Blog Carnival: January 2010

Etsy Metal Blog Carnival

"So what is a blog carnival you ask?"

It is group of Etsy Metal members who will collectively write a article on the monthly subject. We will be blogging this the first Monday of each month.

Topic: "My Favorite Object"

One of my many jobs was to clean the railings of this 6 floor building, it had railings on every floor with an open atrium than runs all the way to the top with a skylight. It was beautiful. I just tried to find pictures of it and nothing, zip, zero. Maybe it was not as gorgeous as I remembered!? Better off I suppose not tarnishing my so fond memories....

I would take my rubber gloves, a toothbrush, strips of rag and a bucket of water with Simple Green mixed in it. I would start at the top floor and by the time I finished months down the road it was time to start at the top again. Did I mention I had to dry it as I went because we did not want the ornate iron railings to rust. It was mind numbingly painful. I of course only would be on that project for just part of my day, and yes I tried to avoid it as much as possible after awhile, all of a sudden painting offices, cleaning spots off the carpets, snaking the sewer in the Old Seattle Underground became way more fun than breaking my back on the railings!

So this locket was born. I gave it to my sister for a thank you present because she gave me all the basic tools I needed to be able to feed my new fire and also her husband created this job customized just for me. They were nurturing me. If she hadn't given me those tools I probably would not be making jewelry today. It allowed me to work from home and to be able to explore it with out any boundries. It would of been nearly impossible for me to afford to buy the those basic tools as the cost of start up is very 'spensive, and at the time just using class time my growth would of been slow and maybe non-existent, as I am a all or nothing type of person. I do not know how my locket came back to me, but she gave it back to me for some reason I will have to ask her why now again, hmmm.... I believe I am just holding on to it for her, so it really is not mine, but I will forge ahead with my memories anyway.

Many more are arising from that time now. I had dreadlocks, piercings, I played guitar in a band, and I was taking jewelry classes. I met a creative social wizard named Maia on the front porch of the building, as I was a smoker back then and you know how all the smokees hang out on their breaks and she introduced me to my now friend Nakisha (aka Bluedogrose), and to this day we still get to hang out once in a while, these two are some of my oldest and dearest friends I am still in contact with on a regular basis.

So this is my favorite object today and these are the memories it captures for me... I am now realizing how a special object can hold so many different collections of thoughts.....
This was really nice for me to reflect upon, thanks for reading!

This is so hard to pick just ONE item, so I will need to put it in a desperate situation of a scenario of what would be important to me, as there are too many to even count. Some with more significance and others less but all have meaning to some degree... what OBJECT would I mourn over if lost.... If there was a fire and all my humans and fur babies were safe and I could run back in to grab a keepsake.

My first instinct to say is my jewelry dresser (box) or my computer and camera, my wallet. But those are too practical for the intensive purposes of this topic.

So this is a super duper hard thing for me to decide, but if I had to pick something for TODAY as my mind changes like the weather around here, it would be....

...my first piece of jewelry I made that I was actually proud of. It is the foundation piece that made me feel I was on the right track as to finding my passion. I made this window locket when I was working as a janitor for a beautiful historic building in downtown Seattle called the