Indian Paintbrush

This has really been a wonderful week. I have spent time with a number of my friends and by extension gotten some really good ideas for new pieces. The most exciting of them is an Indian Paintbrush ear clip which I promise to include in this blog once finished. There are so many different places to go hiking in Colorado that vary in topography, yet there is one constant during the last days of July and the beginning of August. That is the afore mentioned flower that I have photographed for the uninitiated. The color of the flower is suprisingly diverse, going from the firey orange you see to a magenta, red, and purple vermillion. The Tabor Lake hike, which I LOVE, will boast this flower in all of these colors sometimes mixed togeather. I consider it one of the most spectacular natural collages I have ever seen. Sometimes it looks like the grasses are on fire. I do apologize that I did not include pictures of the other colors, however I did not want to hike up to higher altitudes this morning to take the pictures, it seems like the orange ones occur at lower altitude, yet not in the towns. In any case, I have been facinated by these colors and shapes in the petals for quite some time and just recently realized how perfect they would look with the Mississippi River pearls I have long championed.

There are many times in the life of a jewelry designer where you find a particularly interesting stone or pearl that seemingly realtes to nothing and is in a shape that makes it nearly impossible to use. Yet the color or lustre is so singular and so spectacular that to pass it up is a painfull prospect. I nearly always buy these stones and often wind up sitting with them for years unsure of how to use them in an expressive and personally important way. My Mississippi River pearls (in small sizes) are such a collection, until now. They will serve as the nacent blooms of the Indian Paintbrush and will be paired with green gold in a very random way, as above. They will be incredible, that I am sure. Those who read this blog often will notice my infatuation with orange, but these earring will err towords the soft purple-pink and use pink diamonds in pave. The past 2 weeks were less of a sales trip and more of getting into my own head in nature. I did lots of bike rides and numbers of hikes up Ajax and other mountains. That physical tenor of things really has been exciting on the creative front and I am very pleased with the results. A little suprise involving renderings is in the works editorially and I consider it a big coup to be able to take readers through the process of designing jewelry in two dimention through to a finished piece. This paintbrush concidently will be just the piece to frame the nacent idea and guache painting to completion in noble metal. Lightness is the key, as always. The coming days will take me through Moab, Reno, Carson City, Tahoe and ultimately Carmel before returning to NYC. I promise to be more active bloging during this short yet exciting drive. It's a new one for me.