everything winsome

dreamscape

Do you have the habit of writing down your dreams? I do. I have horrible memory, so if I don’t write them down, I forget them within 1-2 hours of waking. I trained myself so well that, once, I woke up from a dream, reached over to my BlackBerry, typed it out and feel back asleep again.

The only problem, you see, becomes finding out where I wrote them down. I was looking for some jewelry sketches and found this, so I thought I would share with you. It’s short.

June 22, 2011

I was trapped with a bunch of people, forced onto a small strip of island, enclosed within a fence. The skies were gray. It was cold and I felt it was impossible to try an escape.

Then, a girl tells us she knew, somehow, that the water around us was fake. So I reached out, pressed my hand down and sure enough, I felt a solid, rubbery surface instead of water.

Then we all escaped, cutting through the fence. With what, I don’t know, but we were free.

dreams

Has anyone else thought about this quote ever since they saw The Avengers? I know I have. It’s such a powerful line. Although it didn’t really make sense to me until now. Maybe that’s because I’m going through my last year or so of art school, when you really start to question what the heck you’re doing.

Anyway, just think about it for a second. Not in relation to comic books or movies or saving the world but in terms of your life and your work, whatever that may be. We all have passions, desires, things we want to do. We say we love them - but of course we love our work, we’re doing it, aren’t we?

But do we believe in what we do? To what extent does that passion carry us before we realize what we’re doing may or may not be meaningless, in the grand scheme of things? Do we merely give up or do we keep doing it, even when it seems so frivolous to the rest of the world? Do we lack conviction?

Thinking about this made me realize I should never make work that I don’t care about, whether in my jewelry or in my art.

My 2013 New Year’s Resolutions

I’m know I’m a bit late on listing some resolutions for the new year but that’s because I was sitting in a car for 13 hours between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s. And it’s better late than never, right?

Normally I don’t bother with listing any NYRs. Because let’s face it: if I’m going to do something, it will be because I want to do it and not just because it’s another 365 days and I’ve told a bunch of people.

But somehow this year feels different. Maybe it’s just because I’m starting to feel like an Adult. Not just an adult but an Adult: being responsible for my own health and well being, acknowledging my weaknesses but most importantly my strengths, and making some necessary sacrifices to live within my means. I’ve realized sometimes you just can’t have everything in life - and frankly you don’t need everything to be happy. One of the best things I’ve discovered for myself.

Without further ado, here’s my humble list for 2013:

Walk 30 mins each day, 5 days a week. In NY, I had to walk to get anywhere and ever since I moved to TN, I’ve been pretty much spoiled by the prevalent car culture and getting chaufeurred everywhere by my husband. So to keep both of ourselves healthy, he and I are going to keep each other on track for this one.
Spend less time on the internet. For those of my generation and younger, I’m sure we’re all guilty of this. It’s especially difficult when you have a small online business like me, and you rely heavily on social media for work and publicity. Yet nevertheless, for the first time in my life, I’m making a conscious decision to cut down on time spent in the computer chair. After finishing this post, I’m logging off!
Consume less. In keeping up with trying to live within my means: before buying anything, I’m going to ask myself: why am I buying it? Do I need it? How many times will I use it? If I buy anything, it should and will be because it’s a need, not necessarily a want.
Go out and take photographs once a week. Going through old photos, I had forgotten how wonderful it was to do photography. The color, the lines, the lights and the darks: there’s something about wanting to capture life on camera that makes time time slow down and multiplies your experience. I’ve always been a believer of the little things in life and photography really makes it happen for me.
Read a book a month with suggestions from different people. This is something I just came up with but it’s been necessarily for quite a while. I absolutely love, love fantasy novels, and that won’t ever change: I’ll read that genre the most. But as a creative person, I believe it’s important to draw our inspiration from various sources and keep going outside of our comfort zones to avoid the artistic block.

Alright, I’ve made some sound promises. Let’s see if I can keep them. Happy 2013!

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image credit: mellowmint

Holiday orders all packaged and sent!

Saw this in my deviantArt stream and it brought a smile to my face. Hopefully this does the same to someone else out there.

A friend wanted me to make this style of cuff for her in silver, since forever. Now that it’s winter break, I can finally spend some time on fulfilling that promise.

I haven’t made many cuffs in the past so I did a test on a piece of copper sheet first. It hasn’t been polished completely yet, which explains the scuff marks. Hopefully she’ll like it, so I can document how I make it from start to finish in silver… which will basically be a whole lot of sawing and filing!

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.

Natalia Araya