Tag Archives: etsy

Sparks Fly from her Fingertips

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Spiral Promise Ring.

Spiral Promise Ring.

Through the Christmas rush I’ve had a kind of breakthrough. It has to do with new skills, new magic tricks. It all seems to be summed up in this humble ring– the “spiral promise”– because the wires seem to endlessly circle each other and because it reminds me of a simple love token. I made one of these for myself– which is how most of my designs begin. I thought, it’s so humble, what would it mean to anyone who regularly collects my designs? And yet I wore mine every day and came to love it.  Little by little I have been introducing these new pieces that feel much more personal.

When I opened the shop I was recreating the vintage pieces I had to sell off, one by one, because I could not find work in Yorkshire. I still love the Victorian and early 20th century Bohemian influences and have kept those percolating through my design imagination, but then something else crept in, something I wasn’t expecting. This early 70s witchy woman muse showed up, with her hand forged boldness and her raw stones.

This is primal stuff– the first memories of adornment are of this crazy ankh necklace made of railroad nails which my mother wore. The thing looked dangerous and puzzling, a powerful piece! So I’m on a journey back to my roots.

I have always loved wire wrapped links, and as my designs have progressed they have formed the basis of almost all my pieces.  Now I have explored using different metals, pickling them in various solutions, hammering and bending. The deliberation of a simple metal spiral reminds me of binding spells and of the Celtic and Viking adornment which is very much of the place where I live now, its ancient history.

Things are changing. There is more of me in this new work– more of my hand, my heart and will. I hope you will come with me on this journey.

The Blackest of Fridays

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It’s Black Friday. Don’t go down to the maul. Spend it with me instead, supporting small businesses and handmades.

I never liked Black Friday very much–the crush at the till, the mania for some consumer item I’d never heard of. Initially it was with a pang of guilt that I indulged in this, the blackest of promotions. But then I realized that I actually enjoyed shopping on Etsy and on other small business owned websites for gifts and treats for myself, and I actually started to look for coupons or sales on this day, allowing myself the luxury of a bit of a spree– something I almost never do.  This would not have been possible without the internet, and despite some recent issues on Etsy with resellers, Etsy’s business manuals and the nitty-gritty update emails have been invaluable to me during this very busy time.

It’s black, it’s Friday, and there’s a sale on in my shop– what’s not to love?

The Alchemical Casting Process Revealed

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My pieces are made with the materials of my dreams– beautiful semi-precious stones, well made TieraCast findings, glass from my glass-blower friend Luke in Wiltshire and beautiful hand cast pewter  based on tiny sculptures by artist Cynthia Thornton. In this video, Greg explains how he creates the elements which I use in many of my designs.

At the On the Edge Festival, Leeds.

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The Feral Strumpet Stall at the On the Edge Festival, Leeds

TLast weekend the Feral Strumpet stall was in action at the On the Edge Festival in Leeds.  This new arts fest was held at Templeworks, an artspace in the old flax mill, which was designed to resemble the temple of Horus in Edfu, Egypt and built at the height of the industrial revolution in Leeds. Famous at one time for “the largest room in the world” an the sheep which grazed on the roof. It was a pleasure to sell at this festival, as we were blessed with the sun on that day and everyone was in a lazy Sunday mood.  The Feral wares were well received and we enjoyed the other traders, all DIY peeps.  Vegan food from That Old Chestnut was a highlight.

The Feral Strumpet banner was made by installation artist Edith Abeyta.

I have no plans to sell at another live event in the near future, but you can still shop at my Etsy store.

My faithful helper indulging in some end-of-the-day tomfoolery.

 

Protesty

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Yesterday, thousands of Etsy shops protested the inclusion of resellers on Etsy by putting their shop on “vacation” or “holiday” mode for a day. The record of silent protesters can be found here: http://protesty.com/

Thanks for the heads up about this from fellow blogger and maker, Nicola Baker. She has written an insightful post about the value of handmade and what it means to be a maker in a world where art and skill has been devalued by cheap labor and the global monoculture. She says, “Handmade art should have value and should be valued, especially at a time when our high streets are, in the main, full of generic shops. Wouldn’t our lives be dull if we all had the same jobs and if our homes were full of the same decorative pieces?”  I completely agree.

My experience at Whitby proved to me that I am competing in many markets, in the literal and meta sense, where a race to the bottom determines what sells.  Walmart, Primark and Asda and the like have distorted what we mean by value. The handmade movement presents a powerful antidote to slave labour and monoculture by providing consumers with a connection to the objects in their lives, their makers and the process of production.  People who embrace handmade are buying fewer things but are opting for objects they will live with and love, eschewing the throwaway bargain culture that dominates the high street.

While the presence of resellers has become a growing problem on Etsy, it was the Etsy Front Page feature of a reseller that instigated this mass protest.  I don’t wish to link to her shop, as I feel the amount of publicity this has given to her shop galls me even further. Etsy has shut down myriad shops for transgressions that were minor compared to this seller, who is claiming she runs a “collective” even though she outsources her work and doesn’t make the pieces herself.  My guess is the reason Etsy hasn’t shut her down and has left up the feature is that she is a business woman formost, as she claims in the interview, and she probably has a pretty good lawyer. (Edit– apparently she does have a lawyer who has sent a C&D order  to someone who has posted on the Etsy site asking for an explanation of the situation. It just gets worse! To read more on this hilarious yet disturbing development, go to regretsy.)

I would have joined the protest, but I learned of it too late to make it meaningful.  It would be great if the Protesty site would actually have an online petition or mailing list about how more sellers could get involved on an ongoing basis, so that the protest lives beyond May 10th. (Edit: There is a petition around this issue, though I am not sure it’s related to Protesty)  Also, it would be great if the site could have a list of demands that were put to Etsy about defining its new shop criteria which is causing so much trouble, and explaining the inconsistent enforcement of their rules. The response from the Etsy CEO has been utterly useless to the concerned sellers whose livelihood is at stake.  He equates their outcry with a “mob mentality”.

I don’t think Etsy will ever understand how impossible it is for a small maker to compete with a reseller on Etsy. I don’t think they care as long as the reseller is paying for their listings and renewals.  What might have been a supportive website spearheading a handmade movement has cashed in our cred, jumped the shark.  The handmade credentials of Etsy, created by all the hard working artisans out there with callouses to prove it, can now be used by anyone who can document a few workers and claim their factory is a “collective”.

I love Etsy’s generic support for sellers– their tutorials and emails are very helpful.  But when I’ve needed something as an individual, having problems with the site or with non-delivery of an item, Etsy has shut down the conversation at the moment of difficulty. In a way, this parallels Etsy’s response to the reseller front page controversy.  Etsy has shut down the comments on the Featured Seller page, moving the discussion to a more private place on the site, so confused and concerned Etsy sellers are talking to each other behind closed doors. Given the recent development and increasing number of stories of Etsy shutting down legit shops overnight without explanation, I am setting up my own online shop to run in tandem with the Etsy one.

It is clear Etsy will not be the one to look out for independent makers.  We must do that ourselves but presenting our work the best we can, with all the emotional connections we have to it and trust that our customers will recognize what separates the authentic craftsperson from the opportunist.  Shoppers on Etsy must be even more vigilant, and makers must strive to forge connections with our customers so they know who we are and what we stand for.

What did you dream last night?

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The Ghost of Eastry Church, Kent.

Last night was Saint Mark’s Eve.  There is an old tradition in the North of England which required parishioners of certain churches to hold a vigil through the night, watching for apparitions of themselves. Those who saw themselves enter– as rotting corpses or marching coffins– were sure to die in the coming year. Fair warning; time to prepare.

Though I now live in a city that makes a good deal of its living off the undead, and the myriad ghosts of this little walled town outnumber us, I am not jaded.  It is easy to see how death walks with us, here, despite the garish morbidity of all the ghost tours on offer, with their own inoculation to this mystery.  With that said, I have never seen on heard a ghost in York.  (What will usually send a shiver are recordings I find, actively look for trolling about on the internet– either supposedly photographic or EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Perhaps what is more disturbing is the medium, and the necessity of contact rather than the contact itself.  But that is a topic for another post.)

Perhaps the vigil of Saint Mark’s Eve is a version of an older custom on Walpurgisnacht, or the Eve of the Feast of the English Saint Walpurgis, who is a Christian manifestation of an older harvest Goddess. Walpurgisnacht was held on the night of the witch’s sabbath, May 30th, when the doors between worlds were open for spirits to pass between.  Probably the best time to hold such a vigil!

Older still at this time, were rituals involving cakes and dreams of love in the night. Bake a bannock in silence. Put it under your pillow. In the night you will see his face.  Come morning, eat the bannock; sweep the crumbs from the bed.

The Hare and the Moon

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Egyptian Heiroglyph for hare also means "to be".

I have been to Whitby many times for the Gothic Weekend twice a year– this year will be the first year I will be attending as a dealer!  Look for me in the Leisure Centre if you will be there.

Near the Shambles in Whitby, there used to be a shop with green shutters painted with three hares. That little Pagan shop has moved and the three hares are now painted over, but it was the first place I saw this sacred image. The hares form a triquetra, or three cornered shape, representing the three aspects of the Goddess– later adopted by the Christian faith to represent the Holy Trinity.

They are a riddle, these “rotating rabbits”– three hairs, each with two ears, yet they only share three. This image originated in the cave temples of China, and traveled along the Silk Road to England. Sometimes called “Tinner’s Rabbits”, the symbol was adopted by tin miners in Devon.

But the three rabbits also decorate mosques, and the appearance of this traveling symbol in synagogues may be a reference to the Jewish diaspora.

Hares have been associated with the Virgin Mary– and most likely is attached in ancestral memory to an older Goddess, one associated with the moon and lunar cycles.  In Chinese Folklore the Moon Rabbit is said to be pounding out the elixir of immortality in a mortar for the moon Goddess Chang’e. The Aztecs also have a moon rabbit legend as well as many other cultures. Some say you can see this rabbit by looking at the shadows on the moon which form its shape.  One wonders if the moon gazing hare is looking up to see its big goddess in the sky– it’s a nice image to contemplate at this time of year.  At least, I like to think on it.

In the days before special effects, the optical illusion of the three ears must have had been amplified with a kind of shifting mystery. These rabbits turn and turn in the mind, spinning the wheel of the year toward spring.

As an aside, I have been listening to the neo folk band, The Hare and the Moon a lot lately– they describe themselves as “spook folk”.  You might like to give them a listen! http://www.myspace.com/thehareandthemoon

Blessed Spring Equinox, dear reader!

The Hare and the Moon, Labradorite and Pewter Earrings by Feral Strumpet on Etsy.

Blessed Terminalia, Dear Reader

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The drystone walls of the Yorkshire Dales

When I think of Yorkshire, the first image in my mind is of wide open space marked by the patchwork of drystone walls.  And there are invisible boundaries, tracks: public foot paths often are the very same Death Roads, or ancient rights-of-way through private land, which allowed people their funerary rites. And there are fragments of Roman roads, as well as dream-paths or ley lines.

This island is a sacred palimpsest, scored and re-scored, and yet all the marks remain as either archeological evidence or fairy paths.

Today is the Roman Festival of Terminus, the god of borders and endings. Ovid, in his usual warm, vivid and simple verse, describes the ritual:

Terminus, whether a stone or a stump buried in the earth,

You have been a god since ancient times.

You are crowned from either side by two landowners,

Who bring two garlands and two cakes in offering.

An altar’s made: here the farmer’s wife herself

Brings coals from the warm hearth on a broken pot.

The old man cuts wood and piles the logs with skill,

And works at setting branches in the solid earth.

Then he nurses the first flames with dry bark,

While a boy stands by and holds the wide basket.

When he’s thrown grain three times into the fire

The little daughter offers the sliced honeycombs.

Others carry wine: part of each is offered to the flames:

The crowd, dressed in white, watch silently.

Terminus, at the boundary, is sprinkled with lamb’s blood,

And doesn’t grumble when a sucking pig is granted him.

I love the affectionate irony in the last line, which speaks to an intimacy Ovid (and it might be said Romans in general) had with the gods.  What a hard blessing are boundaries and wise endings, and how necessary.

Glowing coals from a broken pot. Ember Berry Earrings by Feral Strumpet on Etsy

The White Rose of York

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The minster illuminated with white roses. Photo by Kippa Matthews

Every place has its symbol that defines it, captures its genius loci.

In London I worked in the City for a spell– one of the darker times in my life. I would often look to the guardian of that place– the pizzled dragon with its heraldic erection, and wonder.   To survive the alienation and everyday struggle I would often call on dark things to help me.  They were always there, waiting.

The York Rose

What a contrast now to find the sigil of this city, York, to be a white, five petaled mandala.  I fell in love with it when I first saw it.  Though the history dates back to the House of York in the 14th century and the War of the Roses in the 15th century, it was really the Victorians who popularized the symbol.  Great urban planners they were (though they tried to take down the city walls!) But they were also sentimentalists, and the white rose as a municipal symbol seems uniquely Victorian.

Of course the rose is the Christian symbol representing Mary– and where Mary is, we are sure to find also a much older goddess that predates Christianity. The rose is a pagan symbol– with its five petals like the five arms of the pentagram. Their cyclical, spiraled structure suggests the unfurled labyrinth of faith.

White Rose of York earrings by Feral Strumpet on Etsy