34 Years of Practice

Today is our 34th wedding anniversary. That's a lot of practice at being married--297.840 hours, not counting leap years. And, of course, way fewer hours if you only count time we spent in each other's company. But we were married even when miles apart, and so I say count them all.

Now, this is a blog about design and jewelry, not about relationships, so why am I talking about our anniversary? Because the point holds, whether you're talking about a marriage or about design. It isn't only time in obvious practice that matters. You're designing all the time. This weekend in Napa I didn't make a single piece of jewelry or even jot a single note in my notebook. Still, I saw a fake Persian palace with great motifs that may show up in a jewelry design one of these days. Down the street was a castle, ditto. And of course there were those vines, laden with black-purple grapes against a sea of green leaves and brown vines. What a color combination! That greyish bloom on the grapes--just Wow.

A few weeks ago we went to the Tut exhibit in San Francisco. I started using carnelian and lapis together as a direct result of that trip. I'm crazy in love with that color combination now, but it wasn't one I'd considered before. Yes, I know all the design rules about using complements, but I didn't FEEL them until Tut. Those Egyptians had design rules down pat.

So if you're feeling like you haven't done much this week as far as design goes, ask yourself what you have been experiencing. It's a part of you, a part of your design background, just as surely as all those days when Glenn was in Canada working and I was juggling kids and their activities at home added up to the relationship we have now.