It's been hot in the studio and the showroom progress slow, but steady.
In between several breaks, fans twirling and innumerable glasses of water, I think I have the final overall setup down.

Got all the recycled black rubber mats in place (which my blessing of a 4-legged companion seems to like very much!), putting the rest of my show and booth equipment to good use, have white canvas I can use for curtains and lights to assemble, and then...ready to go in July!

It's slowly coming together.
After more than a year of gaps, false starts, regrouping and simply stalling I rolled up my sleeves (it's also getting warm here...) and picked up the first piece of clutter - my tent weights, actually, that had been sitting in the front part of the studio collecting a lot of dust..

A little over 200 square feet, front part of my studio in industrial Santa Fe, high up on the mesa.
The building needs work and repairs, it's a raw live/work space I landed a few years back, after my last troubled relocation, it's a C2 also (meaning commercial​ zoned) so I could technically open up to the public...

I do not own the place and got weary of patching things up to near perfection (I know, no such thing exists) and so decided to make do with what I have, which is a lot.
Basically, I am setting up a comfortable booth space with all my tarp and display cases and lights (still have to pull those out) and they are many.

I still have a few things to relocate (what am I going to do with that fence?), but definitely building and playing around with my electrical conduit bits and pieces, and using my famous trash cans for display allure and actual storage. 
Not sure what the 'tower' on the right in the picture above will actually be...
For now it has a gong hanging on it, a memory of child fun at my grandparents house, the stick is missing the top part, but I know I have it somewhere and it will be fixed.

I am planning of starting my studio visits weekends sometime this month, I just need a few more touches in place before I can turn to the fine tuning...
Whether you live in town or visiting, I look forward to welcoming you to my showroom soon, sign up below for an official invitation!

A super quick (and very excited) preview of some work in progress on the bench.
Playing with 'restrictions' in designing new pieces for a Black+White show launching next month online.

So for this invitational online show I am sticking to one metal - thin sheet sterling silver and monochrome - black and white. Simple as that.
And got to say, I am having quite some fun....!

Recycling is in progress on the bench: these are the first two pairs of new earrings I am looking forward to add to my Slices collection this Spring.

These are leftover thin sticks bits and pieces from my cutting of squares and circles out of thick yellow brass...
​I wasn't quite sure at first if I should let them stand alone as a mini series or whether I should add them to an existing line...well, of course they belong to the Slices collection!
​They match the colors, and the simple, striking vibe. 

new earrings in the making, working on something simple and not too boring...

experimenting with copper sheet with pierced motifs, a simple circle cutout and foreseeing fun colors!

putting my thoughts together this morning I realized there could be much to say...but for now pinning down a few things, somewhat randomly popped to mind, but pretty important:

- I am an animal lover. since forever. like forever.
I feel affinity with dogs, coyotes, wolves, foxes, dingos and bears...
a stuffed bear was given to me by my mother when I was 1 and we never departed.
Kara my black dog companion is currently with me, I love dogs, I cannot live without them.

​- a red jeep was a surprise gift from a fellow jeweler at a show in Baltimore, several years ago.
He just walked up to me in the aisle in front of my booth and asked if I could pick up his truck parked at the Albuquerque airport for him, he had just bought a brand new red pickup in Philadelphia and was driving back west with it. He handed me the keys, and if I liked it, he said, I could just keep it...
​
red jeep is still my daily wheels, including a little intervention years back with a rebuilt engine.

and for further reading, bouncing you back to a blog post of some while ago, for a quick summary of a few years of recent living...

it was an intense weekend this past one, the jewelry closeout sale came with much anticipation and hit with great impact and cleared out the display table, set up in my studio for visual support!

and then it was time for packaging everything, pile it by the door and pass the safety check by a vigilant assistant...

a batch ready to go. thank you to all who virtually stopped by....thank you for the support!

here is another quick peek into the jewelry closeout sale coming up in just a few weeks: bit pendant

part of the sale in the black+gold collection, this is the last one of a set of 3 pendants, a minimally pierced disk of black sterling silver with just a tiny bit of 18k gold to spice things up, just a bit.

stay tuned to be alerted when the sale launches!
as a subscriber of my collector list, you get to shop the sale two hours ahead of everyone else and you don't want to miss this, things sell out fast!
so, sign up and check your email these next couple of weeks when you'll get your exclusive link to the sale!....

wondering how everybody is doing deep into this augus...just 3 days to close.
among all the turmoil outside, i have been finding refuge (literally) upstairs in my studio, under a very low ceiling at a desk under a bright skylight...
scored 18 of these little ones this month, and for now piling them up to ready them for future endeavors.

see you there!