Sandywoods Gallery

The gallery in my community has just opened it's doors. After a lot of hard work by many of my neighbors we have a beautiful gallery steps from my house.read the story Tiverton Patch

another day at the office

I just arrived home from a long but positive day at another craft show. StArt on the Street in Worcester, MA. There was a great crowd, all generally happy and interested in supporting handmade. Even if a show is slow sales wise good energy can make up for that.



I ended up in a very entertaining location across from the metal workers. There were about four young strong men heating metal in a forge and hammering(with really big sledgehammers) all day. It was mesmerizing to watch. Also cool was seeing them use many of the same techniques as I do on my jewelry but on such a large scale.



When I was just a wee one my father figure had a large forge and would spend hours repetitively heating, hammering and shaping iron. I'm not exactly sure what he was making now that I think about it.  hmmm... Well anyway, my brother and I would crawl under the forge after everything had cooled off in search of 'clinker' the shiny silver looking lumps of incombustible leftovers from them coal. I'm not exactly sure what we did with those either.
He passed that anvil he used for metalworking down to me. That's where so much of the great texture in my jewelry comes from.

It's also my son's favorite seat while I work.

New Studio

Newly re-built jewelry bench.

Still Voting

My community, Sandywoods Farm has been nominated to win a free fruit orchard. The 20 communities with the most votes will win. So we've been voting everyday and will continue for a long long time since the contest runs from May 1-August 30.

Right now we're somewhere around 16th place, so we have a chance.

We will use the orchard for educational youth programming within Sandywoods and the surrounding towns. Whatever we don't eat will be sold with the profits going back into the garden. Then we hope to donate to local food pantries. The possibilities are endless with such an amazing resource. Every vote counts so please vote.

We were featured on the local news last week.

check out http://www.ftpf.org/ for more info on this great project

Calm Day

I'm rather obsessed with the wind. First of all it's my favorite form of weather. Second I've found it's been determining my work schedule

It's spring time, so yes, very windy season. I also seem to live in a very windy location, hence the wind turbine soon to power my studio, house and neighborhood. I've been waiting for a calm day to plant the hundreds of kale and lettuce seedlings I've been nurturing since April.

Today, the day I'd set aside to work all day in my studio turns out to be beautiful sunny and calm. So of course I must go up to the community garden and get the little guys in the ground.