October 28, 2006

'Tis the Season

How did it get to be November already?! While I love love love turning the clocks back and getting an extra hour’s sleep, I just can’t believe it’s holiday time again. But I knew it was approaching fast because we’ve got scores of Traveling Boutique dates on the calendar. I’ll be dropping by the usual haunts – Figueroa Plaza, 10866 Wilshire and 11726 San Vicente, to name a favorite few – so come by and visit!

We also have a number of dates with new clients, including the Nestle Building a week ahead of Thanksgiving, and Marina del Rey’s Marina Towers at the end of November. (You can see our full schedule here.)

As crazy as the Traveling Boutique schedule gets around holidays – not only Christmas but Valentine’s and Mother’s Day too – I love doing them. Granted, setting up gets old after four or five dates in a row. But once that’s done, it feels like a party, especially at places we drop by regularly. Customers become friends after a visit or two and it’s great to catch up on their news as we try necklaces on. I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing me say, “Play dress up with me!” But I really do enjoy it.

During my last stint at Figueroa Plaza, my vivacious friend Hazel Salomon of Hazel’s Bagz pointed out how many male clients I have. Hazel sells the most wonderful handbags and has a very loyal clientele but ‘nary a man among them. “That’s because my jewelry can be discreetly stashed in a briefcase or even a pocket,” I realized. “No guy is gonna want to carry around a big ol’ shopping bag and have his buddies find out he’s carrying around a purse for his wife!”

I’ve got a couple of male customers at Figueroa Plaza whom I adore. First off, they’re just good, decent men with great senses of humor. That’s enough right there. But they’re also LAPD detectives who get sent out whenever there's a cop-involved shooting. Talk about a tough job - just imagine all the scrutiny they have to endure along with the endless hours of investigating.

I don’t think they’ll mind if I call them by their first names – Louie, Frank and Ross. They all dropped by to shop a few weeks ago with a colleague of theirs who started ribbing Louie about how good he is to his wife. “Louie drops the kids off at school so she doesn’t have to and then he’s here buying her jewelry,” said this detective. I see Ross and Frank shopping for their wives as well, and I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “How can I put this in a PG sort of way?” I said. “I guarantee that Louie’s very well taken care of, if you know what I mean.” Ross and Frank got quiet, their colleague slowly walked away – and Louie turned bright red. But my point was made: you’re not going to be on the receiving end of very much if you’re not willing to give out in the first place.

The remaining three each got something lovely for their wives. Louie’s was especially colorful, with lots of purple veins running through the stones. I was a bit surprised by his choice until someone said his wife’s name is Violet. How endearing is that?

Later on, as we were packing up, Ross walked past and thanked me (again) for what he’d bought. “Heading home?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Louie and I are heading out in the field, probably til midnight,” he said, without any complaint in his voice. He waved goodbye and walked out, carrying one of our bags in his hand. I thought of his wife – all their wives – and of how tough it is to be married to a cop.

I hope this doesn’t sound trite or odd, but as I watched that Half the Sky bag go with him, I was so touched and honored that he chose something we made to let his wife know he appreciates her.

October 22, 2006

Creative Habits

Man oh man – I’m way overdue for a blog. So sorry about that. I’m trying hard to make blogging a habit but it’s taking me a while to grow into it.

There’s actually a book called The Creative Habit by acclaimed and spritely choreographer Twyla Tharp. In it she not only documents her own artistic journey but also provides several exercises she’s used over the years to develop her own creative habits.

One of Tharp’s most useful exercises is also the most obvious: simply set aside a certain time each day or each week for your creative endeavor. As you sit down each Saturday at 10 AM, for example, to bead or crochet or – attention, Marty! - write, you get used to letting your creativity percolate at that time every week.

Initially, yes, it’s not exactly easy. Building constructive habits rarely are. But think of it like a dance step – remember this from my earlier blog about working with wire? The first few times it’s awkward. But as you get accustomed to it, you know it, embrace it and come to enjoy it. You may even miss it if you have to skip a session, though you better have a spectacular excuse and not just be avoiding your newfound habit.

I’ve also used this same approach toward making responsibility and accountability a habit. In this world – and I know it’s not just L.A. – it’s all too easy to weave your way around being dependable, truthful and otherwise trustworthy. I swear it feels like we’re forced to be the opposite of these things.

I’m not saying I’m completely accountable every way or all the time. But I really do choose to be as thoroughly as possible. For example, among my friends I’ve become known as a CLC, a constant latecomer. So I’m endeavoring to be more accountable. Granted, sometimes it’s just impossible due to an unforeseen 3-car pile up on the 405. (That’s a main north-south freeway, for you non-Californians.) But I now force myself out the door earlier than I’d like, and it’s not easy! I’ve spent years building my late habit. It’s very comfortable for me. It feels so right – I really should finish reading that article, writing that e-mail or applying one more coat of mascara before leaving because…because…well, because!

I literally have to make a conscious choice, to remind myself I’m building my accountability habit, and get my ass out the door sooner and not later. And amazingly enough, it usually works. However, I still do break my new habit on occasion. But when I do, I cop to leaving late, accepting the responsibility – which aids my new habit in a different, if not exactly timely, way.

What does all this verbiage have to do with handmade jewelry and crafting? Everything! Because these things affect every corner and cobweb of our lives. Here’s an obvious example: if you’re making something for someone – whether for sale or as a gift – make it well so that it lasts. Here’s one that’s not so conspicuous: how often do you say, “I wish/ should/ want/ would/ could…," followed by, "But...?"

Those big ol’ buts sure do get in the way, don’t they? I think they should be outlawed. If you want to knit, if you wish you could make your own jewelry, if you really should learn how sew – then do it! You don’t have to do it right this minute. But make a plan. Tell yourself that this holiday season you’re going to ask for or give yourself the gift of doing whatever it is you’ve been dodging. Print out one of our Project Monthlies or scan the web for ideas. Over on the HGTV and DIY Network websites, they have all kinds of ideas and instruction.

So stop avoiding and start doing. Make a date. I will too to further my endeavor to be a better blogger.

October 8, 2006

More Beading With Wire

Hopefully you’ve been practicing and are feeling MUCH less intimidated by the whole bead-and-wire game. If so, congratulations! You and your wire are happily waltzing along. If not, fear not. Keep practicing. You will get the hang of it, I promise.

As you work with wire, you’ll discover the more you bend, straighten and curl it, the harder and more brittle it becomes. This is called “work hardening.” (Okay - get your giggles out of the way now.) Too much of this and your wire will break. But as you get a feel for working with wire, you’ll know how much you can handle it before it loses flexibility.

But maybe you want your wire to hold its shape. In that case, hardening isn’t such a bad thing, and there are a couple of ways to get this done. The easiest method is simply flexing the wire back and forth two to six times with your hands or by holding it with a set of pliers on either side. Pulling wire through nylon-jaw pliers will straighten as well as harden it. Finally, placing a completed wire shape on top of an anvil or steel block and striking it repeatedly with a chasing hammer will toughen it as well. Give each way a try to find out which works best for you.

Next stop, design. Few things ignite inspiration more than color. And it’s not just the beads I’m talking about. Wire comes in all sorts of colors, so be sure to consider this when working on your design. How do you want to feel when you wear the piece you’re about to make? Are you in the mood for something animated and lively, or do you want something soft, a piece that whispers? What effect do you want it to have on the guy across the room? Blues and greens are cool, soothing tones, whereas reds and oranges are hot and energizing. You can also combine hot and cold hues for a powerful effect.

Also think about weight. Do you want your piece to appear light, thin and airy? Use a high-gauge wire – at least 22-gauge or higher. (The higher the number, the thinner the wire. Counter-intuitive, I know). Or would you rather your jewelry have more substance so it’ll stand out against a suit jacket or a patterned sweater? In that case, go with a thicker gauge.

When you get a mind’s-eye picture of a design, grab a piece of paper and sketch it. Then find some aluminum wire and rough out the shape. Play with the contours and the design – because creativity’s all about being playful. Just ask a kid.

September 23, 2006

Beading With Wire

For those of you who’ve tracked me down courtesy of the DIY Network's Craft Lab, keep watching! I've got a second episode coming up that's all about decorating with glass. I'll keep you posted about the airdate.

If you're looking for my book Beading With Wire, sad to say that book’s in a holding pattern because the publisher went belly up. The good news is I have another book coming out next April that I wrote with Christine Calla called Vintage Jewelry Designs. (I talk all about it in last week’s entry.) Also, check out our Project Monthlies page for a new wire project.

More good news: my bead and wire Ring Toss Necklace will festoon the cover of Belle Armoire’s January issue. We just love love love Belle’s editor Michelle Flores. She’s creative and lively and dangerously fun to talk to. She also dragged her mom all the way from Orange County to visit us at the Montrose Arts Festival back in June - in triple degree heat. So she not only rocks our world, she rocks our whole solar system.

Since I’m all about working with wire this week, let me give you a general sense of how to work with it. Let’s say you just sat down to work on your very first project.

WARNING: count on feeling like a klutz. I sure did.

Here’s why: just like a body needs practice to learn a new dance step or exercise, the muscles of your hands need to get a feel for the motions used to sculpt the wire. Your eyes too, believe it or not, need to get used to these movements. The first time or two awkward and even downright embarrassing, but stick with it. You'll soon find your own rhythm and be moving like a pro.

There a few safety issues to keep in mind. Beading with wire is by no means the most dangerous art form known to humankind (not that I’ve actually ever seen a list). But you’ll want to be wary of wire ends, which are unforgiving as well as sharp if not shown the proper respect. When you’re cutting wire, keep it away from your face because it may snap back suddenly and draw blood - not fun. Safety glasses aren’t a bad idea. You should also file down the ends of the wire to prevent them from snagging your clothes or scratching your skin.

If you’ve worked with wire before, you know it often has a will of its own. Some days it moves and bends easily, like water racing downhill. Other days it’s as stubborn as thick mud after rain. So if beading with wire is a new thing for you, add patience to your supply list. You may also want to add aluminum wire from the hardware store to that list, because practicing with it is a lot less expensive than wasting your sterling silver or gold-filled wire.

Start by cutting a few pieces of wire and bending and looping them with your hands, pliers or both. See how much you can do before the wire begins to harden – and see how easy it is to make different forms and shapes. Fun, isn’t it?

If you’re looking for a wire supplier, we love Fire Mountain Gems. They have an enormous catalog, good prices and their customer service is so good it'll shock you.

Keep practicing with that wire and I’ll continue on about it next week. If you’ve got questions in the meantime, just give me a cyber-shout.

September 16, 2006

The Wonders of Publishing
or
Why I Rented a Table at the Diner

The amazing, stupendous, spectacular news is we have our own book coming out next year!

The bad news is it’s a dump truck full of work. I got slammed with some this week, so I thought I’d let you in on what really goes into creating a book.

If you’ve visited News & Events and checked out our In the Works page, you know Christine and I have a book coming out in April, Vintage Jewelry Designs. It’s going to be gorgeous – and that’s not bragging. Well, a little bit, because we worked extremely hard to design and create exquisite jewelry. But we’re not the ones photographing the projects and putting the book pages together. That’s up to our publisher Lark Books, an Asheville, North Carolina-based publisher that’s part of Sterling Publishing, a major New York publisher. Sterling, in turn, is part of the same corporation that owns Barnes & Noble.

Got all that?

We are outrageously fortunate to be working with Lark for a number of reasons, but three most of all. When it comes to publishing visually lyrical crafts books, Lark Books is the gold standard. Now for the greedy reason: it’s lovely to have access to that immense Sterling-Barnes & Noble distribution channel. But what I’m most grateful for is that Lark generously adopted Vintage Jewelry Designs when another publisher went belly up. (I’ll detail that drama at a future date if I can figure out how to do so without risking a lawsuit. No kidding.)

I got to meet my editors on a trip to Asheville in August and they are without exception smart, meticulous and kind. I live in Los Angeles and finding one person who’s like that, much less several, is astonishing to me. Sad to say, but true. The first person I ever spoke with at Lark was Paige Gilchrist, a senior editor. She’s energetic, fun to laugh with and has the cutest little girl named Ivy.

These last few weeks I’ve been dealing quite a bit with Kathy Sheldon, our book’s editor, and Julie Hale, our copy editor. I don’t envy them a bit because they’re the ones who have to call and ask for one more diagram, one more project, one more revision – and, by the way, can you proofread these 48 pages over the weekend? Given that they’re unfailingly sweet and encouraging about it, and that they’re working on this book at least as hard as I am, I always dive in and get it done.

So that’s why I spent the entire afternoon at DuPar’s, a local diner lost in the 50’s that’s appeared in all kinds of movies. (The one I instantly recall is “Boogie Nights.” Hmm…) I pride myself on being able to focus on and finish anything I start. But reviewing dozens of pages of verbiage like, “Cut a 19-inch piece of the tigertail wire and string beads onto the strand in the following order: 5 black round beads, 1 cracked crystal quartz cube bead…” and “Repeat step 3 and steps 6 through 8 with the second half of the necklace…,”not to mention endless supply lists, is like novacaine to my brain. Nevertheless, it had to be done.

I, therefore, had no choice but to leave the home office behind, turn off the cell phone and trap myself at a table at DuPar’s. After 3 hours, a decent salmon filet and 2 refills of Diet Coke, I completed my mission. I triple-tipped the waitress, considering it rent for monopolizing her table the entire afternoon.

In case you’re wondering, all this proofreading is an effort to make sure that the book not only makes sense to the reader, but that it’s spelled and punctuated correctly. I discovered that our copy editor Julie’s a far better punctuator than I am. I really like Julie not only for her superior grammatical skills but also because she thinks the term “end matter” deserves the same weird giggle I do. (It actually refers to the author’s bio, list of suppliers and such at the end of the book, but "end matter?" Come on…)

Thus ends this peek behind the publishing curtain. More peeks to come –promise!

September 8, 2006

Where oh where…Part II of II

I was teaching a jewelry-making class at the House of Hope, a recovery facility for women addicted to alcohol and drugs. It was such a fun class. I started out the way I often begin classes and crafting parties by asking, "Who here isn't creative?" Up went several hands. "I love you guys!" I said, "because you're who I used to be!"

Everybody's creative. When you think you're not, it's because you're afraid that what you'll make will be unacceptable, unappealing and just downright suck-y.

I know the feeling. Trust me - I know that place and I still occasionally revisit it. But I don't stay there long, and let me tell you why.

I discovered something spectacular a few years ago after seeing two of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays, Titus Andronicus and Pericles. There's a reason they’re lesser known: they SUCK.

I hate to admit it, but it thrilled and relieved me no end to realize that even Shakespeare was fallible. There’s an early sketch from 1880 by Van Gogh called Carpenter that’s as amateurish as it’s subject is out of proportion. Knowing that both these extraordinary artists produced imperfection only made me admire them more –because they both overcame these mediocre efforts to create timeless beauty and art. I hate to think of all the criticism they must have encountered during their careers. Yet they soldiered on, and so they are remembered.

Creative “blocks” are a good news/bad news sort of thing. Good news: getting over it is all in your hands. Bad news: yep, same thing. Since I constantly feel creative fear bubbling up inside me - yes, constantly – I’ve developed a method for managing it. It works for me, so I’ll share it with you.

Marty’s Steps for Getting Un-Stalled:

Step 1. Swallow your pride and admit you’re scared and doubtful.

Step 2. Take a deep breath, get out a Post-it and write “Dare to suck – if Shakespeare could do it, so can you!” on it.

Step 3. Sit down and tackle that project or idea that’s got you frozen as Neptune’s moons.

Step 4. Don’t you dare leave it half-finished! See it through to the end.

Step 5. If you stall out at Step 4, repeat Steps 1 through 3 until you succeed with Step 4, even that means writing a hundred Post-its.

Why "dare to suck?" Because it rips the rug out from under your fear since you’re saying “So what?” to your critics, particularly your inner one, even before you’ve started. So much of managing fear is accepting it as a normal, every day emotion instead of something dangerous, something we can't get past. But once you're engaged in creating something, the fear will melt away – and, by the way, any less than satisfactory aspects of what you make can be fixed later. (I’ll cover how I deal with mistakes in a later.)

Trust me: once you’ve finished whatever it is you’ve been dodging, be it a necklace, painting or a business presentation (because there’s art in that too), relief and pride will cast your fright and self-doubt overboard. You’ll add so much fuel to your creative fire that you’ll soar onto the next project with nary a block in sight.

September 6, 2006

Where oh where…Part I of II

…to find inspiration when the sun, moon, stars and even hot baths leave you dry? These stale periods are usually as fleeting as rainbows, but on occasion they take root like stubborn weeds. But there are ways to re-ignite your creative fire, especially if you take a hard look at what's doused it. I often spend a good deal of time during classes and in-home crafting parties guiding people beyond this.

You’ve heard of the dreaded “writer’s block?” Authors can't write, they say. Their cerebral pathways have somehow been made impassable, like a road choked off by a mudslide, like a channel clogged with ice. And until a cranial spring melt arrives or the mud’s shoveled out of the way (preferably by someone else), they can’t work, can’t produce – but oh how they can complain.

One thing you should know about me: I don’t like whiners. Especially of this so-called blocked sort because they're choosing to be blocked instead of understanding what's truly got them stuck.

Fatigue alone can sometimes sap your creative energy. In that case, take a nap! But more often than not it’s something emotional, like doubt, frustration or fear, that most reviled of f-words. Fear - fear that what we’ll create won’t be good enough, that what we express won’t dazzle and delight and lead to a waterfall of compliments.

If you’re an over-achiever like me, that way of thinking can suck you under sure as quicksand. Let's face it: what we're all most scared of is that no one will like what we've created, including us.

Flattery is an addiction. Don't get stuck on it. Getting snagged once in a while is human, but an unbridled need for accolades is a sure way to a miserable creative death. Honestly, making something mediocre - even hideous - once in a while is good for the soul. Seriously. I've done it many times. (Just don't ask me to show them to you. I won't I won't I won't!) It's good because it's normal and, once you've dusted the dirt from your bruised backside, you'll discover you're no longer worried about being perfect, about suiting everyone else's tastes.

Check for Part II on Friday! ('Cause I'm spending way too long talking to you than doing the other business stuff...)

August 31, 2006

Why Half the Sky?

It comes from the Chinese saying, “Women hold up half the sky.” (Yes, I know – even the guys admit we hold up more than that.) I also think there’s nothing like that wide open feeling you get when you tilt your head way back and gaze skyward. During the day, the sky serves up that lyrical blue, the texture of clouds and a blast of sunlight. At night, it’s the subtle shimmer of stars that delights the eye, with the moon dangling overhead like a pendant.

That’s why, since time immemorial, when an artist has needed inspiration, all she had to do was walk outside, look straight up and breathe deep. (The word “inspiration” is actually a synonym for “inhaling.” Who knew?) It’s a given that creativity springs from inspiration. But what springs from creativity?

At Half the Sky, we’re all about the 3 “C’s”: creativity, confidence and community. I truly believe that nothing inspires confidence like newfound creativity. Just try one project. Once you’ve gone from “I’m not creative” to “Wow, I made that,” you’ll start to think about all those other things you keep saying “I can’t” to and wonder if perhaps, after all, you can do them.

That’s what I did, years ago, when a friend of mine cajoled me into making my first pair of earrings. From there it was onto necklaces and decoupage (which is just paper and glue - the same stuff you’ve been playing with since kindergarten). Now I’ve added building bookcases and starting my own business to my repertoire.

Maybe it’s time for you to find out how simple learning a new skill can be, to discover the satisfaction that comes from freeing the colors and shapes in your mind’s eye and fashioning them into something for the whole wide world to see.

All you have to do is take a deep breath and plunge in.