Hand-Crafted Adornment Metalworked by AlchemieAdornment on Etsy

alchemie - to find, through processes of heat, stress, cold, fractures, pressure, and refinement, the precious substance within.

To me, adornment is an anchor.

I was in the Marines, and served in Fallujah during some of the worst times to serve there. I still have dreams every year from the end of February to about the beginning of April, of being there, or weird military dreams that are nonsensical, like flying a rocket ship through the desert, or being caught on a runaway bus hurtling over the sand dunes of Iraq, with a cartoonishly evil looking driver who won’t slow down or let me off.

The military doesn’t allow a lot of adornment. The goal is conformity; the attempt to take a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds and make them all work as a team. The day I was released from active duty, I double pierced my earlobes and my cartilage. I stacked rings. I wore bangles and chain headpieces. I still find myself dealing with conformity in its many faces. What is a wife supposed to wear? A mother? A yoga teacher? A businesswoman? A daughter? A friend? Even a silversmith? What implied pressures do we face every day, to conform? To make others comfortable? To enhance the illusion of safety and control?

Adornment is an anchor to my Self; the me who lives underneath the masks and the uniforms and the roles that I play. The me who wants to raise a son in a world of hope. My dreams, in rocks and silver and gold. I hold them out, for you; and encourage you, to keep finding yourself. Keep finding hope.

AlchemieAdornment

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