A to Zen

I'm not a Buddhist. I even had to look up how to spell Buddhist just to make sure. Don't get me wrong, I deeply believe in acceptance and respect and appreciation of others' belief systems. It's just that I don't know as much as I would like to. I was talking with a wise man about my jewelry. I told him that I don't make the jewelry, it makes itself and he said that I have a very zen approach to creating. He did explain what he meant, as I have heard the term zen but really didn't understand the concept much. He went on to talk about a group of archers that believe that they don't shoot their arrow to the target, that the target draws the arrow to it. I had never put too much thought into my creative process, but I found that I did indeed have one.

My dining room table is atrocious, let me just get that out of the way. I will have to talk about my workspace in another blog but I do like having everything I use out and handy when it comes to jewelry. I will gather the beads I want to use, and sometimes I get it right on the money and sometimes I have to hunt for a different set. Once I have all the beads I need, I start stringing, and check my work frequently to see if it feels right. I don't use patterns or bead boards, unless its just to hold beads. As with the beads, sometimes I get the design right the first time, and sometimes I have to string and restring and restring again until it feels the way it should. I am very much an emotional person, I feel first then think. Sometimes it has worked for me, and sometimes it has gotten me into more trouble than I care to go into here ;) Let's just say that the jewelry I create has its own personality, and part of mine as well :D