80 Things We Love About Arta: #43 - Be Fashion, Wear Large Jewelry

When I moved to Calgary in the mid-1990's I had a chance to spend time with Arta and several of her daughters. We would spend time talking and sharing stories while staring at the two racks of earrings on top of a tall dresser in the large basement bedroom. The racks were full of the most large, magnificent, shiny, metallic, glistening earrings I had ever seen. I thought I had worn large earrings. I thought I had amassed an amazing collection myself. No. Mine was insignificant.

An example of the type of earrings,
but not an actual pair.

Another example of the type of earrings,
but not actual earrings.

She began a family trend wherein a family members began wearing larger and larger earrings, necklaces, and rings. So may beautiful rings that took up a knuckle or more. 

Here is an email from my mother in 2015, when she was on one of her travel adventures, about jewelry and Arta:

"Tonia, I saw the biggest, nicest, outrageous lapis ring. I want to buy it but you will have to pay me back. It is a huge oval with twisted rope around the outside to finish it off. Only tomorrow left to go get it for you. It was less than half the price I paid for Arta's ring and my ring. It will fit the ring finger. Tell me to go buy it for you."

Of course she bought if for me and it is on my finger in this picture. This picture was taken at the Highwood Diner Buffet at SAIT, one of the Bates' favourite places to dine on Thursday at lunch. The most stunning buffet created by all the students in the culinary program. A lunch event that Arta's co-workers at the University of Calgary introduced her to many years before. Love these lunches and the amazing company!

Notice the beautiful and large jewelry we are both wearing.
My right hand is covering the lapis lazuli ring
my mother mentioned in the email. 

Then my parents moved to London, UK from 2006 - 2010 and my mother discovered Portobello Road, London, UK. She discovered a shop on the road (we will insert this information soon) where she goes to purchase stones, pearls, and beautiful accoutrements to make large jewelry. Arta and her daughters, and Wyona and her daughters all have a great time making purchases after Wyona's finishing her hard creation work.

Delightful pearls and necklaces.

Stunning Moon Stone rings.

It is too much?!?

Does anyone have any more pictures of Arta with large jewels on? Or perhaps pictures of Arta, Wyona, and Moiya dressing up and heading to Canadian Tire for an excited jewelled adventure?  Let me know and I will add them to this post.

In all, don't be afraid of large, metallic, shiny, wonderful pieces of jewelry. You are a star. You are magnificent. Say it with your bling.

Love,

Tonia

Pins #2 - Top Four

My Top 4 Pins

Part #2 of pins about jewelry. 

Saskatchewan Article
See Pin #4 on this blog post

I doubt that I own a pin that costs more than $50. OK, having said that, $50 seems like a lot of money.

So I just take that total cost and absorb it under “number of tans of gas I have purchased” which significant price point is the cost of 2 pins. 

This means if I’ll walk a little more and drive a little less and take that money and format it into "gas I didn’t buy," then pins I did buy spring right to the top of my list of fun I had in a lifetime.

#1. Deb Curran’s pin made from driftwood bone from the north – carved like an igloo

#2. Femo pin of 4 cartoonish looking women’s face – purchased for a significant birthday, purchased by 4 significant women to me.

#3. My December Holiday Pin, (purple, green, yellow, blue)

My largest pin, one through which the light flashed and picks up the joy of the holiday season. This pin is designed to be one of three flashes of light that make me breathless about the joy of holidays. A set of earrings highlighting one of the colours comes with the pin. I today’s world I have enough money that I could have purchase earrings that go with each set of jewel set. But in the world when I bought that pin I could only afford one pin, and one set of earrings. However, when I walk down the aisle at church and am wearing that pin, I try to pass Peggy who is wearing her own pin on her own jacket. I still like being old-fashioned. There is something very satisfying about an art form that few people care about anymore.  Just that I understand I wear beauty for others seems to bring happiness to me.

Pins passed from woman to woman

#4. Indigenous beaded poppy pin – 2 inches in diameter. I have two pins purchased by Rebecca at Indigenous Art Fairs. One of them is a two-inch poppy (of which Rebecca bought 10). On Remembrance Day she wears a pin and makes sure her loved ones have one to wear if they so choose. I chose one that was so cleverly and tightly beaded, in line by line. I wore the pin at night to a book event hosted by Shelagh Rogers. She remarked to Rebecca that she couldn’t believe she had arrived to the event without wearing a poppy. Rebecca said, here, take mine. And Rebecca took it off her shoulder and put it on Shelagh. I took the one off my backpack and gave it to Rebecca knowing I could pick out another when I got home. And so that is what Shelagh Rogers, Rebecca Johnson and I share in common on Remembrance Day. The point is, we all think ahead to the piece of jewelry we will wear that day.

Arta

A Shopping Dream

Dream Image thanks to 
https://www.etsy.com/listing/687686159/jade-pendant-large-green-aquamarine

Even when they are vivid, I don’t pay much attention to my dreams. 

When I had been to a doctor. having had a concussion (learning to speed skate without a helmet on), he told me the dreams are just the thoughts that slip around in my head all day and at night, my brain unable to make sense of them, is spitting nonsensical data out. 

I took that to mean, do not worry about any Freudian interpretations. So, I've never been one to have a book beside my bed and to write my thoughts down as soon as I woke up.

Today's dream was different and I didn’t need to write it down. In it, I was walking by the Hudson's Bay Company in downtown Calgary and many people were rushing into the store. I asked where they were going, and someone said, “Oh don't you know the Hudson's Bay is bankrupt and they have to sell everything.”

I changed the direction of my walk and went right into the store to the jewellery counter looking for the biggest pieces of jade jewelry. I asked the clerk to bring four pieces out of the case for me. She told me two of them were costume jewellery which I was going to purchase anyway, because they were still exquisitely beautiful. The other two that I am chosen were only 20% off. Few people buy large jewellery, and I thought if I waited a while, they might get cheaper. And hardly anyone has the same taste I have, and in fact, it is just too much for some. Still, I wanted those pieces and was afraid someone else would buy them. The clerk asked for my credit card. I told her that I had forgotten it and would be right back with it, and then I tried to get out of my dream to get my card. On getting out of my dream, I knew there was no way back in. 

I'm not going to go to bed tonight without my credit card.

Arta

Shopping at Wyona’s

 

Wyona Bates opened her jewellery shop on ETSY this week.

Apparently, all you have to do is go to ETSY, and type in NecklaceArtistryZoey

Moiya showed me how to go there when she was over for a visit.

Now I have to figure out if I can make it work on my own. 

I can do it.  I know I can!  And I will figure out a way to bring a few pics down for my readers.

Lapis Lazuli & Silver
chunky statement
 with kyanite, sapphire, and sodalite beads
of fascinating blues and silver.
$210

Vibrant Necklace of Natural Red Coral,
Natural white Onyx Chunky Nugget shapes,
white lava and red bamboo coral (imitation).
$120

Arta

TRC Necklaces

From Rebecca:

So... there are 750 necklaces in this photo?

Perhaps another 150 to 200 at the office?

No need to ask what I did for my summer  holidays.

Rebecca Johnson