Once Upon A Time ...
There was a girl who scratched horses into her mother's walls with her metal barette [Mother Dear will tell people it was a pencil, and even though the girl corrects her every. single. time., Mom persists in her mistelling]. While Mom wasn't pleased to have her home transformed into a modern-day Lascaux, it was a pivotal point for the girl: knew she couldn't live a life without art or a creative outlet. From then on, she told anyone (interested or not) that she would grow up to be an artist. Nope, didn't happen. She *did* grow up to be an art historian, though, and spent time as the curator of an art glass museum (which explains the prevalence of glass bits in this shop) and rockstar to octogenarian collectors. Before that, she was a graphic designer, too, and she also taught art camps for kids. See a trend here? Spending decades with her nose pressed into those giant coffee-table art tomes that were the most expensive books for college kids (take THAT, physics students) certainly left an impression, and perhaps you'll see some influences, from ancient Egypt to High Gothic to Art Nouveau. But never any Impressionism—yuck. Save that for someone else's shower curtain.
Living life vicariously through ancient artists was good and all, but she still needed a creative outlet. She dabbled in many media, both 2D and 3D, and basically fulfilled a minor in studio art*. Jewelry-making was something she started early in life and continued through the years. After a while, she had built up a backlog of pieces and needed something to do with them, aside from constantly gifting; art for art's sake is fine, but they don't tell you that you'll soon run out of storage space. So here they are: the baubles and trinkets built up from a lifetime of artistic musings. Other media might appear from time to time, too; things from the world of needlecraft for instance. But it all will be geared for adornment: of you, your home, a loved one, a not-so-loved-one-but-you-need-to-do-SOMETHING, your dental hygienist, the Pope, Great Aunt Hazel, and so forth. Because a life without art in all its myriad forms isn't worth living, now is it? Go ask the Vatican, they'll tell you. Maybe they'll even let you see some of their Super Secret Vault treasures. If they do, you'll come back and tell me what you saw, right? I thought so; you're sweet like that.
*Her university didn't have minors at the time, and they didn't allow a double-major in studio and art history for Stupid Reasons, though now they do on both accounts (changing the double-major quandry 3 weeks before graduation, would you believe it?!) which is a different, grumpy story. Suffice to say, she can't say she officially has a minor, but she really did complete the work, she promises.
