Tag Archives: etsy

Kissing the Green Fairy

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Wormwood Heart, Absinthe Rosary Necklace

I made this necklace in honor of the decadent beverage, and the whole thing started with finding the raw, druzy quartz stone bead that reminded me of a sugar cube.  Then, I found the little spoon and not much later the green heart, which just happens to be the same colour of just-stirred absinthe.

I love absinthe.  Beyond the beauty of the liquid– a livid green which turns milky and subtle when water is added– there is the smell, part medicinal, part grown-up candy that I find most seductive. And the ritual, doing it right.

I confess I am no connoisseur, having only imbibed what friends could smuggle to me while I lived in the U.S.  And, once in the UK, one bottle of La Fee (chosen for the label) has lasted me years.

You see I drink alone, (or as Homer Simpson would ask, “Does God count as a person?”) and relish the whole ritual. I don’t set the sugar cube on fire, instead preferring to watch it disintegrate slowly.  My delicate hand blown absinthe glasses were given to me by a dear friend and I think of her whenever I drink from them.  It was as if she knew exactly what was missing from my life!

Next week I am off to Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, where I hear there is an absinthe bar that serves breakfast.  While making this absinthe-heart necklace, I was musing on the promise of such a place, and looking forward to the end of my solitary absinthe indulgence– very soon I will be in a city full of such decadents.

“I never met a monster I didn’t like.”

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Happy Birthday, Vincent Price.  He would have been 100 today.  As a child he was the introduction to a genre I have come to love to the point of psychic immersion.  His ability to combine high camp with intelligence, wit and existential dread will never be matched.

An Etsy Treasury celebrating Vicent Price's 100th Birthday.

I’ve been featured in this Treasury of Victorian Mourning Jewelry on Etsy

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A Treasury of Victorian Mourning Jewelry on Etsy

The morbid sentimentality of Victorian mourning jewelry has long been an obsession of mine, though most of these objects are highly collectible and one can only dream of owning them.  Though, sometimes by accident you happen across something that is really old, and really special– that is how I found the rosary featured.  It was in a lot of the unloved and broken, the fragments I used to make many of my necklaces.

My Vulcanite Mourning Rosary, available in my Etsy shop.

I believe these beads to be vulcanite (often called gutta percha), which is a very early form of plastic that was widely used in Victorian times as it simulated jet. It was used until the early 20th century when bakelite was introduced.

The crucifix features detailed ivy leaves and is marked France. The center medal is a Miraculous medal, and at Mary’s feet there is a date reading “1830″– this is not the date of the rosary but instead the date of the miraculous appearance of Mary commemorated on the medal, which is also marked France. These miraculous medals were used in the late 19th century. This rosary is quite beautiful, delicate and in wonderful condition.

Happy World Goth Day

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Get your black on...it's World Goth Day

The goth scene is home to me, though I haven’t always worn the costume my obsessions have always been the same.  Back before I knew a name for it, I was wearing Victoriana and listening to Bauhaus.  I have met many of my friends in dancing clubs, and this is one subculture where you can embrace middle age gracefully.  I’m happy to be here, whatever Goth Day means (it’s certainly not an invention of Hallmark…yet), it’s a chance for me to shout out to all the other darklings I call my friends– a gleeful carrion call.

(to celebrate I’m having a one day sale in my etsy shop, enter WORLD GOTH DAY at checkout and receive 15% off your order).

I Learned Astonishment

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Lately I’ve been thinking about Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire, that mediation on angelic compassion.  It has Rilke at its heart, insisting on sensual witness, on human delights that one imagines angels can only envy.  Rilke wrote “Every angels is terrifying”.

This conviction is missing from the fluffy New Age vision of guardian angels– something I reject.  It’s not that I don’t believe, it’s that I’m convinced seeing one would destroy you.  With that said, what about hearing angels?  What about that little voice that seems to come from within and without?  That is real– it has a name in Hebrew: Bat Kol, or small voice– the voice of the divine.

This is my concession to the sentimentalized angel– a little Victorian wing suspended from a vintage rosary fragment– Mary’s profile worn to a glossy ghost by years of prayer, combined with the carnival glitter of Swarovski crystals and vintage mardi gras beads.  I would hope Wim Wenders’ angel Damiel would approve.

The Bat Kol Rosary Necklace on Etsy

The Spiral Journey

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While making this pendant necklace which depicts the Chartes Cathedral labyrinth, I was thinking about the maze as an ancient metaphor and archetype of Wyrd or the mystery of destiny.  Living in the UK, I find myself in all kinds of mazes– some quite literal, like the hedge maze in Hanwell, or the turf maze of Rievaulx abbey.  But often the very density of places in England can feel like labyrinths– from the tiny city of York with its snaking walls, the subway tunnels of London or the shadowed neon-lit corners of Soho.  I didn’t really understand the resonance of the labyrinth until moving here.  Indeed, there are no false turns in life!

Ghosts of Mardi Gras Past

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Mardi Gras, French for “Fat Tuesday,” is the last all-out party day before Lent.   The tradition of “throws” or beads tossed from floats dates from the 1920s.  Originally the necklaces were made of Czech glass up until the 1960s when plastic was introduced.

For many years I combed the flea markets and junk shops of New Orleans collecting these vintage strands of beads, lovingly restringing them and imagining the street parties and music infused with their history.
I was particularly fascinated by these strands that had survived the throws and their original destiny as a kind of disposable favor.  There’s a chaotic beauty in their random patterns, and now that they have new clasps they seem to be just waiting for the joyful noise of the next Fat Tuesday.

More vintage Mardi Gras beads can be found in my Etsy shop.