Saturday, April 14, 2007

A Real Live Saturday

In an Ali-inspired moment, I decided to photograph my latest creations. “Em verdade” these are my first creations in I don’t know how long. I finally got a chance to go down to the Saara fair and pick up some simple glass beads and cheap clasps. I can’t wait to find real things: silver, semi-precious beads, etc...in this city. I just don’t know where to look! But I went all vain and took most of the pictures in my bathroom, because it’s the best light you can get in my house. It is otherwise useless, as I have been without water for over a week now. At least it can double as a photography studio!

This first necklace is just whimsy; a wooden elephant keychain from Africa I never used as a keychain, a wooden and a glass bead, and a strip of suede holding it all together.



The second set is über-feminine: a string of seed beads reworked with purple glass into a two-strand necklace with a pendant drop of purple glass beads.




I’m proud of this sea-colored necklace, which is made almost entirely from scraps of other necklaces. The disk is a mother-of-pearl button that used to belong to my great-grandmother, as did several of the opaque glass, stone and chalky black beads. Others are acrylic beads, natural materials, raw turquoise, one amber disk, a couple dark blue ones I think were lapis lazuli I bought in Colorado but can no longer remember for sure (the bead shop was run by a man who was definitely making his money on the Guatemalan marijuana and not the beads. I do remember that! This was in a town where the best restaurant was also an old whorehouse where the ladies were, legend has it, required to go to church on Sundays, on orders of the madam. They had the best mints ever, wedding butter mints covered in dark chocolate. I would leave with pockets full. No one seemed to care about the minor candy theft or the aging hippie’s side business...). Some of the beads are new, but most of them have some significance to me. The earrings are another salvage job, with what I think is mother-of-pearl and green beads that match those in the necklace.







These pink earrings are fun and chunky. The bead looks like a big tooth, a molar or something, without the root...quirky. They just might be my everyday pair! The necklace was an attempt not to be too girly: I combined pink, red, and black beads together. The floral beads belonged to my great-grandmother.




Other than the fact I'm too skinny (that's mostly the result of not having had a refrigerator for a week, but all may rest easily now as I have a brand new fridge..which I took out of the packaging all by myself. And I moved the old one down a step and into the other room...by myself. I felt like such a WOMAN!!!), does anyone else notice that my eyes are HUGE?!?! No wonder I’m always receiving compliments, or harassment, on them. Why did I never notice before???

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jenna- I love your necklaces! Such talent. And by the way- of course you have big, beautiful eyes...You do not look like one who has not had water in a week! I also love the fact that you took pictures of yourself in the bathroom. Not sure if you are on myspace or not, but I can't even tell you how many teenagers seem to take pictures of themselves in the bathroom. It is quite funny. My cousin was the first one i noticed, and then up further investigation of her friends, I noticed they all seem to hide out in the bathroom to take pictures. haha. Love ya, Jennica

Ali Ambrosio said...

I'm loving this!!!

My favorite is the mix-match set with the mother of pearl and green, but I also really like the one with pink and red and black.

I can't wait to go hunting for good supplies in Rio next week.

And yes, you have lovely eyes. Remind me of Twiggy. :) I'm sure you are showered in compliments given that you have "olhos claros".