Today I started a new jewelry series using amethyst. I don't usually work with purple gems, but when I opened my box of stones, these seemed to shine brighter than usual. I find that lately I am living life like this: guided by my curiosity and my senses. I feel that everything seems to flow much better this way, and every day becomes an adventure. Now that I am 41 years old, I think more about the mark I make in this world. Many of my friends have children, and whenever we meet they encourage me to do the same, but it has always been my dream to be a full time working artist. My children are the jewelry I forge, the drawings I create, and the pieces I sculpt. These will be the fossils of my lifetime. The Fossil rings are now in my shop. This week, I decided to follow my own advice and explore variations on a single subject: fish. I am drawn to fish both for their beauty and variety as for what they symbolize. In Greek and Roman mythology, fish represented change and transformation. For Buddhists, fish symbolize happiness and freedom; and for Christians, abundance and faith. My most recurring dreams are about fish and water, which I believe represent the mystery and wisdom of the unconscious mind, a theme that fascinates me. My dreams are vivid and I remember them clearly. They help me get to know a part of myself that is not revealed in my waking hours. These insights have helped me make wiser choices and gain awareness. For my fish series, I began by drawing as many shapes as I could in one sitting. Then I chose the ones I was most attracted to, and turned them into pendants using recycled sterling silver sheet and wire. I could make more, but I love variety and I am already exited about starting a new series. The Fish necklaces are now available in my shop. I've been getting emails from jewelers and artists, asking for advice on how to find a unique style. I don't think that style is something that is adopted or decided. Rather, it's the result of a series of choices we make as we create something. We all have preferences and inclinations, the more we are aware of them, the clearer our voice will be. Below is a list of pointers I've found helpful in my path towards owning my work. I hope they are also useful to you. Use Limited Resources / Apply restrictions The less elements you have to work with, the greater creative freedom you will have; and the clearer and more specific choices you will make. It is through each decision, that you find your voice as an artist. Having too many choices can be overwhelming. Explore variations on a same theme How many different fish can I draw? How can I combine basic geometric shapes in new ways? What forms in nature inspire me? How many styles of shoes can I imagine? In how many ways can I create texture or volume? How do I integrate text into a piece? Discover your medium Are you a carver? A builder? A lover of line? Do your senses awaken when you add layers of paint and combine colors? Do you like to meticulously construct something by hand, or would you rather develop as many ideas as you can digitally? If you find a blank canvas intimidating, make a collage of existing images and shapes. If you prefer to create an image or an object by removing elements, try etching or carving. If you'd rather work with an additive process, sculpt with clay. If you prefer soft materials, you can knit or crochet. If you like harder surfaces, learn to forge metal. Try as many mediums as you can. You will know which is your medium when ideas of what to make flow easily. Find your favorite techniques / tools Once you've found your medium, it helps to discover what tools and techniques work best for you. If it drives you crazy to cut metal sheet with a fine saw, use pliers. If you are too impatient to embroider by hand, use a sewing machine. If your designs feel too simple, use an elaborate method to construct them that will make them layered and interesting. If you are a perfectionist and everything you make feels sterile and machine made, use rough tools to enliven your work. Find the technique that feels right to create a specific idea. Discover your favorite tools and use them until they become an extension of yourself. Do things your way. Find the finish you like, not the one everyone else suggests. Combine mediums if a single one bores you. Fill your well of ideas Just like writers need words, artists need images. Walk, touch, observe, annotate, draw, film, photograph. Go out. Think variety. Learn to see and make it a daily task. How many different shaped trees or clouds can you observe? How many faces? Shapes of rocks or leaves? Visit an aquarium or a botanical garden and feast your eyes. Get visually educated Study all the artists, writers, architects, poets (creators) you can. Find what moves you and study it. Then see who influenced the artist you like, and study her too. Then continue to investigate other artists. Read Steal like an Artist, by Austin Kleon. If you are obsessed with only one artist, you will find it hard to find your own voice and you will copy. You are a combination of all of your influences, so have many. Wilson Mizner once said: if you steal from one author it's plagiarism, if you steal from many it's research. Study other mediums and other disciplines. You will make a much more interesting jeweler if you combine architecture, poetry and biology into your work, than if you only study other jewelers. Everything informs your work. What are you attracted to? Use Pinterest or Tumblr to find images that excite you: clothes, decoration, places, objects, postures, faces, etc. Carry a camera and shoot whatever catches your eye. Then look at what you’ve selected on the web, and what you've photographed. Are there visual elements that repeat themselves? Styles you are jealous of? Eras you are obsessed by? Are you a minimalist, or do you love baroque? Are you into bright coors, or muted tones? What stories turn you on? What books do you read most? What subjects fascinate you: science, psychology, politics, literature, music, religion, etc.? Make work for yourself Make the clothes or accessories you would wear. Write the music you want to hear. Decorate a space you would love to inhabit. There will always be others like you who will find your work appealing. The more specific you are in your tastes, the more unique your vocabulary and vision will be. Today I celebrate that yesterday I sold my 400th piece in my Etsy shop. Selling online gives me the creative freedom I always longed for, and I am blessed to connect with each of you through my work. Thank you for making my dream a reality! I've fallen in love with ancient coins. They are miniature low relief sculptures worn down by touch and time. They embody a fragment of history, and represent people that breathed, loved, imagined and built. As I often do, I decided to make my own coins and turn them into rings. I plan to make a series carved in wax, but for my first rings, I forged and soldered layers of sterling silver sheet, then added chiseled texture. The Coin rings are now in my shop. My dear friend, Mary Van de Wiel, invited me to share a picture of my work for the next 5 days. Instead of showing pieces I've already made, I decided to use the challenge to make a new drawing each day. Here is my first: a turtle that personifies steadfastness and tranquility, two qualities I am embracing this year. I invite you to take this challenge as an inspiration to further explore your creativity, and to share your results on Facebook or Instagram using this hashtag: #5days5drawings. I will add my other drawings to this post as I go along. Feisty Calavera I've had many doubts on my creative path. I spend a lot of time in solitude and this makes my mind travel to all sorts of ideas –many unstopped for several days– some not easy to live with. I never thought that navigating the deep waters of my psyche could be so daunting. Sometimes these doubts stop me for days, but always (so far) something brings me back. I've realized that I can't live without returning to the subterranean river of my imagination. I need the silence of those waters, the space they provide, their solace. My entire existence makes sense when I visit them, when I hold out my hand to grasp those images that I later bring to life, either in metal or on paper. Knowing this, I persist. I will be closing my Etsy shop tomorrow, as I am having a large sale in Mexico City to celebrate five years as a jeweler, and then I'm off to spend Christmas season with my parents in Nayarit. 2014 has been an interesting year. It wasn't an easy year emotionally. I had to adjust to big changes in my life and in myself. I lost my belief in God. I mourned my aging parents. I separated from my live community of artist friends. I spent a lot of time alone. I spent a LOT of time alone. I also became more engaged in national politics, was infuriated and then saddened with social injustice and government corruption, and nearly migrated to another country because of it. There was also a lot of light this year. Abhaya (my life partner) and I celebrated seven years together. It has been a beautiful union, and I am blessed to have him in my life. I also spent many special, memorable moments with my mom, my dad and my sister. I launched this blog, and realized my dream of making one-of-a-kind pieces only. I recovered my love of drawing. Improved my photography and writing skills, and listened to many great stories while I worked in my studio. I am calmer, stronger and grateful to be on my path. I look forward to a new year with regained confidence, clarity, and many new ideas I want to explore. Thank you for coming with me on this creative journey. Your encouragement and support has fed my soul. May you also find meaning in your path, and take each step with courage, wisdom, and trust in your self. I once held a job as the front desk manager of an art school. I enjoyed the creative environment, met interesting people, and gave it my best. One day, the owner mentioned that a neighborhood school was looking for a ceramics instructor, and asked us to spread the word. When I first began looking for work, I had entered the school where I was currently employed asking for just that kind of job, but had settled for the available administrative position, when I realized they had no ceramics department. When the owner saw my face light up, he exclaimed, NOT you! We are going to tie you to this desk so you never leave. It was meant as a joke and a compliment, but I had the sudden gut realization that if I continued to work for other people, I would never earn my living as an artist. That moment fueled the fire that has brought me to where I am now. Ring of Fire. Now in my online shop. In 2003, after graduating from college in Vermont, I moved to New York City. Having spent all of my money on rent, I needed to get a job soon. Knowing that my chances of getting work as an artist were limited, I considered other options. I had worked as a waitress, and swore I would never do it again, so I had to try something new. Alone in my empty studio apartment, I browsed through the Yellow Pages and found the Antique Restoration section. I called the number on the biggest ad, and asked if they needed an assistant. The woman who answered said they did, and gave me an appointment that afternoon. I had never restored antiques, but as a ceramist, I repaired the pieces that broke during the firing process; and years before –when I painted– I had made my own wooden frames and was good at finishing them. I could always learn, I thought. I met Boris that afternoon. He was a marvelous eccentric who had exiled from Russia fifteen years earlier, and had set up his restoration shop in mid town. He had begun empirically. Materials he had used earlier were not available in America, so he tested every epoxy in the market, and quickly became an expert restoring every surface: wood, cement, porcelain, glass, canvas and leather. Legend had it that he was the best in town. A broken glass vase from Tiffany that he had restored, was valued as pristine at Sotheby’s. My interview was interesting. No questions were asked about my skills as a restorer, instead, Boris went on about anti-semitism, the state of affairs in Israel, how the phone company “did him racket,” and would I like to start the next day? For months, I worked long days under his wing, emerging into the streets late at night, dizzy from inhaling glue fumes, exited to be living in my dream metropolis. Metropolis ring. Now in my online shop. I've been drawing a lot lately. I needed to disconnect from the local news and recover my internal space of peace and magic. Let my imagination soar and visit different places. This inner freedom is my life saver. I can't function without it, and it brings order to the chaos around me. I am grateful for the ability my mind has to see images that I later fix on paper and explore further. What I draw almost always comes from a three dimensional image I hold in my mind, and it is not a live object –but rather– a piece of jewelry that would be too complex to make with the metalsmith techniques that I use. Sometimes my well of ideas fills up so much, that I need to capture images with greater ease, and drawing lets me do this. I made this series using silver and gold pen on black cardboard. Most drawings measure approximately 8 by 11 inches (21 cm x 28 cm). This weekend was a great gift for me. I was deeply moved to know that many of you went to the Lonja Mercantil, at the far end of town, just to see my work. I felt the same way when I read the kind messages those of you who live far away —and from those who were not able to make it to my sale— wishing me luck. I am blessed and deeply grateful to be able to share this path with such generous people. Many of us met when I first began making jewelry, and since then we have shared stories and experiences, year after year. I have seen some of you grow up (Julia, Sofía, Natalia!); others, pass through major changes with your family, partners, country, work. Some of us haven’t met in person, but when we write I feel as if we have. I never imagined that what I would most appreciate about being a jeweler was to meet such radiant and beautiful people. Each one of you is present in my heart. May you always live inspired! I have always been fortunate to live in incredible places. When my parents married, they settled in the pine covered mountains outside Mexico City, which is where I grew up. They lived there for over 20 years, until my mother's brother, John, discovered the lake. Uncle John was a recluse who loved water. Mother has memories of him as a little boy getting lost for hours along the north England shore when the tide was out. Later, he lived on boats in Florida, Hawaii, California and islands in the Caribbean. As he grew older, he ventured out to Mexico and searched the coasts for a quiet place to settle. In his travels, he discovered a small crater lake three hours inland from Puerto Vallarta. He bought land, and for the next few years, the lake of Santa María del Oro became his home. A place as pristine as the lake of Santa María del Oro -or Samao, as the locals call it- is a rarity in Mexico. It has lush semi-tropical vegetation, clear waters and lots of wildlife. It was preserved in part because the actual town of Samao settled several kilometers away from the lake, and because it is far from major cities, and the toll roads to get there are expensive. When we visited John for the first time fifteen years ago, my parents fell in love with the lake and decided to make it their second home. My father (an architect) built a gorgeous sculpted house, a studio, and guest loft, and my mother created a wonderful garden combining plants with found objects. They planted lots of fruit trees, and grew passion fruit vines along the entire fence. The lake has brought joy and peace to their lives ever since. I went to visit my parents at Samao lake a few weeks ago, and took lots of pictures so that you could also experience such beauty. My beautiful and talented mother, Julia Musi, turns 75 this Sunday. To celebrate her creative and thriving life, I decided to give her the best present I could think of: a new website to showcase her magnificent work as a textile artist. The website project began with a rooftop photo shoot to document her current collection of felted wool and silk creations. Our dear and gorgeous friend, Daysi Urtecho modeled, my mother and father assisted, Lucca (Daysi's dog) kept us company, and I took the pictures. Once the pictures were edited, building the website was also a treat. Creating simple websites is something I've learnt to do out of necessity to show my own work, and now I almost enjoy making them as much as I do creating jewelry! Below are a few of my favorite images from the site. You can see all of Julia's incredible Art to Wear, and read more about her life and craft at: www.juliamusi.com |
welcomeI am Jennifer Musi, the jewelry artist behind MUSIBATTY, and this is my blog archive.
Here you can find posts from December 2013, to May, 2016. I will no longer update this site. Please click on the link below to see my recent work. @musibattyOn Social Media
ConnectRespectI made this blog to share my work with you. I believe in generosity and I want to live in a world where we all inspire each other.
All of my designs and photographs are copyrighted. If you would like to reproduce them in any way, please email me first. Archives
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