Persephone Rises

A self employed business owner always has the challenge of trying to stay above water especially in times of struggle and financial hardship which no one is a stranger to these days.  The beginning of this new year brought with it some new and unexpected obstacles which not only threw me by surprise but almost annihilated all of my good intentions and endeavors for my business for the upcoming year.  After a couple of weeks of pouting, and going through my proverbial crap about life's lessons in general, I decided that it was time to put "plan rescue" into action.  So I went back to the drawing board and started to read up on all the latest marketing strategies for small business owners.  The topic of the blog kept appearing in most of the sources I was reading.  The trouble with Persephone's Place is that it is conceptually so multi-dimensional that it is difficult to keep focus with.  I had lost myself in the alternate realities of my business concept to the point where I was having difficulty figuring out just what to blog about and what to market to begin with.  So taking stock of what was going on, I realized that of all of the multi dimensions that Persephone's Place does have to offer, my jewelry has actually become a big hit both on etsy and with my local clients.  In times of difficulty I decided keeping it simple is perhaps the next step.  Focus on what is currently working and keep your marketing resources for the time being, limited to what is going well and to what is developing an actual following.  You can start I said to myself, by starting a bead blog. 

Start a bead blog?  How do I talk about beads and jewelry?  It's easy to write metaphysical articles and to invoke 20 years of study and knowledge to things like astrology and tarot cards... but beading?   So I thought about it and thought about it, and thought about it and wondered how on earth I would make a beading blog interesting enough that anyone would actually follow it.   After coming up with a whole lot of nothing I decided to ask my husband what his opinion was.  

He was immediately excited about the idea because you see, we were hiking at the time of this conversation and he managed to connect his love of hiking to the concept of my bead blog and my jewelry business in general.  I know... I"m getting there.....you'll understand soon......  I had just finished downloading about my struggles overall, and outlined my latest goals for marketing the jewelry on my etsy store.  One of the things I insisted I wanted to do to kick it up another level was to improve the quality of my photographs of the jewelry.  In order to do this I decided I wanted a more natural outdoor look to my pictures.  I shared with my husband that ideally I would love to take some of my jewelry on our hikes and look for fabulous locations to photograph them.  The problem was... how do I carry it without it getting ruined, especially several pieces at a time?  He immediately had a solution which he was more then eager to see through to completion because he knew that it would serve his own interests in getting me out hiking with him more.  He converted an already existing flower press into a jewelry press, so that my fringed creations would remain flat and straight while en route during any adventure including but not limited to:   up or down any mountain, strapped to any backpack, or otherwise thrown through the air or turned upside down or toppled off of any rock.   Wow!   The beauty of this brainstorm he continued to tell me is that we can make more then one, and in any size bigger or smaller that is required.   (Ladies... I was impressed, even more so because this solution did not wait six months to come to fruition, but rather had been completed within three hours of the initial conversation on the same day.  He also cleaned the bathroom and did several loads of laundry that day as well as cooked us lunch, did the dishes AND vacuumed the rug while I remained a lady of leisure on my Sunday afternoon and basically did.... well.... nothing but sip my beverage and watch some movies)

He was so excited about his achievement in solving the dilemma to my original problem that he immediately woke me up the next day and wanted to know if I was ready to take my jewelry hiking in the next fifteen minutes.  I should tell you now... I don't DO mornings.  Well.... ummmm..... most of my stuff I need to take pictures of is at the clinic honey I explained to him..... (8 AM and in a fog trying to make my morning tea).  He's dressed and tapping his toes.... Well ummm..... uhhhh..... well I have four pair of earrings here I can take....   (putting the ice cubes in the wrong glass and still looking for the tea bag... I'm trying to brew this tea, coffee shop style with a shot of pomegranate syrup... and what else would the owner of Persephone's Place put in her tea?)  He waited patiently... tea finally in hand I wandered into the living room and began packing my four pair of earrings into the press for it's first test drive.... contemplated what to wear... and of course all said and done walked out the door without my sunglasses and didn't realize it till after we got to the hiking place.   (Damn!)

Our house is situated on the North San Juan Ridge in Northern California foothills just a couple of miles above the Bridgeport State Park where we have access to trails all along the scenic Yuba River.  My husband is a mountaineer, and he and his friend love to take all day or even two or three day climbing adventures.  They use things like "cramp ons" and "ice axes", and they have this silly notion that "slogging" through the snow for 15 miles and traversing ice crevices is actually fun.    I told my husband that on no occasion would I ever be found hiking or walking anywhere that I had to use something called an "ice axe".   Because not only do I not do mornings, I do not DO snow either for the record.  Luna our cat agrees with me and she supports the idea completely that while my husband is sleeping in a tent in the snow in 15 degree weather, that I stay home with her and build us a fire and lay on the comfy bed together.  The most I've done is the local six mile trek up "butt buster hill" here at Bridgeport and again for the record it should be stated, I'm a fair weather hiker.  I did my time, twenty years training horses, up at 5 AM on my first racehorse of the day, in the rain, in the mud, in the wind, in the freezing ass cold, hoping I don't get bucked off of whatever wild and untamed yearling I'm riding that day... I don't see the need at this time in my life, to WANT or to HAVE to be slogging anywhere in bad weather if I don't absolutely have to. 

So off on the trail we went.. flower press in hand, no sunglasses, and plenty of warm hiking gear to keep me happy.   Having solved the first dilemma of the jewelry slash flower press challenge... I asked my husband.... how do I blog about bead work?  He explained how easy that would be... just tie it into everything else...we discussed the metaphysical properties of stones, the symbolism of my art, the metaphysical background of some of the ideas, my mysticism, the now hiking adventures I would have in photographing ad infinitum.

We walked until we found the first station I would set up "project photograph".  I untied my jewelry press and was pleased as pie to find nothing had moved in over a mile.  Everything was straight and flat as a waffle and in good order.  My concern for my fringed pieces in particular is that the fringes kink and warp and then they don't hang nicely if they are not stored properly.  So at any rate off my husband went to find a rock to climb.  There was some talk about the trail ending around the corner and I heard some mention of how cool it would be to climb that hill and go over the top of the part where the trail ended to keep going...... I smiled.  "You have fun with that!  I'll wait here!"... and I investigated many promising moss covered rocks, green leafy places and rock formations.  I couldn't help admiring the view I had at the first picture station.  I liked it so much I'm adding a picture of it here.  Here we see a lovely view of the Yuba River amidst some small princes among oaks that are not yet Oak kings. 

In my investigations I couldn't help to come to a humorous realization.  I heard it said in an interview with Rob Zombie where he states:  "Art is not safe".  This I recollected as I clambered up a loose bit of dirt on a hill and over some rocks that would be at any other warmer time of the year a home to the local rattlesnakes.  Why is it thought I to myself that some of the best photography potentials are the hardest in practice to actually get your jewelry and your camera to?  And I wasn't even by the river yet.  I grimaced to myself as I realized the next challenge of "project photograph" at "station two" would be to not drop my camera or my earrings in the river while navigating rocks.  Rob Zombie I concluded was a very observant man.   After several zen moments of contemplating a very interesting rock formation and how on earth I would get my earrings to hang from it, the end result was as follows: 

I had high hopes for this picture and I am not terribly disappointed.  These earrings are from what is called the "Native Nights" collection. I'll discuss my collections in another blog at another time. But the point here is how much I loved the contrasting textures of the rock they are hanging from.  It is unfortunate that my camera did not do it quite the justice it deserved because what looks like a white chalk color in this background was actually a lovely shade of almost light mint green which was some kind of species of lichen or moss growing on this rock. I was hoping the green would show better, but alas, it is obvious I will have to invest someday in a much better camera.  It would have been even more lovely to get some of the fern in this picture that was growing on this rock as well, but the earrings would not hang near the fern without falling out of the rock.  So for this picture, this is what the nature spirits were willing to give me and considering those factors, I'm still very happy with it.  The rock face was much taller then myself.  I was perched precariously upon this loose foothold of dirt and looking up at my earrings holding the camera higher then normal.  The whole procedure was a bit awkward and comical. 

My husband returned shortly after this picture breathless and happy having been victorious in his climbing adventure.   We packed up shop and headed down the trail to the river and looked for another adequate "base camp".  After finding a suitable rock to store our wares I went off on another investigation.  Taking pictures on the river is tricky because you are limited as to your color backgrounds.  There is either rock color or sand color.  To make an interesting picture here, it didn't take me long to realize I'd have to have my rocks wet to bring the colors out of them. Things are much more stark down by the water. 

So here I was repeating the mantra once again.."art is not safe"... as I'm sitting on the edge of a small rock with my feet propped on two tiny dry points of rock protruding out of a rather fast rush of water and being very careful not to drop my earrings in the river and loose them or otherwise have to fetch them from the very deep pool below this rock.  These earrings are from the "oak king collection".  The observant reader will notice there is not an oak tree anywhere near this photograph which wasn't exactly the vision I had for these earrings, but the fact was the moss wasn't cooperating with me.  This is the only picture I could get that gave an accurate representation of the bead colors in this set of earrings, so the Oak King just had to suck it up and play in the water today.

After navigating this bit of the project successfully, we decided it was lunch time and packed up for the walk back to the truck.  It was a brilliant morning.  The jewelry carrier was a huge success.  Mission accomplished!