New & custom work

Just a few new recently finished items, including some pieces for a custom order which included several large pendants.

Turquoise nugget with a faceted accent, sterling silver (custom).

Woven sterling and Blackstone leaf (new).

Labradorite and sterling (custom).

Cubic Zirconia in sterling silver (new).

Amazonite with faceted accent in sterling (custom).

Stuff

I have been pondering the issue of "stuff" lately.

The fact of the matter is that "stuff", also called clutter or piles of junk, drives me nuts. I've gone through some laissez-faire periods where it didn't seem to get to me at all, but lately, the last few months, wow. It's just chewing away at my psyche. The question then became "why?".

After some work on the problem, not the actual piles themselves since most piles in this place actually belong to other family members, I concluded the following about the stuff or the everyday detritus of living:

• it is sucking the energy right out of me
  
• it looks like chaos and it feels like chaos to look at it
• it holds real negative emotions
• it can be overwhelming

The reality of stuff is that it makes the spaces of out lives messy, it does look chaotic, and get enough of it, it does overwhelm. When it is not all one's own mess, there is a loss of control. I can't simply start tossing all the non-garbage items that belong to family members. I might want to, but there simply isn't any way to successfully dump the stuff without a lot of "loss" occuring for the other persons. It is only out of sensitivity to them that I haven't and don't.

The stuff also gets to a point of representing a series of negatives in our lives. Failed efforts, or lessons learned, depending on perspective, and since we aren't likely to repeat the mistakes that lead to the lesson, why do we need the reminders piled up around us? Failed relationships, failed business, failed ideas... pick a "failure" and there is likely stuff that documents it in some way or another. Do we really need another reminder?

Stuff has come to represent distraction, lack of enthusiasm, sadness and even decay. It's time to tackle the messes.... Stuff can hold us back and down just as easily as any real physical restraints can.
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Regret

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.” - Fulton Oursler

Fear gets us no thing and no one. Fear creates the regrets through inaction or reduced effort.

I've been thinking a lot about fear and regret lately, evaluating it in my own life and examining the limitations that it has placed on me and my life and work. It is absolutely without doubt, that every regret that I have for the past is related to a fear. I said "yes" when I would have rather said "no" or "no" for "yes", or didn't even commit in some cases.

Late last year, I decided that I wasn't going to live with regret anymore, that if I could prevent one, I would. It takes a bit of courage to try this because every decision requires facing our fear of "what if..." It's downright uncomfortable at times.

Something else to note, is that by taking the time to examine our field of regrets, we often find a lot of buried dreams. Some of them need to dug out, dusted off, and used as motivators, others need to be discarded as nothing other than passing fancy. Also, in this field, are a lot of fear based reasons for why we are perhaps not as happy or fulfilled as we would like, and like myself, you my discover why it has been so difficult to apply the words art and artist to your own work and being.

Good luck with the exhumations.
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