Fragrant Mix

Fragrant Mix is a name of a race horse, quite a good one at that. I also consider fragrant mix a wonderful term for the mixtures and realities of springtime. I've had over the last several weeks the good fortune to see the early daffodils in Ireland, experience the heat of Florida, and wind up back in the Crescent City for the orange blossoms and the Louisiana Derby. Not to mention, a trip to Texas thrown in for good measure. It has been such an interesting way of seeing Spring and the different smells and sounds that Spring imparts different places on the planet. All of the change that I experienced being framed by the Cheltenham Festival and its extraordinary jump races and the flat races at fair grounds. There is so much color that you see at the races - the beautiful bright mixes that jockeys wear counterbalanced with the rich chocolate brown and chestnuts of the horses. The ladies' hats and outfits and the pageantry that surrounds the events. Spring is very much the same. The first flashes of color and fragrance from the trees that have been missing for the last number of months. This is the time that I am really able to sit down and paint renderings of the stones and the pearls that I have bought in Tucson and in New York over the last month and a half. This year I have a wonderful apartment in the Pontalba on Jackson Square. Its quiet, the light is extraordinary, yet just outside the window is all the drama and absurdity that anyone could ever want. I really enjoy watching the mules pull the tourists around adorned in their orange tank tops as much as I enjoy seeing a million dollar two-year-old colt bring a jockey around the track. The combination of humanity and the animal world. It has always been a very interesting relationship - sometimes cruel, sometimes respectful, always the core of nature. I don't really want do animal jewelry this year. A woman during my Palm Beach show, not realizing I was present, admired my work but critiqued it for being critter oriented. I think she was right. I probably should make more pieces that are less representational. There is vagueness to shape and form that allows the wearer of jewelry to emphasize herself without representing an idea. I am growing more accustomed to appreciating that. My job is to spotlight the woman and that is what I will do.

I have been thinking about Faberge eggs recently for two reasons. The first being that I plan to use an enamel, specifically guillioche enamel, that is very similar to the Faberge egg in composition with organic shapes like pearls or opals. I think it will be a very interesting combination of the ultra-traditional with bohemian baroque and I am getting very positive reviews on the idea. The second reason I have been thinking of Faberge eggs is because an egg is representational and at the same time totally non-representational if chosen to be viewed just as a shape. An egg is not a chicken nor will it ever be as identifiable as a chicken. You can deconstruct an egg. You can make an egg far less than an idea or an acknowledged concept. You can look at an egg and make it anything and nothing. Have you ever tried to break an egg in the palm of your hand? It's impossible to do. It has perfect construction for strength yet it also has the soft lines and feminine curves that we see in artists representation of women. It has everything. I am going to use the egg shape more. It's working. I think the modern woman benefits from the egg shape because it is such a strong symbol of femininity on some abstruce level. Yet it is also a shape that women over the century have been moving against. Our Venus concept has changed from the Venus of Willendorf to Botticelli's Venus on the Half Shell to our modern day magazines filled with size zero ingenues.

I apologize for free association. There are just so many wonderful things around me and I try to absorb as much as I can and let my mind wander as much as I can in order to find small things that pique my interest and benefit my work. I have always admired Jean Slumberger. Not because of anything more important than his singular ability to change small things about a piece of jewelry that wind up changing the entire tenor of his oeuvre. Slumberger would tweak traditional shapes or recognized pieces of jewelry usually by adding a sharp or pointed finish to hard edges. And by doing so would blur the outline of many pieces previously made. It changed the way one looked at jewelry because it softened the identifiable nature of whatever animal - and it usually was an animal - that he chose to make. He was able to maintain the animal feel but make it a more amorphic. His strength was deconstruction.

I'll be doing some renderings this coming week for some opals as well as the most beautiful peridot seen. I got it, fortunately, from the collection of an esteemed French jeweler in the 1920s and his family. Its Burmese rough and it is startlingly beautiful. I have always loved peridot. It comes only in that soft beautiful green and was the first stone that I have ever owned. I was given a pear shaped peridot by my mother for safekeeping when  I was in college and it has always played an important role in my esthetic. I consider the project of setting this stone, in a what will be a necklace, a great challenge and obligation. I will include the rendering on this website later in the week. It's a perfect time to do it as the greening of spring coincides with the color of the stone. I will mix it with something unusual - as unusual combinations give so much vigor to art. There is something in the equine world called hybrid vigor. It's when you breed a thoroughbred to a draft horse or any outcross breed. That combination can sometimes produce an animal better than either of their parents. Hopefully, this jewelry can achieve some value by taking the focal stones out of common vernacular. That might just be a fragrant mix.