Tag: jewelry

The Interfictions Auctions Ends Today, Help us Raise $400 More Dollars

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
The Interfictions Auctions Ends Today, Help us Raise $400 More Dollars

In a few hours the last of the Interfictions auctions will come to an end. Bidding closes on two around noon eastern time and then thereafter until around 7PM eastern. The last seven pieces are so beautiful and wonderful and amazing that I insist you bid! I’ve set a personal goal: I’d like to raise $400 with these last auctions, but that can only happen if you go and enter a minimum bid.

Now I obviously know that budgets are tight and all, and I certainly don’t want you to bid more than you can afford. But I bet that you can afford one of those pieces at the current bid, so why not go try? You might be outbid, but that’s okay. You still took a chance! And don’t be afraid of outbidding others. If they want it, they’ll come back and claim it.

Here are my thoughts and favorite things about each of the pieces:

All Valentines are One Valentine — When I was taking pictures of this box my roommate came in and sat just starting at it for 30 minutes. It tends to capture people and engage them deeply. I particularly love the bits of story written on different parts of the mask. And, according to Shadesong, the text written on the blue part of the mask is actually fanfiction. Fanfiction, people! In mask form! The interplay between the parts of the mask, like slices of a person, with the colors and the text is so masterfully done  that I could just stare at it all day.

Gilded Cage — Cris completed this piece just a little while ago so we slid it in right at the end. She’d already photographed a bunch of the auction pieces yet still found time to do this. I’m so glad as I’m a huge fan of her necklaces (I own three!) and this is no exception. I’m also really, really glad that she chose Genevieve Valentine’s piece since that’s one of my favorites in IF2 (in the annex). The bees and the lock and the color of the beads so perfectly encapsulate the beauty and majesty and terror and pain the character experiences in the story. Plus, it’s just damn beautiful.

Berry Moon — I’m sad that we could never get pictures that truly do this skirt justice. It’s not only beautiful, but the material it’s made out of feels so damn GOOD. It’s a wrap skirt and can fit a variety of sizes because the final hole for the tie hasn’t been sewn in yet. The artist, Pam Noles, did that so whoever won could size it to their needs. She’ll even make the adjustment for you. If you’re a fan of wrap skirts, of purple, of beautiful clothes, or want to give someone a fabulous handmade and possibly unique gift, go bid now! I will throw a fit if it goes for less than $100.

Valentines — Yes, there were a lot of pieces based on this story, but this one is (I think) the only one that represents a collaboration between the artist and author. From the statement:

Shira Lipkin and I collaborated on this project, working together to record the story in as many different forms as possible: audio on cassette tape and CD, video on DVD, handwritten on parchment, computer printed on paper. I then shattered the disks, tore the paper, and cut the tape into small fragments and used one fragment from each medium in this piece…

People, do you realize how insanely cool that is? Pieces of story recorded, deconstructed, and made into wearable art. How is that not something you want to own?

A Chain of Memories — This charm necklace is yet another fantastic embodiment of Shadesong’s story and also includes bottles for storing messages. Plus, you can add your own charms to it over time, thus adding to the story, and wear it in several different ways. I love the idea that, by wearing this, you’re participating in the IF2 story and creating a new version of it simply by existing.

The Quiz — Handmade journals are always a hit with me. This one is small, too, so would easily fit in a pocket. Yes, I’m bidding on it. If I win, I’ve decided to write bizarre quiz questions inside it and get other people to write in answers. We’ll see what the end product looks like, but I bet it’ll be cool. Maybe I’ll auction that off next year. Just because I’m bidding and plan to do this cool thing doesn’t mean YOU cannot bid and do cool things with this piece. Make me work for it!

What He Said — This pendant says: “Maybe we can not belong together”. I want it just for that. Belonging is something I think all people crave, though in different degrees and in different ways. The IAF is about bringing together artists who don’t belong and giving them a sort of belonging while not trying to take away the good that can come from not belonging. If that makes sense. Art often arises from tensions, and being outside, being in-between, being liminal is a great source of tension. It also helps when you can be around people who get that and celebrate it. That’s what this pendant is: the IAF in jewelry form.

Click here to visit the auction site and bid. Seriously, I want to raise $400 today and you can all help. Last time I checked, current bids put us at $277 for the day. So just $123 to go!  Help us get there. Look at these with an eye toward something you’d like for yourself or for a friend or family member. Bid what you can and spread the word.

Interfictions 2 Auction: My Favorites

By:  TempestWriting

This is my non-short and non-silly post about the Interfictions auction.

For those of you kind of new to my blog, I’m a member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging art and artists that exist outside of or between borders. I’ve been a fairly active member for a while, mainly because I once expressed a bit of interest and Ellen Kushner pounced on me. I am forever within her paws, but that’s okay because she is one of the more fabulous human beings on the planet, as is her wife Delia Sherman. So it’s all good.

I was lucky enough to have a story picked for the first Interfictions anthology. Then about a year later I organized an auction of jewelry based on the stories in Interfictions. It went so well that we immediately began brainstorming ideas for how we’d run the auction for the next volume of Interfictions. This time we opened it up to all manner of art, as long as it was wearable, portable, or at least easily mailable. The call went out, some free stories were distributed, a little over 40 artists took on the challenge and now we have just over 30 pieces of art to show for it.

The auction has been going on for a couple of weeks now. Sorry I have not posted about it before this. Like I said yesterday: awesome, but busy job. The pieces that are no longer available were beautiful and amazing, but there is definitely still time to bid on some awesome pieces.

You should go take a look at this gallery with images of everything, but I am going to walk you through my favorites.

Shatterglass Datakey is ending today (in about an hour, actually) and I wanted it then Ellen Kushner tried to take it from me then my friend Charlotte came along and tried to pretend like she was going to win it. I’m going to be evil and bid at the last minute. If you are evil, maybe you should as well. It’s a pendant that is a key that is wrapped in wire and beads that have writing on them and, people, it is awesomeness squared.

Everybody Knows is a hunk of handmade yard that incorporates bits of paper with the story it’s based on (Valentines by Shira Lipkin) printed on it. You need to just click here and read the artist’s statement, as I cannot do it justice. I really like this piece, but I kept wondering if it would be possible to actually DO something with that yarn. Like knit it into a scarf or something. So I asked the artist, the faboo Emily Wagner, and she said:

You can TOTALLY knit with it. I mean, the paper is going to be falling out, but the yarn itself should be pretty structurally sound. I soaked it and stretched it on my swift when I was done skeining it up, which took FOREVER, BTW. :) I think it would be a really cool textural scarf, with lots of dropped stitches to show it off.

And here’s the thing: whatever anyone makes from this yarn, it will also be interstitial art. And the fact that the bits of paper will fall away adds this layer of transience to it. Like, no matter what, the Valentines will continue to fall away, until all that’s left is the memory within the yarn itself, in the person who made the yarn, and in the person who knitted it. There are just so many layers of meaning inherent in this art — layers that reveal themselves over time — that I can’t believe more people are not bidding on this. If you knit, you must bid. Then you must show us all what you knit. I’ll post about it on the IAF’s blog myself.

The Animometer is a piece everyone always gasps over when they see it. I have an affinity for art made from the bones of objects, and who doesn’t love an antique pocket watch?

The Child Empress of Mars (doll). When I first opened the box this came in I was both entranced by its beauty and shocked by its alienness. As I’ve said elsewhere, this is probably the most evocative and striking piece in the auction. It’s visceral and perfectly embodied the story and beautiful but also makes you want to run away screaming. Can you imagine having this in your living room in a place where everyone who comes in would see it? That would be so awesome. I have no hope of owning it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Untitled is just a beautiful picture depicting a really, really strange scene. I love the colors, the way the brain is glowing but entrapped by and connected to all of those branches. It’s going up in a few days and is definitely on my want list.

I will post more favorites next week. In the meantime, you should go check out the auctions and this preview of all the pieces. There’s clothing and jewelry and funky barely classifiable items of amazingness. Also, if you have not already, you should check out the Interfictions 2 anthology. I’m lucky enough to have read all of the stories and can tell you that this antho is just as good as the first. My homie Alaya Dawn Johnson has a fantastic story within and my other homie Genevieve Valentine has a story in the online annex to the anthology. Eight stories that were so good that Delia and Chris (the editors) couldn’t bear to not buy them, so they published them online. You can read them for free.

Next week I will also probably post something about comparisons between pieces of art based on the same stories. It’s always cool to see different interpretations and which parts of the story speak to each artist.

The Return of Shiny Things

By:  TempestShiny Things
The Return of Shiny Things

In between the 10 million other things I have been and need to be doing, I spent a couple of hours last night updating The Raven’s Nest, my little portfolio/blog for jewelry and prayer beads. As I mentioned not too long ago, I want to start beading again to make a little extra money. Now more than ever, right?

The site is now all controlled via WordPress with galleries conveniently taken care of by the Flickr Photo Album plugin. There’s an RSS feed and an email notification thing.  No LJ-syndication of said feed yet because I don’t have a paid account anymore. I’ll start selling stuff as soon as I make it.

Speaking of: remember me mentioning that I wanted to make a game out of it? I solidified that idea into a feature on the site called Reader’s Choice. That is, you pick the beads and the theme, I then work within those constraints. Check out the first post and vote and stuff!

Money For Nothing

By:  TempestJewelry

This week I discovered that my workplace is raising my contribution to our health insurance to $50/paycheck.  (Before it was $30.)  I’m not too upset about that (whatever keeps my insurance from going away is fine, plus, they are paying a big chunk), but it does mean more of a crunch on my budget.  I decided that the best way to deal with it is to resolve to make fifty extra bucks a month via creative means.

In some months I’ll get money from stories I sell (and yay that), for the others I think I will again attempt to sell jewelry.  Or, I should say, I will start making jewelry again.  I haven’t for a while, mainly because I have so much else to do.

It used to be that I would make websites for extra cash.  But now that both of my jobs involve dealing with web stuff, I DO NOT want to spend my free time doing it.  At all.  Besides, Jeremy Tolbert is far better at it than me and he is more in need of serious gigs at the moment.

I think that I can swing making two reasonably priced necklaces or five $10 earrings a month.  I may even make a game out of it and solicit your participation.  That’s right, I’m making my readers my accomplices.  Mwahaha.

Why the hell am I up at 1am?

By:  TempestGeekitude

Because I had to complete some jewelry then take pictures of it.

Can I just say: taking pictures of jewelry is fucking hard! I need a better lightbox or something. Or maybe just some classes on how to get all the yellow out of images.

Anyway, the fruits of all my labor:

Inwood Hill

These are called Inwood Hill. Click the image for a bigger pic (not excessively big, tho). This is the completed version of the WiP I showed you last week. And, like I said, I was inspired by Deborah’s necklace. It’s made from glass beads, small fancy jasper, small wood beads (the red), a few glass leaves, some coral (the gold/brown), all dangling from loopy chain. You may also notice that one earring looks fuller than the other. That’s because one of the pair has two dangly chains. And if you look really close, you may see the glass black feather hidden in the woods.

The earrings are slightly heavy, but not very much so. I’m going to put them on posts with wide backs for support.

And then…

Black Feather Bracelet

That’s a bracelet. I haven’t named it yet, but it’s meant to symbolize the shirts that the sister in The Twelve Ravens/Seven Swans/etc. has to make. I used cotton ribbon and interweaved it with a metal chain (it’s sort of meant to evoke this trendy bracelet, but be more awesome) then sewed buttons on. You can wrap it around the arm 2 or 3 times, depending on the thickness of your wrist. I suppose it could also be a choker.

Those are both going up for auction soon. And then there’s The Hidden Heart:

The Hidden Heart

If you click the image, there’s an extremely large version where you can see a little more detail on the heart. I chose that bead because it has black bits at the center that look a bit like wings or birds. This is another piece based on “Black Feather”. I’m being a bit obvious with this one — hiding the heart or the core behind a bunch of restrictive chains. I’m thinking of just selling these since I have three things already going on the IAF Auction and I’d feel a bit like an attention hog if I just kept putting up my own stuff. Plus, it would be nice to make some money!

I suppose I should get to bed now…

Busy Day in the Betweenisphere

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Busy Day in the Betweenisphere

Lots to do!  Firstly, you should travel on over to the IAFAuction site and bid on some stuff.  There’s plenty of stuff!  Yesterday two new auctions went up, a jewelry set and a necklace.  We only had one set sent to us for auction, and it’s really awesome.  The earrings are worth the opening bid alone!  Like, go grab that and some stuff.  The necklace is by Leslie What… yes THE Leslie What.  What more reason do you need?

Also, the auctions for Willow Pattern & And Then She Flew end soon.  Not to be pushy or anything, but that necklace based on my story is so super awesome that the bidding should go higher.  It’s based on my story, how can you not want to pay hundreds for it?  And Willow Pattern is an original Elise creation!  Even if you were to bid $80 for it you’d still be getting it for significantly less than if she just sold it.  So go bid $80!

And after all that hard selling, here’s something fun.  The third Interstitial salon started today. We’re talking about jewelry as art and as interstitial art:

We’ll be talking about creating visual art inspired by texts, about the relationships between narrative and wearable art, the cultural history of personal adornment — anything we can think of!

The conversation has already started, so join in!

Guess what’s on IAFAuctions today?

By:  TempestEvents

Why it’s a necklace based on my story. Woo! And it’s really, really beautiful. The artist is Deborah J. Brannon and, much to my surprise, she says it’s the first necklace she’s ever made. Way to come charging out of the gate there…

And Then She Flew

Deborah is the author of one of the most beautiful reviews of Black Feather, which she then incorporated into her artist statement:

…the story is a river: it fetches you in with intriguing shallows, soft eddies of water, refracting light as it swirls over half-obscured and winking stones. And then, once you’ve waded out so far, a strong current seizes you and pulls you under into terror and wonder and understanding.

!!  Okay, go bid.  You must.  I insist.  It’s so awesome!

(p.s. other awesomeness today includes a superfantasticohmygoditsamazing pendant from Elise.  Bid on that, too!)

Shiny Shiny Shiny

By:  TempestNews

Because I was so involved in setting it up yesterday, I neglected to post here about the auction of jewelry based on Interfictions stories. From the press release:

Interstitial artists and admirers of Interfictions have come forward with some truly stunning pieces based on Interfictions stories by Matthew Cheney, Catherynne M. Valente, Jon Singer, Veronica Schanoes, and Colin Greenland. Participants include artists Elise Matthesen, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Mia Nutick, Kris McDermott, and many more.

And, most remarkably, some of the authors themselves have created unique pieces based on their own work! Keep an eye on IAFAuctions.com to see wearable interpretations of their own work by Interfictions authors Leslie What, Rachel Pollack, and K. Tempest Bradford.

I like that term: wearable interpretations Ellen Kushner came up with that!

So far a piece by JoSelle based on the Valente story and a piece by Sarah based on Cheney’s story are up. And today I posted a preview of stuff to come.

And yes, it’s true that I have something going up, too. I have been trying to come up with something for months. Months! But then I saw this gorgeous piece based on “Black Feather” (which is, can I just say, so amazing to see something beautiful that was inspired by something I did. So cool!) and was inspired myself. I don’t know if my idea will pan out, but here’s a sneak peek of the earrings I am making called “Inwood Hill”:

Work In Progress

I want to add one more chain, but I’m afraid of making it too heavy. But then I use pretty light materials on there — very light/hollow glass beads, coral, tiny Jasper beads that weigh very little. There will also be a black feather hidden in there somehow. What do you guys think?