The fringe is done!

Today I got an unexpected day off from my non-art work. I spent a good deal of it making my fringe even better than it was. I had curlycues, painted paper towel tubes cut spirally, for the bottom of each of my strings of "beads". I had enough time to cut and add them so that each string has two curlycues at the end and one at each gap between two beads.

Then I checked my gouache box to see if the gold paint I had from back when I was a student had dried up or was usable. It was fine. So I painted each bead with random squiggles of gold. Now the piece really looks like my description: a celebration of color and texture.

The best part was that as I was painting the gold squiggles, I needed to hang up the strings to dry. I hung them over a door, and as I got about four on the door i was able to see what the piece was going to look like when I got it up.

It's cool. OK, I'm not one of those artists who is super critical of their own work. I know every detail that's wrong. And sometimes I'm not as impressed with my work as others are because of that, just because it may look good, but not as good as I envisioned it.

This particular piece, though, is better. It isn't my original concept anymore. I had to work out the logistics of being able to carry it, and of simply getting enough material, and enough time to do it. I added to it as I worked. The idea of putting the curlycues further up as well as just on the ends of the strings is pretty new. And the idea of the gold just a few days old.

Now it's done in a way that I'm happy with. There are no ideas that I wish I had time for. No wish I had done this differently's. It looks like a celebration, like crackers that have been pulled, like party decorations, like fireworks. And it may be conventional idea of pretty.

But what's wrong with pretty? And I had thought of it as a sort of throw-away piece that would probably be junked after the show. But it won't. If someone doesn't fall in love with it, or even parts of it, since it could certainly be broken up, it can become the window curtain for my studio.

the way it looks now, though, I can actually imagine someone wanting something like it for a party or a garden or I'm not sure what else. I'm very glad I've got extra tubes and can do another project using them. A light fixture of some sort? An embellishment for the ugly one we've got? Christmas decorations for the house, complete with lights?

Yes, lights. That may be what it's asking for next.

Anyhow, I'll stop talking about that because I've also got a few other things to report. I'm added to my website the three pictures of my work that I gave to the AA2A;two for the weaving page and one for the jewelry page. (Ohh! The wire. Suppose I did something incorporating the colored wire...!)

I also added the pictures of the work that my students produced at my New Jewelry from Old workshop. I was quite proud of them and think that my next one will be even better because I'll bring some things I hadn't thought to bring last time. More tools and more materials, and more attention to making sure that the thicknesses of wire and the holes of beads are compatible.

If only I had the money to do shows this year. This unexpected day off will really make our budget squeak this month unless something comes up. Luckily there is potential for something to come up just in the next week. Good luck to me. I need it.