Hello?

Hello darlings,

it's been such a long time since I've ventured into the regions of my jewelry making self. My decision to stop making jewelry was perhaps a bit sudden, and certainly more than a bit dramatic, but it had to be done. I was about to enter a PhD program in a new city, and I simply had to focus.


I finished the first quarter of the coursework part of my PhD and it went very well; despite the fact that my last paper was written in a coffee and nicotine induced daze, I managed to get it done and be content with my performance. As my work is becoming more serious, I am expected to present my papers at conferences and get them published in academic journals. Considering these new and difficult responsibilities, I know you will understand why I had to give up all distracting hobbies, as fun as they may have been.

I am now enjoying the winter holidays, and feeling a bit nostalgic... Ah, last year, when I created and wrote about creating... when I met like minded artisans and made friends with my customers. I don't think I am ready to give up that part of my life yet, but it must take another form.


I was thinking of continuing my DIY activities, but making them somehow part of my work. But what to make? Sell poems on etsy? Make philosophy paper inspired collages? Knit academic sweaters with super nerd quotes? Help!

I am in need of your lovely creative ideas. So pretty please, shed some suggestions below.

Hope you darlings have been well, and hi! :)

Grecian Goldsmith is dead.

Dear friends,

I have decided to close down my jewelry shop permanently. What is there now will be the last I ever make. This decision did not come lightly, but it had to be made.

I have decided to give myself fully to my writing and my painting. Now that I will move into my own place, I will be able to make one of the rooms into a studio, giving me plenty of space for canvases and a writing desk. I want to start treating these things seriously. My jewelry making was always a pleasant escape that allowed me to avoid truly putting myself and my art out there. But I am ready to move on now.

Many thanks to all of you who have supported and inspired me over the months. I am truly grateful, and some of the friendships I made as a result will never be forgotten.

Perhaps I will have a new blog, and a new shop one day... Until then, goodbye.

Love,
Sandra

"She could have been a poet, or she could have been a fool."

I need these objects to weigh me down.

Choose your words.

Do not let the words choose you.

Summer days.

Hello, darlings.

I have been a pretty lazy person lately. The summer haze has numbed me in the most pleasant of ways, and I have been simply enjoying myself. Music has come back into my life and I have been listening to all my old CDs, lying in the grass, walking among trees and dancing in the night.

I am having a serious inclination towards closing down my etsy shop. Some of you who have read my previous posts will know my recurring struggle between writing and crafting. I am always on the verge of giving it all up to just write, but the moment I actually do that, little beads begin to dance underneath my fingers, and pretty wires coil themselves around my wrists. I get pulled back into the studio, and I begin to tinker with material things while the ghosts of words past haunt me incessantly.

I have no idea what will happen, but I know this: art is nothing without discipline. I must decide, and then discipline myself. If it's writing, let it begin at 8AM with the typing of drafts. I must get a move on, otherwise I will forever rest on my potential and never make anything out of it.

Inspiration: Film noir; or, life is boring without pain.

"well I don't care if you don't"

"and I don't want it, if you don't"

[gene tierney in "shanghai gesture"; ann savage]
[lyrics the cure "let's go to bed"]

"You'll be the rhythm, and I'll be the beat."

"I can't get this trumpet out of my head"




[lyrics: lykke li, "melodies and desires", "this trumpet in my head"]
[painting: rene magritte, "la belle captive"]

My nerves become entangled in these immaterial things.

"Found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me"

[kiss me kiss me kiss me, just like heaven, robert smith]
click the middle link to listen to the song.

News.

New home:

New school:

New lake:

New city:

Hello all. I just got back from Chicago a few days ago, having found a great place to live for September. I'll be moving there around September 7th, so the etsy shop may have to be shut down for a little while--in any case, I won't be able to post as many new things in the next few weeks. However, I do have a couple of things finished which I just have to photograph and those will be up soon.

Lately I've felt all out of words. I've been listening to music constantly. I am teaching myself to listen more and speak more meaningfully.

Dancing.

Many thanks for all of your birthday wishes, both here and on Twitter. It was lovely to hear from all of you. I must apologize for my absence from the internet. A more detailed post is to come.

"the book of love is long and boring"

[click on photo for image source]

My birthday.

It is my birthday today, and I wanted to thank all of you wonderful darlings for reading my blog, chatting with me on Twitter, inspiring me with yor art and your words, and supporting me in times when such things were needed.

I am writing this post from my brand new, shiny and blue, beautiful laptop! It was a very generous gift from my family and now I have something to write my essays on in Chicago. On top of that, they threw me a big BBQ party yesterday and I had such a lovely time with all of my Toronto friends and family who have known me since I was a wee little baby.

[Painting by Gerhard Richter.]

A nervous labyrinth of desire.

Richter

Miro

Flying too close to the sun.

"The scorching rays of the nearer sun softened the fragrant wax which held his wings." -Ovid

During the last few months, I have allowed my creativity to evolve. I have let myself be inspired by other artists, let my imagination wander and fly away from me. While this has indeed been an exciting trip, at one point I encountered a fearful thought: I have traveled so far--will I be able to find my way home?


Reading through some of my favourite books--the Odyssey by Homer and Ovid's Metamorphoses--I was reminded of what Grecian Goldsmith truly stands for: eternal ancient Greece, filtered slightly through modernist poetics. It is time for me to go back to the beginning.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
...
-W. B. Yeats
quoted from memory

I'll treasure you forever.

Hello darlings! It's been a while since I've made a treasury, but I managed to snag one tonight! Check it out here:

The Sweetest Cruelty

To summarize its essence, I offer you this medley of words: Sigmund Freud, broken hearts, folk art, Romeo and Juliet, loneliness, blood, creative textiles, glorious darkness, birds, torn and tattered, tarnished beauty, forgotten. Below are some highlights for those of you who see this post after the treasury has already expired.

terichung

papermoth


laslopezhome

In the land of mythical creatures: blue mermaids and white horses.

Usually so pink, grecian goldsmith has taken a blue turn.

This jewelry is for mermaids only! ;)

Let me know what you think, my darlings.

Other news: I'm opening up a vintage shop! Shh... Still a secret. But oh, do I have some amazing goodies for you! And why am I doing this, you ask? Well, moving across the country in two months, I realized with tears in my eyes that not all of my darling possessions would be able to come along. Here is a tiny sneak peak. More info to come.

Secrets.

"Is it you standing among the olive trees
Beyond the courtyard? You in the sunlight
Waving me closer with one hand while the other

Shields your eyes from the brightness that turns
All that is not you dead white? Is it you
Around whom the leaves scatter like foam?

You in the murmuring night that is scented
With mint and lit by the distant wilderness
Of stars? Is it you? Is it really you

Rising from the script of waves, the length
Of your body casting a sudden shadow over my hand
So that I feel how cold it is as it moves

Over the page? You leaning down and putting
Your mouth against mine so I should know
That a kiss is only the beginning

Of what until now we could only imagine?
Is it you or the long compassionate wind
That whispers in my ear: alas, alas?"

-Mark Strand, Dark Harbor

Kiss me in a style Clark Gable would have admired. Make it classic.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of enjoying the opening night of "Public Enemies", starring the acutely talented Johhny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cottilard. It is rare for me to be enthralled with a film so much that I not only blog about it, but urge you to see it.

A film that looks as if it will be a (mere?) commercial success in the trailer, rises to unutterable artistic greatness in its entirety. The acting is superb,

the story, heartbreaking,

and the phenomenal direction of Michael Mann left me writing essays in my head.

"I want so badly to believe..."

[Painting: Ariadne in Naxos by Evelyn De Morgan]

Basement dreaming.

golden age

Inspiration: etsy.

Lately I have been toying with the idea of giving up jewelry making and crafting altogether. I felt that it took a lot of time away from writing, and I felt the pressure to make sales and keep up with the business end of things. As soon as I put my supplies and tools aside, and got rid of any kind of pressure I was putting on myself to grow my business, I felt a creative itch. Ideas emerged from the darkest corners of my mind, like flashes of lighting in a dark cabin during a rainstorm.


I've made three pairs of earrings and a new necklace so far, and this new period of inspiration shows no signs of stopping. Very soon my little shop will be populated with new delights. In the meantime, I want to feature some cool etsy sellers: each of these pictures represent some element in my new designs. Enjoy the little sneak peak, darlings! Hopefully this little appetizer of inspiration will leave you hungry for the main course.

guilty pleasures

I picked up a few shark vertebrae when I was in Boston. But you can also get some at an awesome etsy shop called gultypleasures (see link above). I'm fascinated by sharks; their murderous grace has been a recent obsession of mine. Thus, I made a pair of earrings out of shark vertebrae and some lovely pink vintage pendants that resemble fins. I can't wait to show them to you!

anatomyofaskirt

This item is made by one of my absolutely favorite etsy sellers, anatomyofaskirt (see link above). This seller makes all different kinds of robot pouches, all of them strange and utterly delightful. This particular pouch is my absolute favorite! I am obsessed with the idea of (almost) invisibility. What does it mean to see "through"? If I am seeing through glass, I see the glass and that which lies behind it. But if I wanted to only see the glass, and not whatever lies behind it, how would I achieve such a feat? The glass resists my gaze, or rather, it completely submits to my gaze, so much so that it defies it. A necklace with these thoughts crystallized into it is to come.

covetandcrave

This shop, called covetandcrave (link above) sells a number of delightfully old objects, the kind that prompt transcendent time travel. This ashtray in particular appeals to me, not only because of the connotations that ashes have with death and time, but also due to its tarnish. I adore silver: depending on the state of its surface, it can look glorious or dirty. This duality interests me greatly. A pair of earrings I made involve very tarnished metallic silver tone beads together with very shiny and ornate golden ones. Whether you like them or not remains to be seen.

(The first image in this post is a painting by Rene Magritte, called "The Lost Jockey".)

The best things in life are written.

It has never been difficult to trigger my inclination towards short, intense obsession. Most often I would wake from these obsessions like from a nightmare; my soul sweaty, my inner heart beating an uneven rhythm indicative of a subtle panic. Upon each waking, I would ask myself: "Why did I walk through the last months of my life completely unconscious, unaware of my surroundings? Why did I waste all that time?"

I own everything.

I have felted, knitted, drawn and painted; stuffed things, stripped others, cut and pasted; tattoed, appliqued, burnt and enameled--I have wasted and hoarded and woven and braided.

And none of these things has left me satisfied.

In the end, it must be words and only words. My bones are made of words, I used to say. But now I want to grow letters instead of hair.

Obscured pressure.

"The sun
Must bear no name, gold flourisher, but be
In the difficulty of what it is to be."

-Wallace Stevens

The grand march.

"A year or two after emigrating, she happened to be in Paris on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of her country. A protest march had been scheduled, and she felt driven to take part. Fists raised high, the young Frenchmen shouted out slogans condemning Soviet imperialism. She liked the slogans, but to her surprise she found herself unable to shout along with them. She lasted no more than a few minutes in the parade.

When she told her French friends about it, they were amazed. 'You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?' She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand. Embarrassed, she changed the subject."

-Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

In my next life.

"My attention was drawn to a simple old morning coat. It was made of some remarkable material I had never seen before--a kind of sand-colored, greenish, grayish stuff, which seemed faded and covered with spots and dust mixed with ashes. I had the feeling that a man dressed in that coat would look like a ghost. An almost imperceptible squeamishness but at the same time a slightly terrifying sense of fatefulness stirred in me..."

-Constantin Stanislavski

The trick is to keep going.

Grand ideas are easily thought up, but cannot be manifested without suffering. I say suffering and not work, because work is suffering. A sweet mental anguish envelops the mind as it stares through the eye sockets at an unfinished painting. The hands crack and bleed as they pull out the 99th weed out of a bed of roses. A ballerina will break her ankle in the middle of a solo, and keep dancing.

But sometimes, to keep going one must be resurrected from the ennui. And in order to rise to life again, one must first undergo a necessary death.

I've rolled the boulder all the way up the hill. But now I am here and have nothing to do. Roll back down, boulder, off with you. I will follow slowly, because it is not a pain but a joy to roll you back up again.


(Painting: "Sisyphus" by Franz von Stuck.)

Drawing blood out of a stone.

There are days when I feel that the world is so unjust. Everything bothers me: my job, my room, my debt, my lack of time, my lack of motivation. I feel mistreated, misunderstood, and taken for granted. I feel that my talents are not truly appreciated, that people do not see how hard I work and how much effort I give. This self-righteous chip on my shoulder causes feelings of anger, and the expression of such feelings, alienation and upset in those around me. In my self-imposed bubble of isolation, I then experience a moment of honesty:

I am the problem.

All around the world there are beautiful, talented people who are not appreciated, not validated, mistreated, misunderstood and overworked. And what do they do? They work through it with integrity and strong, admirable character. They prove themselves, earn respect and rise, weightless, to the top. They can float, because their conscience does not weigh them down.

Be better than this.

(Painting by Rene Magritte.)

Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.

My spirit is too weak--mortality

Weighs heavily upon me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a luxury to weep
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring 'round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old time--with a billowy main--
A sun--a shadow of a magnitude.

-John Keats
(quoted from memory)

Photo: mine, photoshop art

Unless...

"soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing"

"for every tatter in its mortal dress"

The Point of Origin

unless

You have denied yourself a self.

You have abstracted your flesh
into a formula of hope.

Discoveries.

Have a look at these amazing items from new Etsy sellers who have not had a sale yet.

matryoshka64

allthingswhite

As if the air. The mid-day air.

"Panic in the face of the moon--round effendi
Or the phospored sleep in which he walks abroad
Or the majolica dish heaped up with phospored fruit
That he sends ahead, out of the goodness of his heart,
To anyone that comes--panic, because
The moon is no longer these or anything
And nothing is left but comic ugliness
Or a lustred nothingness. Effendi, he
That has lost the folly of the moon becomes
The prince of the proverbs of pure poverty. [...]

Here in the west indifferent crickets chant
Through our indifferent crises. Yet we require
Another chant, an incantation [...]

Truth's favors sonorously exhibited."


-Wallace Stevens, "Esthetique du Mal"

Fibers and Fabric

I have not listed any new items for a while, partly because of my "regular" job, partly because of huge impending decision deadlines (see previous posts re PhD studies) but partly also because I have started weaving cotton thread, bead and whatever-other-treasures-I-can-find necklaces. I have created a very primitive loom using foamboard, dressmaker's pins and crude drawings. Have a look at my work in progress:

Many more exciting things to come. Until then: xo.

And yet, and yet . . .

Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real;

I, unfortunately, am Borges.

-Jorge Luis Borges, "A New Refutation of Time"

Ribbons and Gold - Inspiration Post

EfiaFair

dajoli

dinosaurtoes