Rusty Steel Lotus Flower

Description

I have recycled the finest quality rusty steel to make these earrings - each piece of corroded metal is personally hand selected by me from the old farm dump on the edge of my land. I think this one comes from a vintage 1940’s stove pipe…

All kidding aside, the texture and color of this naturally patinated steel is altogether too beautiful to miss. This is recycling at it’s very finest - an eyesore is turned into art, and the art is turned into an adornment to draw attention to your own inherent beauty. Everybody is a winner in this deal!

In addition to picking through garbage piles looking for good stuff, I, personally, design each piece, hand saw the piercework design, then soften the rough edges with a tiny hand file. Finally, I apply a wax finish so they won’t… er… rust… uh… and mount them on silver and gold plated French hook ear wires. The contrast between the rough, rusted steel and the bright plating draws attention to the elegance in the this deceptively mundane seeming metal.

Symbolism of the Lotus-
The lotus has many different meanings. In India, the lotus is the dwelling place of Brahma who dreams the world. In The Odyssey, the lotus represents the pleasures that keeps one from performing one's duty. But what I was thinking of was T. S. Eliot's (I love Eliot, don't you?) long poem, Four Quartets. He combines both of these meanings, and uses the lotus to represent the way our consciousness flits from one thing to another, without focusing long enough to truly understand:

... And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty...

Each pair of earrings comes in a cute little velveteen drawstring pouch so they won’t get tangled with your other finery.

Get a pair of these while you can. When other people see how beautiful these are, the price of scrap metal will go through the roof, and regular people like you and me won’t be able to afford it anymore.

Added on Sep 11, 2009