Hello, there. It's been quite awhile since I posted anything to this blog. I've been writing off and on all of this time, but nothing I wanted to share in full because I wasn't finished or didn't want it wandering off to somewhere else while I was finishing it. And I'm taking a loooooooong time to finish the current large projects. I was working on a paranormal mystery series back in 2008 that was going gangbusters for quite a while until it came up against some fairly major life hurdles in 2009. My beloved mother-in-law, Pauline died at the end of January 2009 and I signed a non-fiction book contract the same week to write a book about the Ice Ages of North America that my husband was to illustrate. Both were difficult to navigate as there was just my husband and I with no other close family, and I had insomnia for over six months as a result. While the ice age book got off to a strong start, the publisher insisted on putting in so much technical detail that it became less of an art adventure and more of a text book, and I felt like I was the lynch pin in a game of tug-of-war between the two. Add to that having a full basement remodel at Pauline's, then our house that became a studio, I was under a daily assault of having to deal with the workers and the work...the writing suffered. And continued to suffer, even after repeated attempts to get it back on track. My own writing got shoved to the wayside and I felt guilty about wanting to work on it, let alone doing so. I plotted out the book design for the ice age book, repeatedly looking for ways to fit the art in, even to changing the format and reducing the number of essays I'd agreed to. In the end, I never delivered the finished book and the publisher abandoned it. I've felt guilty about it ever since. My husband has continued publishing works and thriving in his chosen profession, regardless. Out of the research and intense reading involved in the ice age book, I did write a children's chapter book about a baby mammoth. I thought I'd found a publisher for that a few years back, but the acceptance then changed this year and they let it go, and I now have to send it out into the world again...possibly with a followup companion story that I want to write. Meanwhile, I pivoted again after breaking my right arm on my birthday in 2018 and going through months of competing rage and depression that took several years to get through. During that, my husband had a year of eye surgery and follow up procedures due to a torn retina in 2019. I stopped reading mystery as well as SF or fantasy novels and got hooked on contemporary and some romance novels...which was a complete surprise to me. Funnily enough, I found some superb writers that could narrate and navigate adventure and thrillers just fine using interesting tropes. The interesting thing was finding out that it could inform a few of my characters from my mystery novel series and elevated my writing on it, the few times I ventured back there. In 2018, I started writing a second series, non-mystery but contemporary based out of a fictional quirky college in Massachusetts, pre-covid lockdown. I've been having a lot of fun with that. It was a good workout since I didn't paint for nearly three years. BUT, post covid, I've gotten back to painting, even though the ebb and flow of it is sporadic while I adult. It seems that I fill a role as my husband's business manager and logistics manager more and more these last few years. And when I can't get to my painting studio, recently, I've returned to fiddling with jewelry bits. It's something that I've toyed with from time to time over the decades since the 1980s. I find that solving the minute engineering problems of creating focals and finishing a piece rather soothing. February 2025 at Boskone featured a friend selling of huge portions of beads, findings, and tools that her late mother had hoarded for decades during her 50 years as a jewelry teacher. I came home with bags of finds, suddenly finding a passion stirring again for something...anything. Well, I wanted to make a comfort gift for a dear friend going through chemo last year and I didn't have the time to crochet anything appropriate, but making her a necklace or earrings popped to mind. So I pulled out the bits I found at Boskone and the box of bling bits I had been hanging onto forever (hey, I liked the bead sales and clearance sales at Joann, Michaels, A.C Moores over the years that I couldn't resist. LOL) and started to experiment. See the photo above for Jeannie's necklace. Two jade leaves and six Fluorite beads with beautiful clarity, and the elephant that is her favourite animal make up the basis for it. I used vintage decorative metal chain and a couple of celtic knots. This is not something I plan, but feel it out mentally and emotionally as I go, as the elements speak to me while I test out combination. In the writing world, this is called 'pantsing it', as in 'seat of the pants' creating. Things have kind of snowballed a bit since then and I've gotten the bling bug of creativity again in a big way. So, while my painting blog, Daub du Jour continues, sometimes sporadically time-wise, I have decided to post my bling, my jewelry creations here for all to see, and maybe sell. Prices will be included and interested parties can contact me on here or Facebook if they want to buy something. I'll be listening.
Thanks for stopping by,
Cheers,
Marianne
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