Digging In
The story of this house, this property, is going to be wrapped up in wind. We’ve taken to calling it Windblown Farm - which can be taken as either a name or a description depending on the day - because the air here is always moving. Sometimes it’s a gentle tickle in the tops of the trees, sometimes full-on chaos, but it’s constant. I can’t say yet if the name will stick for forever, but it feels right for now.
The prevailing winds seem to come from the northwest, almost at a perfect 45 degree angle. I know this both from looking at the dried grasses, blown nearly flat in places, and from standing outside and turning myself round and round until I find a place where the gusts strike me straight in the back. There’s a living windbreak, almost perfectly positioned, to help protect the house…but it’s in bad shape - full of holes and gaps, broken up by dead and badly spaced trees.
Due to lack of water or lack of care, the tallest tree reaches maybe 12 feet - which is woefully small in terms of what’s needed for protection from the gusts. The snow we’ve had the past few weeks has been great for illustrating what needs to be fixed, though. In some places, it drifts perfectly - caught and slowed and tumbled to rest. In those places, the wind is being slowed, too. HOWEVER, there are other places, like in the gaps, where windspeed actually increases and the ground gets blown bare as a result.
Repairing the windbreak and then maintaining it is going to be one of our Big Projects here. It will require time and sweat and too much water but I have to try or else accept that we’ll always be at the mercy of the wind. As soon as the ground thaws, I’ll get to work.
When not outside studying wind patterns or walking around planning horse fences, I’ve been riding a creative high. First off, I started working on my first e-course which will cover jewelry photography. It felt like sort of an easy topic with which to experiment and get my bearings BEFORE trying to explain to people how to wield saws and hammers and torches! I’m hoping to get it done and published by the beginning of April, but there are so many components to figure out and organize. That’s how it goes, though - ideas are almost always simpler in my head than they end up being in reality.
I also started working on a new bandana design. Very spring-y and floral and joyous and it will HOPEFULLY be available with the spring restock, if not before. I’ll just leave this here as a little glimpse of what’s to come (cue the robin song, petrichor, and spring blossoms!).
Lastly, I’ve been diving into jewelry work, of course.
The past year or so has been my most successful in terms of sales…but probably my least successful in terms of creativity. In years past, I’ve filled full sketchbooks with ideas and musings but the last twelve months saw me use maybe twenty pages.
Now, I’m going to cut myself a little slack and say that last year was rough on so many levels and I just didn’t have it in me to really dig deep. I mostly used familiar patterns and motifs, repeated again and again and again, but that’s what I needed to do to feel steady. And it got me through.
But with this spring collection, I decided I wasn’t going to use ANY old drawings as the basis for my new work. This has meant hours of doodling and planning out how components connect instead of just tracing something from a past inspiration and getting on with it.
Ideation is HARD work. So much harder than fabrication. My head ends up feeling fuzzy and warm (like I’m an engine overheating) and by the end of the day I walk away still puzzling, feeling like I’m no closer to having things figured out.
But ohhhh just wait till you see what I’ve got in the works. There are a few things that sort of feel like past pieces, filled up with new life - and then other pieces, still, that are completely unlike anything I’ve ever made before. For every “aha!” moment there is an “oh no!” - but the process is everything. EVERYTHING. I don’t know if it’s the new house or the new year or the light-soaked land that beckons me with every side-long glance out the window, but THIS feels like the pinnacle of making for me.
I hope the muse sticks around long enough for me to get used to it!