Category: Iron & Metalwork
-
Rainbow Lion
Rainbow Lion was my big project for March. The magic in this one is a bit more “white light” than my usual work, and it will be reassuring for me to get back to my stones and knives. But I found this colorful yarn when I was working on the Snow Lion, and it was…
-
Ashes and Rust
Today I have a Temperance story for the week of the Full Moon and the Vernal Equinox. In the Ironwing Tarot, the Temperance card is titled “Quench” and shows a newly-forged iron bowl being cooled in water, creating steam that melts the overhanging melting icicles. It is an image of completion, consecration, and all the contrasting elements that create…
-
Tibetan Snow Lion Doll
For this Moon, I took a break from designing oracles and took a commission for a shaman’s doll – this Tibetan Snow Lion, with blanket, iron bells and tent stakes, and shaman’s mirror. I enjoyed making him so much that I want to make another lion, but I’ll probably take my time about finishing that…
-
Slag Baubles
Last weekend we hiked in the hills south of our house, where grass, cactus, and thorny shrubs give way to agaves and desert oaks. A hundred years ago, there were several active copper mines in the area, and while hiking we see glory holes, ore piles, old dirt roads, and a shiny black heap of slag that…
-
Amulet for the New Moon
I don’t have a lot to say about this amulet. Four inches long, four hot-forged pods – two copper, one steel, and one sterling silver. It started out as something entirely different. When the original idea didn’t work out, I nearly abandoned the pieces until I discovered how neatly the iron and silver pods fit together. I knew that I…
-
Pallasite Meteorite Pendant
The top stone on this pendant is a tiny slice of the Esquel pallasite that I bought several years ago. The other stone is native terrestrial iron from Siberia, which I bought as a small slab and cut to match the pallasite. Together they are an image of the boundary deep in the earth where…
-
Mica Collage
I’m working on several paintings for a poster presentation that I’ll be taking to a botany conference in two weeks. The poster is mostly about using handground mineral pigments in egg tempera for botanical illustration, but will also include scratchboard art and a couple of craft projects like this: Jaguar Tracks in Blue Oak Canyon 10″x14″ Amate…
-
Cranes and Ferns
Yesterday we went cranewatching and fernhunting, two activities that have special significance in southeastern Arizona. Thousands of sandhill cranes spend part of the winter here, drawn to the warm weather, cornfields, and small artificial ponds. A thousand years ago, they would have come for the natural cienegas (marshes) and grasslands that have now vanished. Their wild, primitive…
-
Glacier Priestess Necklace
To celebrate my birthday (yesterday) and the cold rainy weather (the first significant winter rain since early 2005), I finished this necklace, which is inspired by the Tarot High Priestess. The pendant is fossil mammoth ivory that I cut and polished to highlight a rare and beautiful blue vivianite “eye” pattern. The back is hot-forged sterling…
-
Two Blue Necklaces
I re-strung a strand of frosted aquamarine beads and added a pendant that I made a couple of years ago: it’s rare Blue Ice chalcedony from Greenland. I bought the cabochon because it looks exactly like a Greenland glacier. The forged silver hook is inspired by Viking silver designs. A wintry necklace with the quiet…
MINERALARTS: 