When I started designing this collection, I just wanted to do something beautiful with reclaimed copper. I thought it would be great to take something discarded, and give it renewed life. To temper it in the flames and watch it emerge with new beauty. I never imagined that it would come to symbolize something so much more meaningful.
The collection was supposed to be ready last fall, then we got rough news. We had to move, and quickly.
So I had to push off the completion of the new collection in order to pack up our house and the studio, and move. Then the new place was a disaster. We didn’t have working drains or water for a month.
You can’t run a jewelry studio without water, especially when you are working on a collection that involved FIRE. 5 plumbers and 4 weeks later, the water is fixed and so are our drains. It’s time to finish and release the long awaited collection right?
And then… one of the outlet pops, sparks, and starts smoking. That’s right, we almost burn the place down because of faulty wiring we didn’t know existed. No power, no jewelry making. 1 more week, and an electrician, and we have the power back on.
An then…. I’m sick. Like on the couch for nearly 2 weeks with a super high fever sick. I’ve caught the flu. Not just any flu though, this is some sort of super flu that is sent straight from the bowels of hell by Satan himself. It has been killing people, healthy people, people my age. Ugh. I can’t run a torch like this. I can’t even stand up alone like this.
2 weeks of sheer, unadulterated, feverish agony pass.
It’s over though, right? I can finally get back to normal right?
Nope. Not by a long shot. Just as things start to look like they are going to stabilize, just as I think I can finally get this thing on track, we loose a family member suddenly.
And then the car breaks down…
And then a pipe bursts….
And then….
Do you see a pattern here? Problem after crisis after setback. Adversity.
Even though the universe was throwing EVERYTHING it could find at me, I gave it the big middle finger and kept on going. I persevered, I pulled up my big girl panties and put on my shit-kickers and waded in. I found new strength and carried on working on the collection.
Every problem that I came up against, I found a way to rise above it. I centered myself in my little torch, and the piece of copper blossoming before me. Every time I felt beaten down, and worn out, I’d run a length of the Phoenix rising necklace through my fingers and remember I WILL overcome this.
And that is EXACTLY what Phoenix Rising is about! This new jewelry collection is a celebration or overcoming adversity, or rising from the ashes with new strength, new beauty. It’s about jumping through the flames, and coming out MORE.
It’s about every unkind thing said to you, that you brushed off. It’s about every time your life exploded but you just put it back together and kept going. It’s about every time you stumbled in life, and refused to fall. It’s about all the times you did fall, and you got right back up.
It’s about being tempered in the fires of life, and coming through with beautiful strength.
So I’d like to invite you to join me in celebrating every moment that you’ve struggled and overcome, every time you’ve been beaten down refused to call it quits, and every time you said I WILL DO THIS.
So stand up, brush yourself off, and armor up with a stunning piece of copper jewelry that shouts “I’m strong, I’m beautiful, I got this!!” because it’s just about time to Rise!
