Sweet Little Things

(Carpenter Bee Wing Necklace HERE)

Schmilly and I just sat at the kitchen table and talked about our true reality after dinner and a West Wing episode.

We both have been enjoying Orion with such a passion that we yearn for another child

and yet we understand ourselves to be best as parents of one.

One amazing outrageously special boy.

Our capacity for chaos as two introverts is limited.

My work is so like a living thing that I already feel like a mother of more.

It was beautiful, our talk.

It was so bittersweet to come to the conclusion that if we were other people we'd do things differently

and to laugh through our misty eyes about the things we've done well and terribly.

We were the best of ourselves showing up for a meeting over Nutella out of the jar 

and bare feet up on the chairs.

I love that man. 

I also loved this week. I finally got the use my hollow form skills I learned from Alison Antelman a few months ago.

I paired the gorgeous high form with an extinct volcano cone, hammer engraved maidenhair ferns and an opal doublet with crazy fire.

This one's mine, but I am thinking of maidenhair engraving and turquoise...Sleeping Beauty turquoise to be exact.

Orion learned how to blow kisses and charmed every stranger we met out this week. Being in line at the post office is too fun when he's there - people try to be grumpy and sigh but he just lights them up like Christmas. Puppies and babies, man....puppies and babies.

I made the sweetest simplest summer flower cuff for the Leather Shop

.

It fits a size 6 - 6.25 inch wrist. The fit should be a bit jaunty, not skintight.

Summer is not the time for anything that confines or rubs too much.

I hope to head over and tuck it in the Shop tomorrow afternoon. 

We had a bit of rain, some seriously lovely walks around the neighborhood

and lots of snuggles both two and four legged...

speaking of which, Janey keeps trying to walk onto my laptop, a sure sign to 

close it up and do some chin-scratching.

Have the most beautiful weekend, my dear reader.

May you do exactly what you wish!

xoxo,

Sunny

Are You My Mother?

Orphan Volcano Ring of such gentle beauty

HERE

.

xoxo,

Sunny

New Cabs and a Lapidary Sale!

The Fab Four

wandered into the 

LAPIDARY SHOP

today

.

They can be found nestled among other beautiful cabochons

and everything you see is 15% off

just

for

today!

Enter coupon code ROCKON

at checkout

for your savings!

Code expires at midnight Pacific time.

xoxo,

Sunny

The Second Year Mother

In the picture above these words I am exhausted. Can you tell?

I am exhausted because I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning firing the most exquisite butterfly wings I had ever conceived I could fire.

Tropical, magical, lifelike

They are destined for my work, destined to shine.

I am exhausted because I made cupcakes for a beautiful baby shower, using butter and sugar and love to help welcome two new twin souls into all of our lives.

The woman who has carried them reminds me of Mother Mary.

She is luminous and kind and her shower was a small and heartfelt affair under redwood shade.

I am tired because life has been full of wonder and hard work.

I am weary with an easy heart.

The night is a welcome thing; my baby sleeps and so do I.

Last year's tired was something else entirely, something overwhelming.

That soul-emptying fatigue of early infant milk hunger:

life was a clock.

That fear of anything befalling such a tiny being whose neck could not yet support a still-moving skull and the wee brain inside.

How I dreaded the sunset,

how excited and sad I was, all at once.

My husband reached out last year to make this day beautiful and we were surrounded by love but

my very cells suffered under the weight of post-partum depression. 

To reflect on the year in between these two very different Mother's Days is to witness a very slow miracle, the healing kind.

One mother was aching and in love, unable to express the weight of responsibility or navigate this new normal landscape, the other mother feels the ground underneath her feet and trusts her heart,

knows her mind. Has learned her new mind.

Just like the post-baby ribcage, pushed out like a bell at the bottom edges this year's mother is new.

Strange and soft.

Lovely.

There is no erasing the worry wrinkles, the widened midsection 

or the unrecognizable breasts.

This year's mother does not mind the newer body because it cradled and nourished her own second heart, a Herculian feat. Could anything ever snap back from such an epic journey without some give? Last year's mama prayed to leap back to her former glory or shrink back to the before picture. The success stories the internet and magazines tout would come to pass!! Thirty pounds in six weeks! Better Body After Baby! Faster Newer Now Hey! 

This year the order of physical health is life-affirming exercise (oh sweet holy sweat!!!) and good whole foods, acceptance of the changes that never came to pass, celebrating the spectacular ones that did: the return of the six-pack, high-school-cheerleader legs, the fucking radness of the biceps I am rocking.

They are so powerful!!!

They lift a twenty five pound boy with ease! They wield fire and hammer metals!

More wisdom, a bit of a stretched out trunk. Some back fat. I'll take it, all of it.

I have my boy. My world sings.

I know with each passing mid-May celebration the story will change.

I know this.

There will be years of plenty and joy, years of loss and recovery

full of the mundane and the glorious

birthdays funerals graduations showers sunsets coffees and a growing boy to show for it.

A human becoming himself under our steady care and love.

If I have anything to teach him of what I've learned since he's been born

I'd settle on 'patience' as the word for this day.

Have you lost your way?

Have you faltered on your path, been left behind?

Does the moment look bleak or hopeless?

Wait, I'll say.

Endure.

Next year's song will be a radical departure -

embrace it when it comes, but appreciate the tempo and timbre of this time...

it is the doorway to everything.

xoxo,

Sunny

A Little Lift

I am pretty sure it happens to all of us at some point or another during a day:

the drop.

The existential mini-howl.

I am also sure that there are days it would be so nice to have an IV of encouragement

or hugs or something to get up underneath our heavy carcass and pull us back to our feet.

A Little Lift 

Some wings

a bit of breeze

and with those things,

a takeoff

.

Did it start when someone cut you off in traffic?

Perhaps your beloved mini-shunned you or said the wrong thing?

Maybe it seems as if the fall happened for no reason, that you were simply sitting and enjoying a cup of something delicious and the chill started at your solar plexus and went north

or south as it may have done

...

I often marvel at how 'out of nowhere' the tiny grief comes

but even more awe-inspiring is the bounty of graces that follow on its heels

in minutes

hours

or days

unrushed

The Little Lift.

A call from a really good girlfriend overdue for some shop-talk

or just a walk

through the neighborhood to see those flowers whose blooming time has finally come

.

Though heavy and tired the small shift buoys the sinking thing 

and sets you back in a good current

at the proper time

As lightly as a butterfly wing catching air

taking you gently back

to what nurtures you best.

This small series of butterfly pieces (two more to come next week)

can be found

HERE

.

xoxox,

Sunny

Pendulum Swing to Leather

"Everything But the Bones"

White wolf hobo bag

with pink garment hide

and grey suede lining...

Mushroom Portrait on birch bark with fungi

half-belt

scalloped edges

"We Gather Together"

portrait of a soul in flight

(based on a photograph by the incomparable Laurie Brown)

tooled leather purse

.

.

These are the things my hands did today, small increments of progress on each piece

as Orion and the babysitter enjoyed their time together.

My fingers ache and the callous on my middle right finger is throbbing with overuse.

I don't care:

I look at this collection and I see the most meaningful

fearless work

exploring themes and places so fresh

...

death and rebirth

the symbolic kindness of fungi

the comfort of darkness

and beauty of predatory animals...

May is for making whatever I choose.

Bliss!

In June I am toying with the idea of offering a few custom slots in the metal and leather shops.

Toying...

we'll see!!

A good night to you.

xoxo

Sunny

Mission Statement

My job here on earth is to love and to make with all my big big earnest heart

until my body falls to dust.

Little else catches my eye these days but the above and my people.

xo,

S

Delicate Cycle III

Something wonderful this way came last week. After months of working to get my self-nurturance up to speed everything I needed just simply clicked into place.

Isn't that the way it always goes? Trudge trudge trudge trudge --- leap!!!

First we sleep-trained our gorgeous tiny man and got him resting every night from seven pm to seven am with a 5:30 wakeup to come snuggle and have some milk. It's what we always wanted it to be: separate until sunrise and then warm and snoring together for a spell.

First he wakes up Schmilly by tapping him on the shoulder and saying something like, "Uh ohhhhhh...." or "Dadahhhh" and then I open my eyes to that beautiful scene, remembering to thank God every time. How could I forget when I look at them? My boys.

Now that he goes down so early I have a chance to put in a little more studio time

and the feeling of gratitude and peace has been creeping out of my hammer swings

and into the molecules of my work.

I can see it: can you?

Looks a lot like love.

I've also been back at the wheels because that man of mine took me to the Santa Clara Rock Show

and watched with a smile as I bought small and precious slabs of Laguna and Agua Nueva agates

.

When we came home he took the baby and told me to go work with the spoils of my plunder

and so I cabbed two little rainbow Lagunas from the same nodule

but worked each from the opposite sides.

Except for the coloration, they look like completely different rocks!

Their beauty is the best of the earth to me.

I am nerdy for rocks, just simply a geek for them.

My very favorite Agua Nueva had to be worked immediately: I was so drawn to it. While others may prefer their agates pristine, I am a sucker for a good healed fracture. It's symbolic to me - it speaks of our strengths, of the earth's pains and gifts and the miracle of enduring.

As I said last week, sometimes enduring is grace itself.

.

In the evenings after Orion is sleeping and I've put an hour of my heart into stones, hides and metals

I put something simple on for dinner 

and curl up with a book.

I'm a sucker for a one-pot recipe

and with all the amazing organic produce at the Farmer's Markets here we are back to eating what Anthony refers to as a 'veggie trough' for dinner: a giant bowl of greens and a rainbow vegetables simply dressed with mostly balsamic vinegar.

We eat together as just adults

and share the stories of our day

sometimes with whiskey

sometimes with tea

after dinner

.

I've re-discovered the library and all its gifts:

storytime for the little one

books on cd

books

magazines

glorious 

glorious 

books...

RESERVED

and I've also re-discovered the joy of time management.

I am a stickler for a good schedule these days;

a taskmaster who gets things done and rests well.

A longtime lover of lists, the spark has been renewed and proven powerful again.

Just the thought of a good list is enough to coax a smile...how funny!

I may get tired as we all do 

but my soul is doing cartwheels

because it feels lately like everything rushed in to support

what was flagging.

I feel partnered

and held

and

loved

.

The work I share with you today is the result of 

that God's-palm feeling

and carries a very special energy

.

There are two pair of white magic mushrooms

with handmade dewdrop stems

There are jacaranda seed earrings in simple sterling 

a hammer engraved copper maidenhair fern frond and sterling accents

and memories of Hawaii

and a sweet little turquoise (with pyrite inclusions) ring in 6.5

with a delicious hammered band and sterling accents.

These are the fruits of this wonderful week

where I learned to rise earlier for a non-harried shower

while the boys played with blocks

in the living room

applying mascara to the soundtrack of delighted baby squeaks

where I leaned in to Orion's almost-walking and found it worthy of joyous celebration

despite the every-growing distance from tiny him to giant him

where I came home to myself just a bit more

and felt welcome and whole.

I should have everything in the shop by tomorrow evening,

but if something sings your name before then

please feel free to 

convo

me

.

I wish you everything good and then some tonight.

xoxox,

Sunny

Winner!!!

The winner of the custom Bloom ring is:

Oyenohana !!

Please contact me 

HERE

to dream up a beauty together!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and for your readership and kindness throughout the years.

With Love,

Sunny

Be Still My Joy!!!

LOVE.

More love.

xo,

S

On Mushrooms and Tender Strength

“Love will creep where it cannot go, will accomplish that by imperceptible methods,- being its own lever, fulcrum, and power, – which force could never achieve. Have you not seen the woods, in a late autumn morning, a poor fungus or mushroom, – a plant without any solidity, nay, that seemed nothing but a soft mush or jelly,-by its constant, total, and inconceivably gentle pushing, manage to break its way up through the frosty ground and to actually lift a hard crust on its head? It is the symbol of power of kindness."
                                                   --Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                                    

Indeed, the mighty mushroom

first sign of life in darkness and dankness

complicated and resilient 

.

Wild fungi remind me well that one doesn't have to build a fortress around the heart to thrive. All that needs be done is to endure and shine.

to try

and then try again

over and over,

the sum of effort yielding a life worth loving.

In this world of big and shiny city life all it takes is a retreat to the redwoods near the coast to see Emerson's words in fruitbody flesh

and be reminded of how strong softness can be.

It's ok to be full of love

it's wonderful to forgive

.

I don't always do it well, do you?

Sometimes I cling to my hurts and nurse them, building the stories up to be the stuff of legend until I laughingly remember how little that serves

and once again take up the path of remembering gratitude and breath.

I used to indulge long and often in these little tantrums

but now it's sometimes as brief as a walk before I come around

or remembering in my hot anger the grace that comes

in a dear friend telling me about bird calls over a simple lunch by the ocean...

the beautiful things in life that serve as a raft in the swift and deadly current of, "He did what?"

And thus reminded it is not long

before my heart bursts through the loam in beautiful color

peach as my baby's cheek

or deep orange like a yolk...

little kindness fungi everywhere we look friends: pay attention

to the dark places.

*

I celebrate the mighty mushroom with two adornments.

They are watercolor paintings of wild and tiny fungus

on enameled copper.

The earrings are post closure with tiny ferns roll-printed on the reverse side where they hug your ear

crafted of fine silver bezel and sterling.

The lariat necklace is a marriage of two types of fungi

tethered by a graceful and strong sterling chain and copper accents on the smaller piece.

The reverse side is counter-enameled a rich and earthy tan.

Both pieces are available 

HERE

.

I encourage you to enter the giveaway

if you've not already done so

and I hope that you remember the power of tender things this fine day.

xoxo,

Sunny