Eternity and the Eternal Watchguard Against Impurity and Poor Morale

If I appear to have vanished off the face of the known radar blips of existence, well, I have. For a time at least. Creativity has been practically non-existent, struggling and gasping in between work, rehearsals, recording, frustration, and chafing at the non-productiveness of it all. I've been very close to giving it all up because I'm just so tired of fighting the malaise.

But then, Life decided to have a say and I had to listen.

My 98-year old grandfather passed away on 13th March, 2010 at 6.40pm.

I'll write about this some other time. There's too much that's still churning around inside at the moment, from the abruptness of it to the mixed feelings. Another time, yes.

The Sunday after his passing, I felt the urge to pick up my wires and play again after months of anguished, disgusted inactivity. The end product didn't matter; what was important was the process. And so, with a little inspiration from a good friend's jade Alchemical out of the White Wolf Exalted game, this little bit of nothing coaxed itself into being.


Eternal Watchguard: 18ga and 28ga artistic silver wire, fire-polished Czech glass beads, aluminium washer. Approximately 1.5 inches (close to 4cm) in height.




I've been aware for a while that my wire-weaving skills are on pair with an elephant attempting to dance a tango in stiletto heels, so this was something of a practice piece. You can see where all the kinks I mucked up made for uneven little bits in the wrapping. Perhaps I'm overly paranoid, but I've seen far too many diatribes on how most self-styled wire artists can't handle wire worth several tons of crap, and many complaints on how most people shouldn't call themselves 'artists' if they can't master their material. Well. I'm an artist in -progress-. I'm not an expert, and that's why I don't write tutorials, and will continue to refuse to do so. I'm my own worst critic, which is more critical than most hard-core critics anyway, so here's my disclaimer: if there's going to be comments on how badly that wire's kinked and out of control, and how the wrapping is shite, please rest assured that yes, I know it already, and thank you. I'm not going to be selling this piece for obvious and some not-so-obvious fundamental reasons, so I won't be cheating anyone of their hard-earned money either.

Ahem. Just had to get that out of my system, it's been brewing for a while.



This isn't a work of staggeringly heart-breaking genius. But I'll always believe that perhaps, just perhaps, it was my grandfather's last gift to me - that spark of inspiration to -do- finally, after so long.

And for the people who've kept on believing faithfully in my abilities, despite me being incredibly doubtful, thank you. You have no idea how much it means.