The Quality of an Impulse

In the jewelry class, the other participants were turning out "works of art" by the dozen. I was not so successful... but I didn't envy them.

There was a lot of fast soldering and cutting going on, but the results were inaccurate and looked amateurish - objects that could not be properly called "a jeweller's work." What's the point in following your creative impulses, if the products are low quality and unprofessional?

Once upon a time, I did pictures on fabric with the batik dyeing method, an impulsive art form that occasionally struck me as a passing mood. My mood of the day would dictate the color scheme, and my mood of the moment would guide my placement and shaping of the color spots.
While learning jewelry technique, I saw the oxidation effects on silver, and the combination of bright and darkened metal invited me to play on it in the same way. At this time, we were also learning how to frame a gem. So I added Rose Quartz to my "batik" silver piece.
Thus, I suddenly and unintentionally produced my first complete design: a silver pendant and ring with pink quartz. The name was given to it by my daughter Julia: "Sand and Water."
I myself could not decide if I liked the visual results or not. But two things were clear and satisfying to me:

(1) It was not like mainstream jewelery, and

(2) It was quality work.
The beginning of the story