Life is Like a Crooked Road

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When I was a girl, I thought that life came in a straight path. If I just behaved myself, studied hard and sought the goal, everything would pan out. Work = results – right?  If I didn’t get the top score at a piano contest, it was probably because I didn’t practice hard enough. (Remember that day I went to the drug store with my friends instead of practicing?)  If my African Violets didn’t bloom, I probably over watered them. If my children acted up, I must have not taught them properly. If I ate too much, I gained weight (now that was is actually true!) Even now, if a piece of jewelry doesn’t sell, I think that I must not have polished it enough.  I could and probably still can justify most everything through cause and effect.

Now, I’m grown up and I know I’m not responsible for every occurrence in my life. Today, I’m coughing and sneezing because of the allergens in the air. Is it my fault? . . . I don’t think so. As confident as I am, I don’t really think I can control the elements. One of the classes I offered didn’t have enough participants. It’s not all my fault; people are just busy. My favorite dog is growing too old to last much longer . . . it’s not my fault; things just happen on this crooked road.

You can practically drive yourself crazy by trying to avoid the inevitable and working hard visioning what might come next. My former idea that life follows a straight path from A to B is absurd. Life is just plain crooked.

When we first bought the ranch, every day something broke; an animal got in the wrong pasture or something else initiated a crook in the daily routine. We wondered when we could just get on with the plan. The fact is that these things were the plan; we just didn’t know it and we learned to expect the unexpected like the pit in a cherry. If the young bull fell in the well (as he did one night), you just get the tractor and pull him out. After all, it’s not my fault he fell in!

There are tiny crooks in the road and enormous ones. There are crooks that narrow to the point that you feel yourself being strangled while other crooks pleasantly open up to a plethora of possibilities. I think the trick is to accept all the twists and turns both ahead and behind us and embrace the road. I remind myself that life would certainly be boring if it were totally predictable. Do I really want to be able to manipulate what comes next? (actually, some days I do)

If life is a crooked road, my current thinking is “give yourself a break.” I can’t straighten the road by working hard or caring more. Let’s just hope my best efforts help to smooth out a few bumps on those hard turns.

Here’s hoping all your crooked roads lead you toward happiness.

Articles, Philosophy, Ranching 1 comment

Coloring and the Lines

Filed under: charms, Color, Creativity, Earrings, Metal Work, Necklaces, Techniques | Back to: Homepage

Do you color within the lines? My first reaction to this question would be “absolutely not;” yet on second thought . . . the idea of coloring within the lines might be situational.  When someone poses this query, they usually don’t actually want to know about color, but rather about whether you follow the rules or parameters set for a task. While most highly creative individuals intentionally stray from the rules others try to impose on their art form, they may follow the rules in other instances. For example, this might be to pay the bills on time, get the car registration sticker to avoid a ticket, etc. Rules and parameters can be important.

This is the case with some jewelry techniques. For example, on Sunday I did some etching on copper which requires mixing an acid solution. I read the directions three times before ever opening the bottle of acid. The rules were important to keep me from burning myself. I’ve also found some of the suggested “rules” for torch enameling are quite helpful for this technique.

If I use counter enamel on the back of a metal piece, it has less of a tendency to curve under when I apply several enamel coats on the top. Also, I’ve found that it’s helpful to use the suggested liquid that helps hold the enamel powder on the surface of the metal. Go ahead. Ask me how many tiny bits of colored enamel threads rolled off my pieces and fell on the floor of the work room before I discovered this agent.

A past post showed a few examples of torch enameled pieces of jewelry, but I wanted to share some of the newer work. The necklace at the top shows a variety of techniques with which I’ve experimented. Below are a few of the earrings sets I’ve made.

The Gingerbread family below was tricky to make and I’m not sure why Gingerbread Pop has more sugar on him than the others . . . ?

It’s rather obvious that I didn’t color between the lines on these pieces but rather I often just let the enamel stay where it landed. I’ll follow the rules/lines on something else that I’m doing, but not in my art form. How about you?

charms, Color, Creativity, Earrings, Metal Work, Necklaces, Techniques 2 comments