Patterns and Their Variations

Here's a photo of a succulent that grows in front of Jon's studio. I love the pattern of the leaves. Of course, there are lots of patterns in nature. They have a nice, comfortable feel about them. I think we try to find patterns in events that occur around us and that involve us.

Patterns are nice in art. I favor them myself. But it's also nice to get away from them, too, or to show variations that are not so obvious. Variations are one of the interesting aspects of classical music, the mind playing with an idea. I find myself doing that when I'm thinking about a project. I start with one idea and then carry it through to a variation or a new twist until I'm in a completely different spot than when I started. But of course, that means I now have five, seven, ten ideas for projects and I can never do them all. Well, I suppose I could if I turned off my thinking, if I took off my thinking cap for awhile.

A good place to use a thinking cap is doing cardio at the gym or driving in the car, anywhere where you don't have to pay too much attention to what you're actually doing. I can also think when I'm working on my jewelry because lots of that is repetitious for the most part. I can't do that though if I'm working on variations in a necklace, for example.

When I'm feeling kind of lazy, I make a necklace with a set pattern. When I'm pushing myself, I do variations on a pattern, something asymetrical. The asymetrical is much more interesting but it takes a whole lot more work, a whole lot of thought. The seed beads are really good for patterns and lack of patterns because there are lots of colors to choose from.

When I have a nice strand of green garnets or tourmaline or pearls, I don't really want to do much with them besides show them off in a plain necklace. But if the stones are not so high quality, it is nice to combine them and even make them asymetrical. I like using small pearls with various stones such as garnets or lapis lazulia. That gives the piece a classic look which I don't think you can beat very easily.