Flower Shop Stuff

Yo dudes. Here's a picture of the flower shop I work at. My friend Kathleen Danger Kennedy suggested I make a flower arrangement in one of the toilets (this is a flower and plumbing supply shop combined) so I took her up on it. I think it makes the toilet look.... fresh... I love that my boss thinks this is a good idea.



This is an arrangement I made yesterday for the front cooler. I also love that my boss will leave me in charge for a day with instructions saying "Make an arrangement for the front with a dozen roses, do whatever you like." Ah, creative freedom.

I sent off some jewelry to the casters to the tune, I expect, of my entire tax return. I hope it doesn't take long.

Later gators.

Passing time

Hey world, hope you're doing well. And by world I mean dad, because this blog is so widely read.

Anyway, the bottom picture is the product of a couple hours of good ol' focused work, which doesn't seem to happen often, and the top picture is what happens next. I really like the open, light, and delicate look of the thin lines in these pieces. I try to contrast the impossibly fragile appearance of the wire with as many connections as possible, making it sturdier than it seems. The picture of the ring is driving me crazy, though, there's a piece of lint on the wire and it's killing me! I need photoshop!

The last two days I've been working nights at the hotel and days in the studio. I actually really love the arrangement. I put together some earrings inspired by Guatemalan window bars, but they need some more thinking. These ideas are my favorites, but they are incredibly time consuming and at the moment I have no intention of selling them, so I can't spend as much time on them as I'd like.

I found a jewelry caster in PA that I'm going to use to fill out my jewelry line for the show. Now I just have to scrap together the money to give him... This just feels like a bottomless pit right now, and I'm selling my rose line for so cheap I can hardly believe I'm doing it. I just desperately want it to sell! All this business crap just sucks the fun right out of it.

Color Photo from 1900

Just thought this was beautiful.

"The Photographers:

Charles Corbet
Paul Sano
Alfonse Van Besten
Remi Verstreken

From the website:

Around 1890 a number of amateur photographers were dissatisfied with the mere technical merits of photography. They wished to use photography for reproducing beauty and expressing their inner feelings and thoughts. Their vision had been opposed by painters and art critics, who were of the opinion that photography, being the product of a technical device, did not belong in a museum. The invention of a “fuzzy rendering process”, and the introduction of the manipulated image moved photography closer to the contemporary art movements in painting. Previous objections, to allow photography into the holy sanctuaries of museums, gradually disappeared.

In 1895 the Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis in Brussels started collecting international art photography. Among the foremost Belgian pictorialists from around 1900 were Hector Collard, Alexandre, Edmond Sacré, Gustave Marissiaux, Léonard Misonne and Edouard Hannon. Like genuine impressionists they were captivated by light, atmosphere and colour. (From the exposition catalogue “De fotografie in België 1839 – 1940” at the Provinciaal Museum voor Kunstambachten, Deurne, 1970).

It was not until 1907 that colour photography, thanks to the autochrome process, came within the reach of photographers. But from among the above mentioned Belgian photographers, it was only Gustave Marissiaux who fully started to make use of the new technique. Whether his fellow pictorialists have ever applied the autochrome process is uncertain: were they disappointed by the fact that the new technique, in contrast to other known photographic techniques, was impossible to manipulate?"

What happens when you boil citripickle for 8 hours?

Black bubbly tar that turns crunchy and brittle after it dries. And an acrid stink that eventually dissipates to something along the lines of wet dog. I'm an idiot. I can only say I'm glad I did something that stupid in my own studio. I also managed to explode a hollow form, luckily it was just a thin walled tubing earring hoop that only popped and got shot into the shag, never to return again. Bad luck today.

Current news with the jewelry line is a display in the flower shop I work in. I'll make some more for a display in the clothing/accessories store a few blocks down. It would get more tourist traffic and more people actually looking for jewelry. I sold an earring/necklace set to my boss! I put a classified ad in the local paper "JEWELRY SERVICES AND REPAIR, FREE ESTIMATES." I bought a bracelet mandrel on tuesday, so that's another priority tool I can mark off my list. $25 on Ebay! Now I am working on a different line of designs, inspired by Guatemala. I need to find a casting company and get some molds done as soon as possible. Things seem to be lining up nicely for my booth at the craft show-Duane at the flower shop has all sorts of displays and decorations I can use.

Job news: Along with continuing to get my studio in running order, designing my first lines of production jewelry ever, marketing them, and preparing for my first craft show ever, I also work full time at two other jobs. One is the flower shop, obviously my favorite, the other is a hotel where I am a receptionist. It's regular hours and they pay me relatively well. The manager recently offered me more hours, which would mean less fun at the flower shop. I need the money! So I took the hours and I'm only doing the flowers one day a week. It sucks. I need the money.




Jewelry designs! (or tattoos!) If you live in New York City and you look hard enough, you'll see 3 of these guys inked on some rad gals. For my purposes, though, they are soon to be brooches.

Between Richmond, VA, Guatemala, and Montana, I think the only thing the last three places I've lived have in common are pigeons.

Dear Universe,

Please bestow upon me Photoshop Software. I swear I'll never take your name in vain again.
Love,
Caitie

New Stuff!

Hey People!
The store is officially open for business! Above is one of my favorites from my new and limited jewelry line, all inspired by roses. I am working as a florist these days after all. These earrings and others are all for sale at Etsy.com. PLEASE check it out! (I need the money but more the affirmation!)


In other news my new studio at 420 Main Ave is nothing short of delightful. I love being in there, I love my tools, I love that space, I love the light, I love the air, I love everything but the shag carpet! I think I'm going to have to name it and start making ritual sacrifices to it, because it's eating my earrings.

We've also ripped out the orange shag in the living room (pictured in a previous post) and found GORGEOUS wood floors under there, so there are some dudes refinishing those as we speak! I can't wait to see them!

Enough for now, thanks for reading!

Cat Punting

BEFORE




AFTER