Golden Snitch and a Holiday Story

My retreat to the studio has been good in many more ways than I can count. I've returned to a long ago past when I first learned metal smithing from my father. Only we never made beads. I love a hollow bead. There is just something about that shape, round on the outside, hollow within, an empty vessel that contains whatever you would like to put in it.  I always find an enclosed hollow form like a bead to have a bit of mystery. You can feel the void within the form but you can't see inside. It is totally up to you to imagine anything or nothing at all inside.

Never mind those hands up there. They are working hands and a distraction from the holiday side of this story.

I showed this photo to a friend and her young son remarked that it looked like a snitch. He's a Harry Potter fan. It brought me back to the first Harry Potter film. We were living in Australia at the time and Peter and I and the children all ditched work and school to see a matinee of the film. Unanimously, our favourite part of the film was the Quidditch match. We all loved the golden snitch and it's role as the game piece. If you've no idea what I am talking about you really need to watch this very first film! Even read the book!!!!

We saw this film a few days before Christmas some ten years ago. For many reasons, this was something of a watershed holiday season for us. Our children were on the verge of becoming adults and leaving to lead their own lives. This film is one of the things that we shared that season that strengthened our bonds with each other. I'd all but forgotten this detail of that holiday.

Thank you my young friend for bringing the Golden Snitch back into my holidays!

Thank you one and all

I always feel uplifted and a deep sense of gratitude when I share the personal side of my life and you respond with such heartfelt support and love. It has been a difficult week coming to terms in my own way with my Mum's health. Grief takes many forms and what I feel is difficult to explain even to myself.

What I do is retreat to the studio because in the silence of making I find the space in my mind to come to terms with the things I have no control over. I can let go. This week I made boxes out of sheet brass. Each was created with a specific person in mind. Each are reflections of what I feel for them. All people I love. Each a person that has made a difference in my life. Little acts of making ground me to the here and now, and pull me out of the conflict of emotions I feel around my mother's last days.

Mum is doing well. She is comfortable. She has said that she is at peace, that she is ready. We have no idea how long she has. But that she is ready is something that gives me great comfort.

Once again, thank you all for your very kind support and well wishes. It's not all sadness here. While I look at closing one door, I look at the future too. We've got wonderful plans for the holiday, welcoming our newest members into the family and building new traditions on the foundation of our old ones.

You can teach an old dog new tricks

I made that! It's not perfect. It should be filled with resin but I don't see myself doing that anytime soon.

So why did I make it? I've been taking Stephanie Lee's Homesteader Metal Smithing class online. This old dog has learned some new things. It's been a fabulous experience to expand my horizons and challenge myself in new ways. Just what I've been needing to get my inspiration charged up again as we head into winter.

This really has been challenging for me. It's a whole different kind of metal smithing than I've ever done before. My dad, the renaissance man, did silver smithing and taught me lots of things many years ago. He was an exacting task master and this definitely would not have been his cup of tea. But for me, it's just opened up some new paths and I love that. I have all sorts of ideas.

This is what my young dog Alice brought in today. They are pecans. She brings them in hidden way down inside her mouth so that you can't tell that she's got them.  We have a huge crop of pecans this year. It fairly rains down pecans when the wind blows, which is pretty much all of the time. Now if I could only teach this young dog to drop them into a bucket. I would have enough pecans to last me all winter and some for you too.