IdeaJones

Category: Jewelry

Items about jewelry:

  • A Field Guide To Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins: The Civil Rights & Social Justice Pin

    A Field Guide To Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins: The Civil Rights & Social Justice Pin

    Why this color? What does this charm mean?

    A Field Guide To The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin (kind of like a bird watcher’s guide to birds)

    If you’re new to the Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin and you see one “in the wild,” on someone on the street, in a restaurant, at school, at work, or any of the places you might find cool people, you might wonder if there’s any significance to the color, or the charm hanging from the pin. The answer? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

    The safety pin is what makes it a “safe harbor” pin. So no matter the color or decoration, it’s still a Safe Harbor Pin. The rest is about standing up for a special cause that is close to your heart. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about anything else, just that this particular cause is one you’re especially passionate about, or is especially relevant to your life, or in the lives of people you know. First up:

    The Civil Rights and Social Justice Pin

    Equality before the law and human rights.

    This pin will be iridescent black (the individual beads shine with a lustrous finish like the colors of the rainbow, so in this case, a black bead that has a shiny finish that shifts in the light, like light playing on water). It looks kind of like very dark steel. The color signifies the strength and durability of steel, like the strength and durability people have to show fighting for freedom and justice. (I know, “Oooooh, deeeep!” But it’s true).

    Mine have a peace symbol charm, or a heart. The peace symbol is a charm I use on most of my Love Bead Pins. In addition to the usual meaning of the peace symbol, on the Civil Rights Pin, the peace symbol also honors those who, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, use nonviolent means to fight for their causes. That is probably the hardest route to take, to not lower yourself to the level of those who oppose you and hold to your principles in the face of opposition or even danger.

     

     

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  • Beauty and Art and Junk

    Mark said this morning, “I was just thinking about the difference between beauty and art. Art is deliberate. Beauty can happen without an artist. Art may not be beautiful, but there is thought involved.”  Conversations like this are part of why I love Mark.

    Intent is at the core of art. For me, the main difference between art and crafts is communication. The artist is trying to express something (which implies an audience, and an attempt to communicate some idea). Crafts are created for the satisfaction of creating them, to make something useful, or pretty, or both, but they aren’t really trying to communicate ideas.

    Which doesn’t make them less valuable. It gives me an itch when someone dismisses something as  crafting, not creating art. There is value in making useful and/or beautiful things, even if you have no deeper intention. And there is no particular medium that is by definition art or craft. Painting, quilting, jewelry, sculpture, film, etc. can be craft or art, and either is good.

    So that’s what I’m meditating on today, perfect for a rainy Saturday.  I’m also turning internal handsprings. I saw our listing on the official San Francisco Travel Association website. There’s something about seeing it listed. There’s more to the class than the listing. I’ve decided to bring samples of other things that can be made using repurposed/recycled items. There is a lot of good materials out there waiting, and beautiful things to be made. It it art or craft? I leave that to you. But making it, and seeing it, is fun. http://www.sftravel.com/article/event-calendar/?entry=ataglance#/event/6257068-make-a-love-bead-safe-harbor-pin?radius_miles=25&location=94112-san-francisco&sections=all&date=2017-06-03

  • Art, Peace and Charity

    Art, Peace and Charity

    Hi — we’ve been very active on our Facebook page, but it’s been a while since we checked in on our website.

    There’s a lot going on! First, if you get a chance to go to Blue Line Gallery in Roseville, CA, we’ve got a sculpture on exhibit: 00 His Own Man On Exhibit Ideajones

    Second, our charity for the summer is Opening Doors, a charity helping refugees resettle. They provide everything from “welcome kits” with necessities (the refugees usually arrive with nothing) to volunteers helping drive people to appointments. A portion of each sale we make this summer will go to buy items for Opening Doors.

    Among the items we have are silver necklaces from Zazzle featuring our digital paintings, including these peace signs:

    Peace Neon Peace IdeaJones Peace Square Tie Dye IdeaJones

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Rainbow Ripple Peace Sign Necklace at Zazzle.com

     

     

     

     

     

    We also have items in our Redbubble shop and will be posting items to our Etsy shop as well. We’re hoping to buy a lot of welcome kits in September!

    We have a brand new sculpture, just finished — pics to come. We should find out soon if it’s about to go into its first show.

    Hope your summer is productive, fun, or both.

     

  • Shades of Carmichael

    Headed out to an event we’ve never been to before. Shades of Carmichael features about 80 hand-decorated market umbrellas, which will then be auctioned off as a fundraiser for the park and for the Sacramento Fine Arts Center. Joey has painted an umbrella for the event, and has also booked a table as a “vender” (sic), which means we’ll be at the mercy of the weather. We’ll take our portable pop-up shade, and the weather report says to expect warm but not hot temperatures, so we should be okay.

    Here’s one of the focal points from the umbrella Joey painted:
    owlCU

    Fingers crossed!

     

     

    Event follow-up: Had a fine time. Weather was great, if a bit too breezy for our display materials. Lunch from the gyro truck on-site. Met some fun people, sold a painting (an owl based on the same Northern Saw-Whet owl seen above) and had some good arts talks. Only thing that would have made it better would have been more people in attendance.

  • Jewelry Now Available

    Looking for something unique for someone on your gift list? We just added some necklaces to our Etsy shop.

    Everything’s one-of-a-kind (although some, especially the monogram necklaces, are similar).