That’s not exactly true.  This post is a window into my jewelry fixated mind.  I have collected some images of things that, to me, suggest personal adornment (i.e. should be jewelry — but are not).

I realized a long time ago that my mind is always altering what I see around me.  Somewhere in the back of my head, I am always playing with space and scale and imaging how else things might be put together or altered.  I am not saying I do it well — but it happens unbidden all of the time. Often, but not always, that takes the form of imagining how I might wear what I am seeing in the form of, say, a pendant or a bracelet.  It’s just a thing my brain does.

There is something about photographic or scientific equipment that seems so sophisticated in design that it suggests it a sleek, cosmopolitan piece of jewelry. This, for example, I can imagine as the inspiration for a brooch or a pendant.  I suppose, in general, I love clear glass in jewelry.

To some extent, the use of old lenses and pieces-parts of old equipment is covered by the steampunk folks.  I’ll admit to not being the biggest of steampunk fans, although there are some artists out there doing it really well.  To extent that steampunk doesn’t speak to me, that may be because the materials that are often used are put into a context that I find incongruous.  I do understand that that is the whole point.  Conceptually, though, it just hits a wall in my head. The whole distressed, vintage-y thing (the steam in the steampunk) with modern items only goes so far with me.  I suppose I always want to see the modern realized.

I love stripes, polka-dots, and other tight, repetitive patterns.  While all plants seem to be fodder for jewelry designers everywhere — from patterns to actual casts of plant life — there is something about vines and ivy in particular.  I think they speak to me with their closely repeating pattern of leaves.  I find them the perfect inspiration for chains, cuff bracelets, and beaded jewelry.  Nature has a way of creating the perfect rhythm in a pattern — big, small, and just the right amount of variation in space.

I think fire can be strongly evocative of good design.  It has movement and light and interacts with the space around it.  Under good conditions and not destructive ones, it improves the space it is in with warm light.  Good jewelry design, with nicely set stones, can seek to do the same.  It can create movement, catch and reflect light, and make everything more beautiful.