Morning friendly blog readers and Tangleweeds friends! Going along with the general nature of things over here at Tangleweeds headquarters this year I'm shifting things a bit with my Item of the Week series to something that feels a bit more comfortable for the tone, vibe and frequency of my posting here. I'm still going to spotlight various designs this year, along with offering a special discount on the specific piece, but I'm going to shift these posts to less often, maybe once or twice a month. I recently started the Creative Tenacity series and that is keeping my typing fingers busy too!
Enter the Story Behind the Design series. For this first one, I've selected the Wander style necklace. I LOVE this design and wear mine quite often. I make no two of these identically the same and hand texture and sand them as well.
I was inspired to create this design by my trips to the Eel and Yuba rivers in California, over the last few years. The areas where the river was dried out during the summers (and especially during the drought years) was cracked in such an organic array of lines that seemed almost puzzle like to me. The idea of a river flowing, and movement over this dry area got me thinking about the shapes as "stepping stones". I liked the idea of the dried out parts of the river being metaphoric stepping stones when the water wasn't there. Still a form of movement, just not the rushing of water going by.
After I decided that I wanted to represent the shapes of the dried out river bed with my own freeform, handcut brass components, I just had to name the piece. I named the necklace "Wander" because it's a word that implies movement but in a slightly freeform way. I thought it echoed my sentiments about the origins of this design, and also the freeform nature of it.
I hope everyone is enjoying these little forays into the inner workings of my design brain =) I'm enjoying sharing these tidbits and stories with you!