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This week I will build myself a new website. The one you are currently visiting is not responsive, which means that the experience you have when you view it on a mobile device is not great, and that’s how most of us view the web nowadays. I will let you know when it's ready!  “Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.    
  Lunar Formation pendant. Handmade with silver obsidian, transparent quartz and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. Striped top by my friends at Fábrica Social.
  
 Moon Talismans. Handmade with transparent quartz, Orthocera fossil, and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. I must have have intuited that today’s piece was not going to work when I took this morning’s picture. There are four talismans instead of the five that I need to complete my work week. That alone should have warned me to pay closer attention. In my distracted state, I made one bad creative decision after another, which led me to ruin three finished pieces, cut my finger, and just barely finish a necklace that I will photograph tomorrow. Still, I appreciate days like this, because what would life be like without contrast?  This week's talismans: unpolished jade, fossilized shark's tooth, quartz crystal, polished Orthocera fossil.  When I make a piece that is succesful, I am always tempted to repeat it. But I have worked at my craft long enough to know that if I do, I’d fall into the formula trap. This trap ruins most art because it squeezes the life out of it. I know that there is no way to create something fresh and interesting unless I let go of all expectations and begin again. I must approach each creative exercise with the innocence and freedom of a child, who is happy to engage in the process, just to see what she discovers. 
     The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect         Abhaya is in the next room playing his guitar and singing Rabo de Nube, by Silvio Rodriguez. His version is better than any I've heard before, and I wish I could share it with you. If he ever records it, I will be sure to do so. In the meantime, I've translated the lyrics. The images in the song remind me of the ring I made today. Tail Cloud If I were asked to make a wish, I’d prefer a tail cloud, a whirlwind on the ground and a rising anger. A sweeper of sorrows, a downpour in revenge that when it stops resembles our hope. A sweeper of sorrows, a downpour in revenge that when it stops resembles our hope.        Tail Cloud ring. Handmade with green agate and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. I just finished reading Twyla Tharp's, The Creative Habit, an insightful book on how to form habits that nurture creativity and keep you inspired. The book offers simple exercises to generate new ideas using promts. My favorite is called, "Do a Verb." You begin by making a list of ten verbs, and then use one of them to create something. Twyla uses verbs to choreograph a dance, but you can use them to paint a picture, design a house, or compose music. I used mine to design a ring. 
 
 Creating a series is a like imagining a family portrait. Each piece has to share characteristics with rest of the group, but must be different enough to make it interesting on its own.      Labradorite is such a luminous stone that it sparks my imagination.     Luminous pendant. Handmade with labradorite and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. When I make my second piece of the week, I always carefully observe the first. I want them to have a common thread: it could be the stone (as it was in the Moonstone series), or it could be a theme (as were branches –or connected lines– in last week’s tourmaline quartz series). If I want to explore several un-related ideas, then the stone will be the shared element. When an idea is rich enough to be developed in several pieces, I will choose that instead. The pieces I have made so far, have densely chiseled backgrounds that contrast with smooth, raised triangles. Their reptilian quality reminds me of Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent deity worshiped in ancient Mexico 
    Today's piece, is the result of a wrestling match between metal, and will power.      Wielded pendant. Handmade with labradorite and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. What’s it like to create something new everyday? It is exhilarating and terrifying to stand on the thin line that separates discovery from failure.         Anemone ring. Handmade with tourmaline quartz and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. Today’s ring looks like an iced heart on fire. It also looks like a lion’s mane, but what I most see, is a source from which many streams flow. 
 
  Source ring. Handmade with tourmaline quartz and 100% recycled sterling silver. Soon in my online shop. |
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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