidays or my birthday, I might be purchasing this painting. sure enough, when winter arrives, one of her lovely pieces will be mine. ah kime buzzelli, you make me swoon.

my ebay listings

I posted two items for sale last night on ebay! The first is a huge lot of beads. I started the bidding at $20- these beads are well worth a few hundred dollars.




the second listing is for a huge lot of earrings!



I have much more vintage jewelry and supplies, and will be posting them within the next week. click here to see my current listings.

sneak peek

b and I set up a shoot today and I caught the first batch of finished pieces for the fall collection. woo hoo.

sodafine

my key necklace is featured on the front page of the sodafine website! my work is only available in the williamsburg shop, but check out their online store for some great, hard-to-find clothing and jewelry by independent designers.

go see it

many people have already blogged about this, but I'll ad my recommendation. if you are anywhere near the philadelphia area, go see the calder jewelry exhibit! everyone knows alexander calder (third generation philadelphia sculptor, btw) for his iconic mobiles. (for which marcel duchamp coined the term) I remember seeing a documentary while in art school which showed calder tinkering in his studio. it is clear to see how the jewelry is an extension of his more famous work, or a way to work out ideas on a smaller scale. from my own observation, every piece in the show was made from bent and/or hammered wire, and nothing was soldered together. meaning that it was all joined with wire rivets and joints. AMAZING. also, he didn't sand or polish a single piece- all the tool marks were visible. the strength of his work is in the form, artistry and playfulness.

truth be told, I planned the trip to philadelphia with the intention of attending my 25th high school reunion, but changed my mind at the last minute. b and I spent saturday with my mom in philly. the calder was shown at the museum's newly acquired and renovated perelman building, a former life insurance building across the street from the main museum. we peeked our heads into the main building, and b was kind of blown away. we'll have to go back for another visit. later on we ended up on south street, where I showed b philadelphia's magic gardens, a house and garden transformed head to toe with mosaic and found object sculpture. look here for some wonderful photos of the site and its creator isaiah zagar.

progress

the stoop sale on saturday was a complete success in my mind. not only did I sell a few things, but I met more of my neighbors in one afternoon than I had in almost a year of living here. one woman, nina, told me that she thought we would, by having our sale, encourage others to do the same. the next morning, three woman who live across the street, who had been my last customers, had a sale of their own. we popped over there before leaving for manhattan, and I was their first customer. also on saturday we met two members of the block association, who invited us to the meetings, and told us that they were the ones responsible for the new garden alongside the 222 bodega. the sale went past 6pm. lesson learned that is is not necessary to start a yard sale in brooklyn before noon.

cleaning up on saturday evening, we left a few things in front of the house with "free" signs on them. everything was gone by the next day. my cassette tape collection is now reduced by half.

I spent all day yesterday putting the apartment back together, separating things into boxes of stuff to ebay, things to save for a future sale, and things that just needed to be put away. going through what was already in the closet, I took out some shelved projects that I will now get to, such as framing some pictures. the jewelry parts are all now in their proper homes and I have a lot more space to work. yesss....

the fall line is coming along very well. I have around twenty pieces near completion.

saturday: STOOP SALE

(photo from built environment blog)

So as I mentioned before, we're clearing house on Saturday.

In addition to the requisite clothing and shoes, we're selling some beautiful manual camera equipment, tools, tchotchkes, art objects, a rolling ikea clothing rack, antiques, and miscellaneous stuff, plus:

The bulk of what I have is thrift and vintage jewelry, beads, findings, parts, and some hand made finished pieces. All of it clean and in good condition. It's autumn and I need to clean house! I'm purging my collection and offering it at bargain prices.

If you're interested in coming and you're not on my mailing list, a contact of mine on facebook, or a reader of the bed-stuy blog, please email me for directions! We live in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

The stoop sale will start at 10:00 am, and end at approximately 3pm, but maybe earlier or later!

Stop by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood!

*Rain Date Sunday, Sept. 14

my cup runneth over

a few days before I left for my trip, kate came over with the second batch of her grandma's treasures. (just for the record, and since a few people have asked, I did compensate kate for her generosity with some finished jewelry pieces!) so upon returning to nyc, I had my work cut out for me. whoa, did I think the first batch was enormous! felecia and I have been working like busy beavers for the past couple of weeks, sorting, cleaning, dismantling and organizing.

felecia asked me if all of these materials were overwhelming. I explained to her that I had to organize it all in order to be able to see what I have. My main objective was to determine what pieces would go into my fall collection. After getting the project about 85% finished, I pulled out what I'd like to use, and did the same from what I had already. Here is a photo of my selection: (click on it for a larger view)

This is a mix of things from various sources, but a good part of it came from Kate! Somehow what she brought me this time meshed with what I was thinking. I was really inspired by traveling out west, and Kate's grandmother lived in Arizona for a while.

Kate brought me so much chain and metal pieces that I couldn't stuff any more into the bead box where I keep a lot of the metal. So out came everything, and the box got a good scrubbing. It's all still sitting on my desk:

this is how my thought process works- I can't just shove things aside and think I'll get to them later. I have to have a plan for everything. So I've been thinking about what to do with the pieces that won't go into my collection, such as things that can't be made into something else. (bangle bracelets, for example) I also end up with a lot of clasps and other findings after dismantling jewelry into parts and extracting what I want to use.

So I pondered the idea of a stoop sale- something b and I have been thinking about for a while. I brought up the idea to b, and he immediately starting tearing boxes down from the top of the closet. Without getting the last 15% of my organizing done, suddenly the studio started to look like this:




so as sort of a pre-announce, we will be hosting a stoop sale next saturday, september 13, starting at 10:00 a.m. I will post more info later in the week.

things I'm planning on doing in the next few weeks:

•viewing some of the Robert Downey films at Anthology Film Archives.

•attending the opening of Aiko: Shut Up & Look at Brooklynite Gallery.

•checking out the local flea markets on Malcom X Boulevard here in Bed-Stuy.

indie fixx!

I was interviewed for today's edition of wednesday indie artist fixx on indie fixx! what an honor. go check it out.