Blog
Wild at Heart
I admit I am a bit of a fashion maven. Recently when window shopping with my mom, I was pleasantly surprised by the latest fashion trend of hearts. If anyone knows my work, you would know that hearts are central to my ethos. Some of my first pieces I made were hearts. Below are my lastest heart creations along with a fashion collage I put together through Urstyle with a couple of items from my Hearts Collection.
Nune Coepi
Some things happened this spring that completely knocked me off my game. I stopped posting on social media and took a month break from making just to focus on health. My partner and I have begun a healthier diet. He taught me a saying recently that I haven't heard before.
"Nune Coepi" meaning "Now I begin again"
Jewellery Giveaways
I am busy preparing for shows this year. I was just in a Valentine's Day show, and now gearing up for a Lion's Club Craft Show in my childhood town of Dundas Ontario. I am discovering that a lot of the local shows have giveaways and I find it very satisfying to create something unique for each show door prize, specifically for craft shows that are charity events such as the Lion's and Lioness Clubs which have many wonderful programs for people in their communities.
Asters & Amethyst Collection
Bright purple asters
Lighting up the forest floor
Painting late summer once more
-Janice Hagey
This current collection is based on my drawings of asters which then formed a repeat pattern and became the focus of most of the pieces.
Learning Pattern Design
Pattern design has a rich history. Inspiration can be pulled from everywhere, including nature, math, fashion, interior decor and art history are just a few ideas. Doing a deep dive into patterns in art history will lead to designs from the Middle East to Asia. To understand more formal pattern design such as symmetry, the book Pattern Design, by Lewis F. Day is informative. For more modern approaches to patterns, there are many books and online courses that are helpful. Make it in Design and Bonnie Christine on Skillshare are two very good sources for learning.
New Directions
In 2017, I moved back home from Southern California, to Ontario Canada. My dad had been diagnosed with a degenerative illness in 2010, which was just after beginning my jewelry career. For many years I travelled back and forth helping out for weeks and sometimes months at a time. My dad passed away this year and was a harrowing journey of hospital stays and caring for him at home. My mom and I were by his side at home. It was painful to see a man capable of so many things slip away.
Blacksmithing Day
The art of blacksmithing takes us back to the iron age in history, however medieval times comes to mind for most people when thinking about forging steel in hot ovens.
Learning to hammer steel is something that I have always wanted to try. When I found Los Angeles based non-profit, Adam's Forge, a few years ago, that desire became a reality. I was never brave enough to sign up for the class alone, so I enlisted the company of my partner to check it out with me. He was all in even though his art, illustration and design is more cerebral.
Manda's Wrap Around Mother's Ring
The challenge with doing custom projects is charting new territory, which can cause unexpected things to happen.
Last year at about this time, I created a mother's ring for a woman who had seen a ring on my CustomMade website and wanted something similar. We ended up creating a variation with rough stones, which was a fairly new area for me. The ring I created is featured in a previous blog post.
Year in Review
2015 was a year all about family. My sister came down to California for several months and we had a blast. I was also busy making her 14k white gold anniversary rings. It was a very big job for me and I was thrilled to work on them. After several trials and tribulations on how I was going to approach it, I finally felt that hand engraving them would be the way to go. Using a push engraver, I created the leaves by hand. Here are some process photos and the finished rings I sent off to her.
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