You never know where you'll find inspiration

The piece of crystalline titanium came to me in the mail. Sent carefully packaged by Holly Gage, it was nestled in a Newman's Own ginger mints tin. As soon as I took it out I was not only delighted by the titanium, but I was struck by the pretty art on the tin. I squirreled it away.

I took this photo after I started cutting it.

Now I wanted to design something to do justice to that sparkling titanium. I sketched out several versions of a necklace, and decided it would be cool to cut a circle out of that tin and make it into a cabochon to use in the piece.

I liked the bolo idea best.

So this was July, and I had my sketch ready to go—sort of. I started what I call "circling". This is what I do when I'm not 100% certain about carrying something out. I circle, figuratively speaking. I circled and thought about it and never did make it. Something was holding me back, I don't know what it was...

Enter Lora Hart and her 4 a Month challenge for 2012. This group on Flickr is created around the concept of making 4 pieces a month—anything you'd like—but you must make four of them. You can choose your theme and process.

Coincidentally, I also had just completed a "mentorial" with Lora. This is the "creative coaching" service she provides through her web site and Etsy shop. We discussed my being in a stuck spot with my jewelry business. Lora provided much food for thought, and encouraged me to explore and try new things.

The 4 a Month challenge, the mentorial, the tin…inspiration! What if I made that pendant I had sketched out, and 3 more pieces using parts of the tin? Almost right away, I pictured all 4 pieces. I signed up for the 4 a Month group and got to work.

top, left: Holly's Necklace; right: Dragon Cuff
bottom, left: Rainbow Drops Earrings; right, Window Box Pendant
All are precious metal clay except the cuff, which was done with sheet copper.
©2012 Evelyn Pelati Dombkowski

The first piece was the titanium pendant. For this, I cut out a circle from the tin, dapped it into a dome, and set it like a cabochon in a bezel in a bolo above the pendant. I named this piece "Holly's Necklace" in honor of Holly Gage, who I'm sure had no idea she was providing a boatload of inspiration when she tucked that titanium into that tin.

Next came "Dragon Cuff"—because of course I HAD to do something with that dragon!

After that I made "Rainbow Drops" earrings. Last, "Window Box Pendant".

It was a lot of fun and very satisfying to complete a series like this. I am looking forward to continuing on with 4 a Month each month throughout the year.

Thank you to Holly and to Lora for getting me to stop circling and to move forward. You never know where you will find inspiration!

~ Evelyn Pelati Dombkowski

Are you lost in cyberspace ??

I have talked about the importance of crediting your images the right way every time you post a picture of your work in any site in the Internet. This not only gives you the rights and credit of your work but also makes your images have an identity.
I talked about this topic in this post: Do you credit your art work the right way?

Crediting your images is very important but it is also not the only thing you have to do when you post your images on line, tagging your pictures is extremely IMPORTANT !! 
You will be lost in cyberspace if you do not tag your images.


Some people may think this is too hard or they may not want to do the extra job of writing tags for their images, but I am telling you, if you do not do it then I do not see the point in posting your images without tags. Tags help you to make your pictures visible to others when they do search in the Internet.


Tagging an image is simple, tags are words that will describe what is in your picture; for example:

ROSAS
©2011 Lorena Angulo
Sterling PMC
Photo: Speedy Peacock

Tags: Lorena Angulo, Ring, Silver, PMC Sterling, Sterling, Metal Clay, Roses, flowers, leaves, jewelry, textures, hand sculpted


Every word in this list will make my image visible when someone writes a "key" word in any search page. 

I hope you will take the extra time when you see a space that says "tags" or "labels" to write tags in your images the next time you post a picture, this will help you and help others find your work.


Happy Tagging !!!!  


Keep Playing, keep creating !


Lorena Angulo

p.s. I almost forgot !! I need to tag my blog post too ! ;o)