(Almost) Everyday Earrings

Like that pair of jeans or sandals that fit and feel just right, we all have a favorite pair of earrings. A pair that seems to have adapted itself to our lifestyle. They're always right where we left them, never put away, always within easy reach, waiting to be put on just before we walk out the door. And if we forget them, it's ... What am I missing? My purse? My keys? Phone? Oh ... I didn't finish dressing! I don't have my earrings on! My ears are naked!

Enamel Black Bar Earrings

 Like lost puppies that arrive uninvited and unannounced; they insinuate themselves into our lives, only to become indispensable identifiers of our mood and style and personality.

So I began thinking about how a piece of jewelry could assume such a role in one's persona. It's not just one thing. Like all good things in life, music, art ... wine, earrings must appeal to a variety of pleasurable and virtuous instincts.

1)  Color. They had to be neutral - but with the ability to accent and stand out. Only black can do that for me; against any shade or color of fabric, under any tone and style of hair.

2) Shape. They must fit my facial shape and offer balance and proportion to my neck.

3) Comfort. So comfortable ... like a ring, remembered only in its absence.

4) Style. Ambiguity is the magical ingredient here: both casual and dressy. Or maybe they'll look dressy with a casual top and vise versa. Never ostentatious, never like we're trying too hard. Simplicity, like that favorite pair of jeans or sandals.

Long Black Bar Earrings

My go-to pair of earrings are these (enamel black bar earrings) elegant and unassuming, sleek and slender bolts of black lightning that accompany me (almost) everywhere I go. They are my trademark, my signature earrings when I am in public ....

Artistic Inspiration

Enamel earrings inspired by the color of Bradford Pear leaves.

In “Colorful Colorado” nature imposes herself on our senses throughout the year. We are blessed with a kaleidoscope of continuous change and vitality. We watch nearly in awe as our mountains and our prairie transition from season to season, from arid to lush, lifeless to effervescent, in an endless story of birth and resurrection. But for those of us lucky enough to possess one in our yard, of all of nature’s showpieces and specimens, none surpasses the majestic Bradford Pear in her display of colors and natural hues.

In the spring our Bradford Pear explodes into a massive tuft of cotton candy, urgently demanding our attention before an errant breeze can scatter her blossoms across the lawn like driven snow. Summer’s warmth brings forth her foliage, so dense that it conceals the space it occupies, affording a canopy of shade to the lawn, nesting spaces for birds, and refuge for squirrels.  When fall arrives, the pear expends the energy that she has hoarded throughout the summer. It is as if her leaves attempt to re-bloom, as she becomes a palette for a thousand shades of yellow, burning into orange, then crimson, then copper. Then finally, exhausted and spent, her leaves take flight with the first winter blast, to reveal the silhouette of her limbs in a pointillist sea of tiny sugar pears that remain to sustain her resident birds and squirrels throughout the winter.

The Bradford Pear leaves us not only with memories of her grandeur, but also with artistic inspiration. If only to capture one single moment of her glorious transition - into jewelry! I waited breathlessly for the radiance of the kiln to subside, and for the glow of the enamel to “fit” itself into its final glaze, to know if I had been able to replicate that instant when she “bloomed” her final golden farewell to this season. 

This pair of dangle earrings holds true to the promise of enamel jewelry for its beautiful color and gorgeous, glossy finish.