Changes

Yesterday confirmed a definite change in the course of my life for the past two years. I don't want to go back to being miserable about a certain someone, and would rather that we were just friends so that it can never happen again. I feel really positive about it this time, and I really want to challenge myself to stick with this plan permanently. I'm going to toughen up and take some risks and not think so much about what could happen later. Or at least I want to remain optimistic about the future.

xx

Change of plans

I have applied for a transfer to change my uni course next year. I am not 100% sure that I will end up changing by the end of this year, who knows, maybe I might grow to love jewellery when I'm done with this current project. But at the moment its one of the things that have been really making me depressed. I can't explain how or why it is effecting me this much, but it's definitely the slaving over something I dread that has a great deal to do with it.

Jewellery is cool to look at it, and I understand that jewellery can have great sentimental and ancestral value. But I don't feel it's important enough to me. I have been having the worst time trying to make my mind up about things for the last month and a half, and I can't help but feel like jewellery is making a lot of things worse for me. I stress about the project because I can't really get it done at home as I don't have the right tools, and the amount of time we have to make it means we have to stress at the last minute a lot of the time. If I changed to art theory I can literally do it whenever and wherever I want. I can go sit in the park, in the library, in the car, in bed, etc. The best part about it is that the subjects sound amazingly interesting and insightful and so do the assessments. I know I will stress the same with Art Theory as I might for Fine Arts, but there is always that element of knowing that I will get it done without having to worry so much about it as I am able to work on it whenever I want to. Maybe I'll go back to fine arts in later years of my life if I really want to. But right now I can't deal with the pressure of jewellery. I'm not obsessed or passionate about it at this stage, so I can't do it. That's all. If it turns out by the end of October that I am completely in love with jewellery, I will be very happy, though (obviously). In a sense I am actually hoping that I will grow to love it more within the next few weeks, just so that I can keep at something without dropping out. But I guess only time will tell.

Another thing I am planning on changing is my hair. I need a haircut. My boss/hairdresser has been nagging me about it for months because I have the worst ends and it's simply getting too long for it to be truely healthy. I'm going to miss my long hair but at least it can finally be healthy. Hair grows! Cutting your hair is also a sure sign of letting go of the past. I just want to feel refreshed. I guess cutting my hair is a symbol of my choice to finally make up my mind and do something about things that are making me unhappy. Even if it all sorts itself out in the end, I just want something to change about myself and my life and most importantly, my attitude towards everything.

Childhood

I’m having a really weird and sad moment thinking about high school. I suddenly miss those days when I first met all the friends I have now. I’m trying to remember what I thought or how I felt when I first met them, and how my perception of them may or may not have changed since then. It kind of makes me sad because I feel like even though I am still meeting new people at uni, there is this weird unexplainable feeling about meeting people in high school that I really miss. I never thought I’d say I miss high school this soon. It even kind of saddens me how we’ve all changed so much in some ways. Like we’ve been some how sculpted by society and everything we’ve been through. Not that there’s anything wrong with changing, but it still makes me feel quite sad thinking about it all. Although I am really happy to have the friends I have now and for so long.

I was just thinking this morning about my friend Marisa who I have known since we were in year 3 or so. Our mums were and still are friends, and we are the same age so naturally we got along. We spent pretty much every afternoon after school playing games at my house. Stuff like School, Offices and Food Shop, or making secret clubs with our own secret code alphabets, climbing the three in my backyard and jumping on the trampoline, or playing dress ups or taking photos or doing plays in front of our parents. We stopped hanging out when high school started.

I really miss play time. You know, like when you could come up with the most outrageous things to do together, like forming story based games in the cubby house, mums and dads, dress ups, pokemon, tip…or weird missions to capture people or collect the magic stolen gem.

Being an adult is both liberating but terrifying. I feel things I don’t want to feel and think about things I can’t stand thinking about anymore. I notice so many more things that I don’t want to notice because I start thinking about it too much. People tell you not to worry but you continue to do so.

I still remember when I was little I used to look at older girls and think “I wonder what I’m going to look like when I’m 18. I can’t wait”, and now here I am and I never would have thought I’d be into the things I’m into right now or feeling the way I do about myself right now.

I miss my primary school aged self. I feel like I was also so much nicer to people back then. But I remember I started to lose it when someone borrowed my yellow faber castel marker and gave it back all used up, and then saw that they had their own markers meaning they probably swapped them. Yellow was my favourite colour back then, too (wow, symbolism much). I was also bitter when someone stole my awesome pencil sharpener not long after. I felt cheated because I had always been so nice to people and couldn’t believe that someone had the audacity to steal from me.

I also remember feeling sad for my mum when I’d lose or have something stolen from me, or if I didn’t like my lunch or if I dropped it on the floor. I still remember when I fell off the monkey bars at school and landed shin first on the side of the little iron platform thing and scraped my shins really badly and blood was dripping down both my legs and no one was there except for one girl who I didn’t know, so she didn’t care. It was the most painful thing I thought I had ever experienced. I came home and told mum and she kissed me on the head and hugged me.

I want to go back to….1999. I think year 2 was probably my favourite year of primary school. I was in the split class with year 3 and so me and Stella only hung out with girls in year 3 and they were so much nicer than the other girls in year 2.

I am having the biggest block right now, with this jewellery thing. I have one more design to do and I can’t think of a good way to do it. I’ve been procrastinating all day.

Myspace nostalgia

I was just browsing my old Myspace blog and I can't help but feel like nothing much has changed in regards to the way I think. Most of it is pretty pessimistic stuff, but then there is also a hint of optimism in them.

But I honestly have to say that I felt quite sad after reading it. I have a friend on there who I hardly talk to anymore, even though we used to talk everyday over MSN as she lived about two hours away, and we would tell each other all our problems. We would successfully cheer each other up every time and I really miss that. Not to say that I don't feel cheered up after talking to my friends now, but I still miss that particular friendship. We are still friends now, don't get me wrong, but we just seemed to have lost that special bond and I don't really know why it happened. We didn't have a falling out or anything...

I also feel that the fact that I still get worried from time to time about a particular relationship between me and a good friend, is a really big wake up call to the fact that I really need to pull my socks up with all of that. Not that I still get as negative about everything like I used to, I am a lot happier these days and have been since around the middle of last year. But I am finding myself still thinking about the same things sometimes and forgetting some other more important things. I can't go into detail with it though, because it's such a long story and a bit personal. All I'm saying is that I haven't felt like this all year about a particular part of this situation and then recently it was brought up again and I lost it, again. Hysteria is my middle name when it comes to these situations. Not that I'd say I'm alone with it though. But I don't want to be like that anymore. I need to remember what has been said to me, and what I have promised to myself time and time again.

I feel like it is really time to fix a lot of things in regards to the way I think of the world around me. I have so much pent up negativity, but so much hope in trying to make things better at the same time, that I actually end up losing hope in everything because I can't take it. It's just a horrible feeling when you feel like you've come such a long way but then realise that some things are still the same. I don't want to go backwards.

Actual Pain

Actual Pain have made a collection inspired by old horror movies, in particular, werewolfs.

This is the Crowley

This is the Dracul, although I don't really see any difference between them.

Tithi Kutchamuch

Yes that is a little pig poking its head through your ring to reach your finger.

Yes, those are bunnies, pigs and bulls frolicking in circles around your wrist.

Next jewellery project

So for one of my jewellery classes our next project is a series which we can base on any concept we want, and incorporating it into three pieces. I have chosen to base mine on fairytales and how they use forests as metaphors for the character's internal battles to become a 'better person' or to learn or whatever, and how the forest can also be related to Carl Jung's concept of the Shadow aspect of personalities, which is basically that we all have hidden fears, shortcomings and things that we don't want others to know, hidden within our subconscious, and that the only way to overcome these is to confront them.

So my three pieces will consist of a depiction of the forest itself, and will give reference to the journey into the depth of the forest aka the mind's hidden fears and battles. My other piece will be the villain, so I've incorporated elements of different types of villains that we see in fairytales into a ring. For my third piece I want to do something more optimistic, to illustrate how the character has come out stronger and more wise, etc. But I haven't really drawn up any designs yet. My mind seems to just really enjoy designing the spikey, scary things these days. But I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Anyway, here is a model of the villain ring. I've also made one for the forest, which is a neckpiece but my idea has sort of changed now so I'm not going to post a photo. I'll probably make this out of titanium because of the silver colour and the fact that different temperatures makes it change colours.

I have expensive taste.... -_-

Baccarat

Ruby rock ring

Vicente Gracia

French Bull Dog ring

The face is carved out of tourmaline!

Jolie B. Ray

John Hardy

Palu Macan- Lava" dome ring

Bottega Veneta

Scarab beetle ring

Aurelie Bidermann

Helmut ring

Yves Saint Laurent

'Iconic arty oval' ring

Alinari Stefano

"Pure Gold Boat" ring

$4000+... Oh lovely, I'll have two...

Alexander McQueen

Swarovski crystal crowned skull ring

Roberto Cavalli

Feather and stone ring

Burberry

Faceted glass ring

Ongwat

Scaffold ring

Marked by birth

This is the first picture I’ve ever taken purposely to show my birthmark.

All my life I’ve been given advice on how to get rid of it. Relatives have told me that I can get special creams or bleaches, or go to special beauticians to get it removed. I’ve been told it’s gotten ‘darker’ over the years. I’ve been referred to as “Sally, the one with the birthmark”.

People always seem to think that I’m really insecure about my face and that I’d obviously want to get this mark off and they say it in that really sympathetic voice as if I’m really desperate for their advice, when I have never even asked for any.

I honestly embrace it now. I used to feel ashamed of it but now I don’t give a fuck. If anything, I like to push my hair behind my ear to show it to the general public just because I know that people would think it was ugly.

This is my big fuck-you to society and their ridiculous conventional standards of beauty. I’m not trying to “change the world” or be radical or whatever the fuck else I might be accused of. But it honestly sickens me knowing that some people would avoid getting to know someone because of a physical ‘flaw’, and I am getting sick and tired of people trying to make me feel like I have a piece of shit on my face.

This Will Destroy You - "Grandfather Clock"

"winge"

Today my boss said this to me:
"So how is jewellery? Are you done wingeing about it or..?"

It made me internally angry and insulted.

I know I have this constant need to vent about my jewellery course, but it really makes me lose hope in humanity when people automatically tell me that I'm just complaining all the time and that I should just make up my mind. It kills me that I haven't complained about anything to anyone in so long, besides on my blog in order to save the bother for people around me, and once I do decide to confide in people about something that is bothering me, they throw it back at my face.

The only reason why I never talk to people about my problems is because I know they'll just tell me I'm being stupid. The only reason why I keep changing my mind about jewellery is because it's something I have to kind of decide on pursuing as a future career. Yeah, it's all just "new" so I'm "not used to it yet", but it doesn't mean that people have to be so fucking insensitive about it.

So who the fuck am I supposed to go to for support when even my own sister, amongst many others, have just pretty much told me to make up my mind and stop complaining about stress, when "everything else in life is going to be stressful". It honestly makes me feel like I should just find the easiest, bludgiest job out there because being alive is a challenge enough when people don't even give a fuck about what's bothering you.

I've never felt as alone as I have for the past 6 months. It's so much more than just jewellery.

Ridiculous

1. 15 year olds smoking and posting photos of themselves with the cigarette purposely posed in the foreground. This makes me think of that picture I found on tumblr that said "Don't Let Fashion Smoke You". I truly believe that smoking is just a fashion trend set by indie movies about troubled teenagers. I bet if someone attractive started smoking shit (yes, poo.), everyone else would do it. Or if someone thought of how to brew beer out of urine.

2. Art college lecturers that don't want to teach anything because they would be producing more great artists and therefore creating more competition for themselves.

3. Hipsters taking over virtually every 'cool' suburb around Sydney - Paddington, Glebe, Newtown...

Julia and I had this great conversation about this issue last night. Hipsters used to be scene kids. The Scene trend is relatively forgivable now that Hipster has exploded onto the market. The Scene was actually legitimately a teen fad, which we all knew would grow out eventually. But the Hipster age span goes until around early to mid twenties, which is much more unforgivable since, being twenty something, you'd expect to have more sense than that. This also applies to the tweens and middle aged housewives who are obsessed with vampires. We can forgive you for being obsessed with Twilight because we all know that some time before you turn 18 you might be over it already, or else evolved into liking "better" vampire novels and films.


4. It's dawned on me that maybe I have a problem with studying in Sydney. Maybe if I went somewhere else, like Melbourne or even abroad, I'll feel more motivated in my art studies.

Serpent & the Swan

I love these rings by Serpent & the Swan. They are Sydney based designers.

I love their Deer Love ring. Black and Flesh are usually the only colours they make their jewellery in. I love the Flesh one.

Andi Velgos

Andi Velgos’ work is greatly inspired by organic forms and natural growth processes. Her collection titled “Human | Nature” focuses on the organisms that grow within natural habitats, and explores the “delicate balance between the beautiful and grotesque” within natural forms. Her other works also resonate with a dark, forest-grown atmosphere, with the use of both precious and non precious materials and nature inspired patterns. Her practice stems from her interest in finding harmony between the natural and man-made.

“Human|Nature” handpiece

“Growth” brooch

PS. if you're wondering why the text is so formal it's because I've written this for a proposal for my next jewellery project, and this artist is one I've included as someone who is doing something similar to what I'm going for.

Pink Elephants

Okay so Tahti Syrjala just has the most interesting taste in music. She posted this song up and I think it's amazing. It's not the type of music I usually listen to, but I do hear this kind of thing a lot at work because my boss likes it. But occasionally I find myself quite entranced by it. It's like a weird mix of the elephant parade in Dumbo and an electronic gangster-y type of mood. Haha.

The Singing Bone by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

"A wild boar was wreaking havoc throughout the country. No one dared venture into the forest where it ran about. With its tusks it ripped to pieces anyone who was bold enough to pursue it and attempt to kill it. Then the king proclaimed that anyone who could kill the boar would receive his daughter for a wife.

There were three brothers in the kingdom. The oldest was sly and clever; the second was of ordinary intelligence; but the third and youngest was innocent and slow witted. They wanted to win the princess, so they set forth to seek out the wild boar and kill it.

The two oldest ones went together, while the youngest one went by himself. When he entered the woods an old man approached him. He was holding a black lance in his hand, and said to him, "Take this lance and fearlessly attack the boar with it, and you will kill it." And that is what happened. He struck the boar with the lance, and it fell dead to the earth. Then he lifted it onto his shoulder, and cheerfully set off toward home.

On the way he came to a house where his brothers were making merry and drinking wine. When they saw him with the boar on his back, they called to him, "Come in and have a drink with us. You must be tired." The innocent simpleton, not thinking about any danger, went inside and told them how he had killed the boar with the black lance, and rejoiced in his good fortune. That evening they returned home together. The two oldest ones plotted to kill their brother. They let him walk ahead of them, and when they came to a bridge just outside the city, they attacked him, striking him dead. They buried him beneath the bridge. Then the oldest one took the boar, carried it to the king, claimed that he had killed it, and received the princess for a wife.

Many years passed, but it was not to remain hidden. One day a shepherd was crossing the bridge when he saw a little bone beneath him in the sand. It was so pure and snow-white that he wanted it to make a mouthpiece from, so he climbed down and picked it up. Afterward he made a mouthpiece from it for his horn, and when he put it to his lips to play, the little bone began to sing by itself:

Oh, dear shepherd
You are blowing on my bone.
My brothers struck me dead,
And buried me beneath the bridge,
To get the wild boar
For the daughter of the king.

The shepherd took the horn to the king, and once again it sang the same words. After hearing this, the king had his people dig under the bridge, and they soon uncovered the skeleton. The two wicked brothers confessed their crime and were thrown into the water. The murdered brother's bones were laid to rest in a beautiful grave in the churchyard."

I just thought I'd share this. Credit goes to the Grimm Brothers' Home Page

So this is my new blog. I normally use tumblr, but I decided that it was too recycled and there was always so much going on that it didn't seem personal enough. At least, it didn't feel like anyone would really pay that much attention to particular posts. So even though I don't know many people who have a blogspot, I've made one just so that I can have my own more personal space, as well as following other blogs I find interesting. I also like this layout more. With tumblr, I feel like its more a fun blog, which is why I'm keeping it.

Anyway, you will find that I will be posting a lot about fairytales, jewellery designers or artists, or generally things that make me feel infinite, or things that make me feel angry or sad. Whatever it is, I hope it won't be boring, and that this won't turn into a blog full of complaining and posts that I will look back on and want to delete.

On another note, here is a band I love but haven't actually listened to in a while. I should actually look into getting more of their music, I only have one album. If you like dark shoegaze/metal type music, listen to Alcest. I'd post a music file here if I knew how to, but here's a photo of one of their albums that I have, "Souveniers d'un autre monde". I think it gives a nice idea of what the vibe of his music is like.