True Blue

The Husband, who became convinced that he was suffering from allergies rather than a bad cold, because he just wasn't getting any better after two weeks, stopped taking any precautions, germ-wise, around us last weekend. As a result, the Short One and I are now suffering from what, yes, really is just a bad cold. So the whole family is sick (again) now, but the SO, who managed to avoid the last round of family illness, has it the worst. Since his throat is pretty raw and he has a terrible, hacking cough, we ended up making his first serving ever of Jell-O, thinking that it might be something soothing (albeit not terribly nutritious) for him to eat.

The SO, being the SO, thought it was a pretty cool toy (he liked the way it jiggled) and enjoyed my attempt to tie it into the upcoming holiday - everything is heart-shaped around here this week. I don't think he thought much of it as something to actually eat, though. For my part, I enjoyed the completely unnatural blue shade of the gelatin, which ended up reminding me of these (a-ha, you see? I finally manage to tie one of my posts in to jewelry!):


I did not make these, I hasten to say. I lived in England in the early 90s, and my mother and I found this pair while browsing around Liberty in London, I believe during the summer of 1990. She bought them for me as a gift (I seem to recall that they were rather hideously expensive, although I'm sure the exchange rate, which was around 2-1 back then, didn't help), and they were my favorite pair of earrings for the next several years. I found them again while cleaning up our spare bedroom preparatory to painting it a couple weeks ago.

They are made of shells suspended in tinted blue resin. At the time, I thought they were a funky, chic re-interpretation of all of those shells-in-acrylic spoon-rests that were once all over the place in the 70s (remember those? at least, those of you who are as creaky as I am?) Because they are clip-ons (I do not have pierced ears), they are also fairly big.

I find the earrings an interesting relic, especially in light of the kinds of jewelry I'm actually making these days. While I can tell that my tastes have definitely changed with time (and I certainly don't ever intend to post any pics of what my hair looked like back then or during the 80s, for example), I think it's evident that the sort of designs in which I'm interested now definitely stem from my salad days.

Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that, looking back over pieces I collected and wore as a young(er) woman, I can actually see a certain development in style over the years. Like many designers, I started out in my youth as someone who simply liked jewelry. Without thinking about it much, I would probably say today that I don't have a really fixed "style" in my designs. However, looking at these favorite earrings from almost 20 years ago, a few things are, in fact, evident to me: I still like big pieces that make a statement, I like color, I like resin and mixing resin with more natural, organically-themed objects, and, well, I still like sea-themes. (Really, if it weren't the fact that I'd have to fight with the SO over them, I might start wearing these earrings around town again.)

It does make me wonder if this kind of continuity is true for other designers. What do you think? If you go back through the types of jewelry you collected in your youth, how do you think they inform your current style as a designer? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Thanks for visiting.