Lilith

Lilith is one of our asteroids, as well as a Sumerian-Akkadian goddess whose name also appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. She is an earthy and wild female presence. She is connected with the owl as a symbol of regeneration. She is an underworld goddess who refuses to be tamed enough to slide into any of our familiar feminine gender roles.

During the length of time it took to make this necklace, I was working my way through some dark interior territory. The necklace became intimately entwined with the process I was moving through, and the name emerged toward the end. She helped me to understand what I was experiencing. She helped me to understand it as well as to embody it. People who respond to this piece seem to feel her presence.

Anniversary Necklace

A few years ago I married my high school sweetheart. We re-met after 40 years of interesting lives with other people. For this wedding I wanted to make the most beautiful, delicate, joyous fabric and dress I had ever made. Perhaps I gave myself too much pressure, perhaps I don't know what, but despite all of my experience in fabric and dressmaking, everything I did looked awful. I suffered over this failure, and I finally had to buy a dress.

Well, almost a year later I picked up some of this misbegotten fabric and fooled around with it thinking it might make an interesting core of a necklace. I fiddled, and played with it, and it did begin to take form. It turned into this necklace which contains the colors, the feeling, and the spirit I had originally been after, and was able to finally emerge as my playful, delicately colored Anniversary necklace.

Earth Goddess

She was the first of the Mermaid group. The center piece of this necklace was a piece of agate/carnelian that to me has what looks like an Earth Spirit hiding in a cave. The necklace developed rather quickly given the complexity of it, and with an intense burst of creative energy she birthed herself. It had a particular feeling, and I sensed that it didn't really belong to me, but I didn't know where it belonged.

A few weeks later I took a Continuum workshop with Susan Harper that was very important to me for many reasons. At the end of the workshop, I took the necklace out to show the group of women. When Susan put it on, it became very clear to me that the necklace belonged to her, and so I gave it to her. She uses it sometimes in the ceremonial aspect of the work that she does, and she suggested that the necklace come back to me from time to time, to reconnect with me and then return again to Susan for more adventures.

Queen of the Deep

When I made these hollow beads, I wanted them to be in a necklace that would allow them to pop out of the necklace. As I experimented with how to make them do this, other tiny beads began to twine and swirl around them making a secure resting spot for each bead. It all began to feel like bubbles and waves yet in this deep chestnut brown color. I was honored to have this necklace chosen to appear in the book
1000 Glass Beads published by Lark Books. I find that when I feel my way into a group of beads, they begin to draw their companions to them and begin to shape themselves into the expression they can become.

Ocean Green Necklace

I had these very old Roman beads, crusty and greenish, and they looked so good coiled around each other, I had to find a way to create a necklace that would allow them to remain nest-like. I added some of my own small vessel beads, and then more and more coiling beads until it had the look and the feel of something coordinated. Sea-like. Mermaid-like. It was also a foray into green beads. I'm so drawn to coral and deep reds that this was a shift for me, an adventure into the ocean.