Mar 9, 2012

Out of the blue . . . and into the black.




Not long ago, a client asked me if I could create a necklace for her in Black and Silver. Hummm, I thought, why hadn’t I explored that combination before?

Interesting idea . . .

Jewelry requires, even demands, a limited palette: not just of color, but texture, form, size, and shape as well. Every creation is imbued with its own logic, a composition running like music through it’s patterning and colors.

I am a painter first, and accustomed to having the full range of color at my disposal. I tend to swing from complexity to simplicity and back again simply because I can. I hate being restricted, unlike my artist husband, who has constrained his palette to nearly an absence of color. (How does he stand it?)

I guess I’m still enough of an Illustrator (as opposed to Artist, with a capital “A”) that I don’t mind requests or suggestions. I can always say “no, thanks” or “no way” or “ick”, and I can even whip out my capital “A” artist license if needed. (It’s still recognized in some circles.)

But requests like these show me paths I might not have seen, let alone taken, yielding ideas I wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

Some artists react to suggestions as if they were confrontations. But I prefer to see them as challenges, opportunities to consider a different direction or calling for a new approach.

Collisions of thought, images, concepts, color, and design are the sweet spot of invention. The last thing I want is to be closed to a new idea, whether it emerges quietly from within or tackles me from the outside. (Like when a customer walks in and asks me if I could create a necklace for her in Black and Silver.)

So . . . in the final analysis, why not?

And, while I’m at it, why not do two designs--or three? (Like I said, I hate limits,) and choice is always the ultimate luxury. Who knows? Maybe she’ll buy more than one.

Fortunately, she didn’t; because by the end of the day, someone else did. Sometimes it pays (literally) to try new things. . .

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