The Wander Series

I have always been fascinated by maps, and the way that looking at a map can call you to adventure. For the past 15 months of traveling, I have been using a wide variety of maps. Road maps, tourist maps, park maps. I marked them up with all manner of notes, and then I saved them, because they hold moments of our journey. But I didn't just save them to look back on them at some distant point in the future - I wanted to incorporate them into earrings and necklaces.


Now, the first pieces in this Wander Series are available in my etsy shop! Wear a pair of these earrings or one of these charm necklaces and let it whisper to you of far-off places and wonderful experiences waiting for you.

New Pendants!

Just wanted to share the last few pieces I wanted to finish up before leaving Nashville. Each of these is inspired by the Natchez Trace Parkway and the Tennessee countryside. Enjoy!

3 weeks in Nashville = lots of jewelry finished!

Our time in Nashville has been extremely prolific for me. And I've been able to finish up a bunch of random projects and start focusing on new pieces.


One of our homestays here was with a fellow metalsmith and jewelry maker, Lisa Aronow. I love being able to stay with jewelry people - in part because I simply love being able to connect with other folks who are making their livelihood in the same way I am, in part because it's a great way to learn and grow beyond what I already know, and in part because I get access to tools that I'm not carrying (like a torch!).


I have a few other pieces that I hope to finish up and list in the next couple days. And then I'm seriously going to return to my previous commitment to focus on one new piece per month, pushing myself to step outside of what I've already been creating. I'm really feeling called to shake up my style a bit, so I'm kind of excited to see what happens...

Last of the Desert Pieces...

Well, I haven't exactly held myself to my timeline. Oops. I'm just now finishing up the rest of my desert-inspired pendants and listing them in my etsy shop. I'm really happy with how they turned out, even though it took me a lot longer than I wanted to wrap them up.



We're in Nashville, Tennessee now for the next couple weeks, which means lots of time to finish up other pieces that are half-made and dive into lots of new designs. Stay tuned.

Hooray for Soldering!

We're in Fort Worth, Texas right now - staying with a great fellow jewelry maker, Ashley Akers. We've had a great time in town over the past few days - we gave a presentation about our trip to 100+ local folks, and we've explored some of the museums and shops and the Trinity Trails system.

It's also been really great to meet Ashley in person, after getting to "know" each other through etsymetal and the wonders of the internet. Staying with her and Frank has also meant that I've had access to a proper studio for the first time since I packed mine away.

Access to a proper studio means that I've been able to pick up a torch and solder a few pieces. I was a bit nervous, since I haven't soldered anything in months, so I wasn't sure I'd remember how. But, it's kind of like riding a bicycle, and Ashley's acetylene torch made soldering a breeze compared to my little propane torch that I had back in Long Beach.

I put together a small handful of my "Mini" pendants that have been so popular. I'm still working on finishing them all up, but I've been able to list the first two in my etsy shop. So, check them out!



Thanks Ashley!!

the Desert as Inspiration

New pieces now available in my etsy shop! Sterling silver, copper, and materials I've collected over the past few months of cycling through the desert.

Working on the road...

A few days ago, Russ and I celebrated eight months on the road. Wow... eight months of continuous travel! We made it through one of the coldest and wettest winters on record... and now it's spring here in Texas. Flowers are blooming, everything is bright green... it's an incredibly beautiful change from the months of cold, dry desert.


The more we travel, the more I think about how to work on the road. Like everything else, I have had to completely re-conceive of what it means to work on jewelry while we're traveling. Yet, unlike figuring out how to cook, navigate, set up camp, stay warm, etc., setting up my studio and creating new pieces has been a real challenge for me.

For so long, I've worked in sets... simultaneously creating several pieces at once. When you have a studio and can leave things spread out, it's a great way to work, because you can fit bits of work into random chunks of time, and you can knock out all the sanding (for example) at one time (not to mention, the more you stare at something, the more you can refine the design). As we travel, however, I don't have the freedom to just leave things laying around. And my brain, in all honesty, isn't adapting so well to this. Which is why I've been ever-so-slowly working on the same ten pieces for the past three months. Yes, three months.

Now, to be fair, I have worked on other projects during this time. For example, these custom head badges for a bicycle frame builder in the Sacramento area...


My goal is to finish up these ten pendants before we push out of Austin, and get them listed in my shop. These are all pieces that are inspired by our desert crossing... the brown hills, the skies full of stars, the bright red and orange desert plants. And now that we're not in the desert, I want to wrap them up and start looking at all the trees and fresh spring greens for new inspiration. I've made it my mission for the next few days, so I'm actually making a fair bit of progress. Take a look...


And, then, I'm making a radical change in how I work on jewelry. This sort of came to me the other night as I was going to sleep... and I think it'll help me focus better on each piece and not feel so overwhelmed. My plan is to work on and complete one piece, inspired by our travels, per month. If I get that one piece finished up before the end of the month and want to move on to a second piece, great! But, I'm going to finish that one piece first.

And I want to push myself to document the creation of these pieces... where I found the inspiration, what I'm incorporating, the various stages of making each piece, all the back-stories. I'm really excited about this new challenge, and I hope you'll follow along.

But, first, I gotta finish up these desert pieces...

Ah, Jewelry, I remember you...

As it turns out, carving out the time to work while traveling is a LOT harder than I ever imagined. Or, rather, it's a lot harder to prioritize my time so that jewelry-making gets an equal share (it's just so easy for the studio time to get squeezed out, in favor of cycling and exploring new towns and talking to people and connecting with our homestay hosts and relaxing in those few moments we get).

And now that it's officially winter all around us, I have to contend with the cold factor too. A few days ago, we planned a rest day at a state park. 'Great!' I thought, 'I can get some work done on these pendant ideas that have been floating around in my head for weeks.' And then it rained. All freakin' day. And at about 2pm, it was a whopping 38 degrees outside. Not exactly conducive to setting up shop at a picnic table.

So, what can I say but that I'm a bit frustrated by the situation and I'm still trying to figure it all out.

Which brings me to something that I have been able to do... drumroll please...


This pendant was a small idea that kept popping up and rolling around my head for weeks, in different combinations, until finally it made sense one day (I love when that happens!). And I scored enough downtime in Tucson to finish it up. It's made of sterling silver, copper, and bicycle inner tube. And the idea is to bring together all of the inspiration of the desert that we've been riding through for the past many weeks... vast, brown hills and skies full of stars.

The pendant itself is way too heavy, especially with this small chain (which is the only kind of chain I have with me right now), but I wanted to show it off. Especially since finishing this pendant started my head buzzing with smaller, lighter, more wearable variations of this design. So, whenever I can finally carve out the necessary time, I've got a whole desert series to work on.

***

All of this brings me to my next great idea... collaboration! One of the other things that I have wanted to do while traveling is connect with other jewelry and metal artists around the US. I have done an absolutely crappy job of this so far, so I'm really trying hard to make it more of a priority. What I'm thinking so far is this... What if I could connect with other artists in various parts of the US, as we travel through, and spend a couple days sharing ideas and studio space? It could mean working together on some sort of collaborative finished product or using the opportunity to learn (together) about some new skill or just spend the time swapping tips and suggestions. Or any number of other ideas that I haven't made their way into my head yet.

Interested? Our rough route for the next few weeks is as follows... Alamogordo, New Mexico... Marfa, Texas... Big Bend State Park... Texas Gulf Coast... San Antonio... Austin... Ft. Worth... New Orleans... then on to the East Coast somehow and then North and then back toward the West Coast. If you're along that route, or near that route, or think we should make our route go through your neck of the woods... and you want to work on some sort of collaborative something... let me know (email: tangerinetreehouse AT gmail DOT com). I'm excited just thinking about the idea, so we could start brainstorming today. :)

Confession: It's a bit strange to be on the road...

As an Etsy seller, I'm signed up to receive emails from them about updates and tips and all the goings-on. Lately, there have been a lot of great improvements and happenings. And, to be honest, as I scrolled through them all the other night, I found myself feeling a bit detached from it all and kinda sad about it.

I used to spend hours trolling through Etsy and thinking about my shop there and reading the EtsyMetal forums (and, basically, being virtually connected to the whole hand-crafted world). These days, I'm rarely online. I'm having a fantastic time exploring and learning - and I really need this time of pushing myself to think outside of my "usual" - but it's finally starting to all sink in that I'm living a very different life these days.

Part of the goal, in bringing all of my tools with me, was to keep working and keep growing my jewelry line - and to not just totally run away from everything. Over the past month and a half, I have effectively run away and learned how to "be" on the road for an extended period of time. But, I haven't quite figured out how to be "productive" while traveling.

The other day, I created a pair of headbadges for a couple that we've been staying with out on Orcas Island. I finally broke out my portable studio and did some work - and it felt really great. So, I know that I can find that happy medium - I just have a lot work ahead of me to figure out how to incorporate these things that I used to be more connected with into this vagabonding experience.

In the meantime, a few more photos of things that have been inspiring me on the road:

Enjoying the Journey...

We're now two weeks into our vagabonding... we spent a few days in Portland, then rode down to Corvallis (my hometown) for a friend's wedding and to see family, then rode back up to Portland (where we're taking a day off to catch up on blog posts and put new chains on our bikes). Tomorrow, we'll push off toward Seattle and the San Juan Islands.

The experience, in a nutshell, has been incredible so far. It's just barely starting to sink in that this is our new life for the forseeable future, not just a vacation. I haven't yet broken out my studio equipment, because I've been so completely immersed in the traveling part, but I hope to test out the limits of what I've brought within the next week or two. (Stay tuned...)

In the meantime, I thought I'd put up some inspiring photos of our trip so far. Head over to The Path Less Pedaled for more stories and photos.

Goodbye Beautiful Workbench

Yesterday, in our last preparations for our big bike trip, I handed off all of my stuff to my dad for safe keeping. Including my beautiful workbench.


A few years ago, when I started working with metal, I asked my dad to build me a workbench for Christmas. I needed a space to work and I didn't like any of the overly-complicated benches I saw on Rio and I thought it would be great fun to work with my dad on this project (which it was). It's a beautiful piece of furniture - simple, solid oak - and I have loved every minute that I have had it.


But, it's heavy and big and doesn't really fit on a bike, so we took it apart and loaded it into my dad's car for him to take back to his house. I trust it'll be safe until we find ourselves at the end of this trip and I can claim it again and set up a new studio somewhere. I'm feeling fine about it this morning, but it was (honestly) really hard to say goodbye to it yesterday.

I sold my under-used bracelet mandrel to Nina Gibson from Etsy Metal, and when she came to pick it up, she told me she had no idea how I was going to do it. I've been very calm about all of this until yesterday when it all of a sudden became very real - and, now, I have no idea how I'm going to do it either. I guess that's a part of the process - and I still feel that it's something I really need in order to push myself in a new direction with my jewelry. But, wow, I am officially workbench-less now. How very very strange.

I am also torch-less. I decided not to bring the torch I have, because it has a long hose and I didn't want to chance any punctures while it's bumping around on the bike. Depending on how things play out, I might be in the market for a small and very portable torch.