Still Playing After All These Years

My husband and I just got back from spending four days playing pirates at the HUGE Northern California Pirate Festival...or as us insiders know it, NorCal. Held every year over Father’s Day weekend in Vallejo, CA, it is an event we look forward to every year. We get to hang out with all our pirate buddies, dress up and act silly, listen to music, dance, eat good food, and best of all, be part of the crew of the schooner Aldebaran, and fire cannons! So, at an age when I’m expecting my first Social Security check, I am still playing—and loving every minute of it.

Playing—it’s not just for kids. Playing is good for you. Playing keeps you sane, gets you away from the doom and gloom of the news headlines, gets you away from your job worries, keeps you interested in things, keeps you from becoming the stogy old fart everyone avoids like the plague. I never want to get to a point in my life where I no longer want to throw on a costume and go play...at whatever.

Trying new things. I never want to get to a place in my life where I am afraid to try new things. As part of the crew of the Aldebaran we get to help sail her to the event site. When Captain Hayden, midway through the sail from Richmond to Vallejo, asked if anyone wanted to take the helm and see how it felt to steer a 72’ schooner, I jumped at the chance. For fifteen minutes I got the experience of a lifetime, feeling how truly alive a ship is, how to keep her pointed in the correct direction—nothing like driving a car—and getting just a hint of the thrill and also the responsibility of being at the helm of a ship. It was scary and exciting, and I loved it!

I’m lucky, in that at age 62, I am still physically fit, still active, and the only health issue I have to deal with is a mildly annoying hyoidal hernia—which I gave to myself by each winter lugging in heavy boxes of fire wood for the wood stove for twenty years. I still ride my horse, do barn chores, and work in a large garden all Spring through Fall. All that helps keep me moving and limber. For now, when I ask my body to do something, it pretty much answers, “Right.” I know my limits, and I tend to push them, but not to the point of stupidity. So far, that plan works for me.

So, pirate or Steam Punk, Medieval or barbarian, or just fooling around on Halloween, I’m there, still playing dress-up, still learning new things, and best of all, still playing. If I’m lucky, eventually I’ll drop dead in the middle of, “Oh wow, that was so much fun, I can’t wait to—”

The Process

I noticed that on a lot of blogs by artists, they post pictures of the process they go through in order to create a piece, whether painting, drawing, collage, sewing, or...jewelry. So, I thought maybe I should do the same, and talk a little about how I work. Not riveting stuff, but since I like to see how people go through the creative process, I thought others might like to see mine.

I try to do a lot of recycling in my pieces. I haunt junk shops, antique stores, and garage sales—why let all that great old stuff go to waste? When I do this, I have a price ceiling...I won’t pay more than $20 for anything...whether it’s a bag of parts, or a complete piece that I can take apart and turn into many pieces. Usually I end up spending anywhere from $1 to $10 average. Many of my friends pick up things for me, or if they are thinking of sending old stuff to the Goodwill, they let me look it over first. That’s always fun.

When I start a piece, I have a vague idea of what I want, and then I start pulling out beads, bits, charms, old pendants, buttons, etc. and play around with them. It’s usually the color that grabs me, and I go from there. An arrangement will finally satisfy me, and then I put the whole thing together. Next, I take it for a test run. I wear it, making sure everything stays where it’s supposed to, and that it drapes/hangs nicely, and is comfortable—nothing poking anywhere. If that all checks out, then it’s done, and I put it up on my Etsy shop. If no one seems interested after a certain length of time, I may take the piece apart and make something else.

So, that’s it. Here are the elements I used in the necklace pictured.

Red sections from an old necklace (ca. 1960s, I think) that I took apart. It has purple, light purple, and red sections. I used only the red, so have lots of other sections left over to use on something else. That old necklace was long, and I have made other pieces from it already. Since it was given to me by a friend, it didn’t cost me a dime.

Gold metal leaves that I inherited from my husband’s mother after she passed away. She had a ton of craft stuff, and Robert’s sisters were kind enough to share it with me. I’ve used these leaves on lots of things, and will be sad when they are finally gone.

“Gold” covered copper wire. I am still learning how to work with wire, which has a mind of its own. The links for this necklace were made with 1” pieces of wire, a black bead added, then twisted in an S-curve. I like making my own links, because I can add any type of bead/chip I want, to match the rest of the elements.

Misc. beads and small metal leaves. These are all over-the-counter bits, purchased at either Michael’s, JoAnn’s or Craft Warehouse. So are the jump rings, clasp, and head-pins.

The pictures are of the work in progress, and then the finished piece. I wear a lot of black, so I’m thinking this little gem I will keep for myself. But since I am getting rather addicted to making chain and bead links, another one will be in the works soon. Who knows, I may like the next one better and give this one up.

Commissioned Necklace

This is a commissioned necklace I just completed. It is very similar to a bracelet I did, and then enlarged into a necklace at the request of a customer. She wore it, and a friend of hers admired it and wanted one "just like that one." Well, I can't do exact replicas of a piece, because I use found elements. However, I did have enough of the frosted flower beads in another color, and pretty much the last of my glass leaf dangles, to do one more necklace. And so, here it is. It will go to its new home tomorrow.

After two such pieces, I'm really getting the hang of making wire link chain. Next time, I want to make something using gold wire instead of silver.

How I Spend Some of My Weekends

Just a picture of me, in a costume again—big surprise, I know. This one taken at the Hocktide Emprise Equestrian Games on May 7-9. This is the only picture of me, other than another taken with my husband, since it's hard to take photos of yourself, especially when you're on a horse. I wrote a more detailed piece about this event in my other blog, Equine Madness (See link in sidebar).

My husband and I had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get back into the horse games again. The picture is of me in my 35 year old leather vest (it belonged to an old boyfriend)—the shirt, and boots are part of my pirate gear, but work well for this, and the pants are my black riding pants. I left the shirt un-tucked since it hid my butt. When I tried tucking it in, it looked like I had a wrinkled bubble butt—which I don't!

I was waiting to ground crew the Courser Challenge for the A list riders, who went first. Then they would ground crew for us B listers.

Playing Dress Up

I have spent a good part of my life dressed in a costume of one sort or another. Apparently I never outgrew that whole “Let’s play dress-up” thing.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. As a kid, I dressed as a beatnik, wearing my dad’s yellow V-necked sweater, his roadster hat, my own black tights, and lots of green eye shadow. For a party I went to in Junior High, I got bold, and went as Cleopatra...a white sheet wrapped around me, lots of fake gold jewelry, and more green eye shadow.

When my maternal grandmother came to baby-sit, she’d play the Nutcracker Suite on the stereo, and my sisters and I would put on all the frilly petticoats we owned and dance like ballerinas. She always clapped her hands and said we looked beautiful.

When I went to my first dance in Junior High, she helped me rig a rhinestone necklace in my hair so that it looked like a tiara. I thought I looked like a princess. However, the boys must have thought I looked like a dork, because I never got asked to dance.

During my high school years I dressed like a hippie. Or, at least as much as I could, since back then schools had dress codes. If your skirt was an inch too short, you got sent home. Since I was an art major, I hung with all the other outcasts, and we dressed as radical as we could get away with...lots of beads, painted clothing, and skintight jeans.

Already long in love with jewelry, I wanted my ears pierced in the worst way. Locked in a battle of wills with my dad, who thought girls with pierced ears were...well, not nice...I eventually wore him down about a week before my eighteenth birthday. When it took my other sisters less than no time to get him to cave, I was pretty miffed!

In the early 1980s I joined the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) a worldwide medieval reenactment group. The possibilities to play dress up were limitless. I dove into the whole costume thing with both feet. I sewed T-tunics, bodices, Elizabethan court dresses, Italian Renaissance dresses, head pieces, a Spanish Surcoat, you name it. Then I got my horse, and equestrian costumes entered the game. For about ten years, on any given weekend, I was dressed in a costume. It became so natural, that I didn’t even think of them as costumes any longer, but just another wardrobe selection from my closet.

In 1991, when my husband and I moved to Oregon, we dropped out of the SCA, too busy trying to resettle and get our life reorganized. And we were broke, so playing in any kind of venue was out of the question.

About five years ago we fell into a Golden Age of Piracy re-enactors group. Wow, no costume rules, no royalty, nothing but crazy fun people and lots of rum. A whole new way to play dress up. Out came the sewing machine, and I made new shirts, vests, pantaloons, and frock coats. I modified hats into tricorns, and we bought fairly inexpensive knee boots. Hell, we even bought real swords. Our pirate friends are some of the best people we know, and we still play at events like the Northern California Pirate festival, where we are members of Tales of the Seven Seas, and are also part of the crew of the schooner Aldebaran.

Then I discovered Steampunk. Now there is a grand way to play dress up, with even less rules than the pirates. We did Airship Pirates, went to a Bad Fairies Ball, and attended two Abney Park concerts dressed in our best Steampunk gear. It’s still one of my favorites —think Jules Verne meets Queen Victoria, and throw in a time machine.

But I still had all those great SCA costumes packed away, calling my name. A year ago we attended a local Renaissance/Fantasy/Pirate Faire — dressed as pirates— and hooked up with the leader of an equestrian group called Company of the Warhorse, who was also a knight in the SCA. Through him, we fell into the SCA again. At the time, we no longer had horses (long story—see Equine Madness and the Art of Staying Young). Didn’t matter. Within about four months, we had new horses, and a fun new group of people to play dress up with.

Reality check. Thirty year old costumes don’t always fit the way they did back then. Alas. To make matters worse, pirate costumes finished off my old sewing machine. Here we are doing the horse games again, and needing new clothes, saddle cloths, simple bardings, new hats...you get the idea. I see a new sewing machine in my future, and the renewed art of trolling the fabric stores looking for material that is “period correct.”

So, here I am, ready to receive my first Social Security check next month, and still playing dress up. Still wearing hats, lots of jewelry, crazy T-shirts, a frock coat I wear when it’s cold, and sometimes my pirate knee boots. At events, it’s anything goes — pirate, to Italian Renaissance, to mounted warrior. The only thing left out these days, is the green eye shadow.

New Blog

I have started a new blog just for my horse activities. It became way too tedious to write this stuff out in my art journals, as my handwriting sucks, and it is a pain in the butt to print out and paste in pictures, when here I can simply upload them. Also, I thought it would be nice to keep it separate from this blog, so I don't bore to death my non-horsey friends.

If you are interested in checking it out, here ya go. There is also a link in my list of favorite blogs.

Equine Madness

Bracelet to Necklace

This piece was originally a bracelet. I took it, along with two necklaces, to my writer's group meeting, for a "show and tell." One of the ladies liked the design of the bracelet, but wanted it as a choker instead. I didn't have enough of the frosted petal beads to make a whole new piece, but did have enough to add length to the bracelet. So, I took it home, reworked it, and voila...the finished choker. Better still, the lady loved it. That made me smile and feel good to be me.