nails & whales

I've been feeling pretty creative lately.

I know, this is an art blog where I showcase my artwork – and creative expression. So shouldn't I be feeling creative, maybe, pretty much all of the time? Or at least on a semi-regular schedule?

Truthfully, not really. I do sit down and attempt to create about once every week or two weeks, but rarely do I actually feel inspired. Sounds terrifically cliché, I'm aware. But these moments have a frequency of perhaps four times a year, and when they happen, I sit down and work incessantly on an idea. One that's been nudging the back of my prefrontal cortex, pushed to the back burner, for a heck of a long time.

Usually, I paint. With acrylics on paper, or, once, with polish on keratin. Sometimes I sketch in black and white, and very rarely I go into the kitchen and bake up something nice. This time, I had a strange urge to make jewelry.

Wireworked delicate pendants for delicate necklaces. The quartz crystal in the upper left is undrilled; its only support is the wrapped wire.

Forgive me for the irrelevance of this to nail polish, but this is all I can do as I wait for the chance to buy nail glue. (I indulged in flatback crystals in Hong Kong. It's time to make up for what my senior ball manicure lacked.)

Why jewelry? It's a throwback to the mornings and evenings I used to spend with my mom, squished on an old piano bench in the "bead room." She began creating homemade jewelry when I was 7 after an impromptu purchase of a strand of beads – iridescent blue Czech glass – from the bead shop next to a local supermarket. Over the years, my small fingers found purchase in needlenose and roundnose pliers. I perfected wire-wrapped loops and wove loops of seed beads with Fireline by her side for hours, and I recall sprawling on the carpet under the bench in pursuit of rogue fallen beads. Unfortunately, the hobby was paused around five years ago for multiple reasons; I hadn't picked up the blue needlenose pliers since. Until, for some curious reason, I just needed to recreate a hand chain I'd saved in my "vouloir" images folder from an online shop.

And then I made a massive mess of wire, chain, pliers, and gems on my green cutting mat (i.e. workspace). And a pile of pendants and a couple of hand chains.

Materials for the pendants – and future pendants.

No more nostalgic commentating. Here are the hand chains!

Gold, with light gauge chain. More on the subtle side.

Bolder, brasher brass. Not quite sure if I'd wear this, but I like the structure.

If this is what a lack of nail glue drives me to, I'm fairly happy that this was a productive lack of nail glue.

Currently listening to: Tonight You're Perfect and Harlem by New Politics

Thanks for reading! :•)