My new love, Scott, shared this thought with us a few months ago on Flickr, along with this picture of some of the stained glass in his home.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/aperkins Angelia Perkins, Funky jewelry from fishing lures. 
http://www.rachaelsudlow.com/index.htm Rachael Sudlow, metalsmith and organic jewelry 
Kathie of Paper Treasures 
Regality by Dawn Blair (me)
This is how my look happened for me, and I believe can happen for anyone. I spend a lot of time looking at what others are making. But not wire workers necessarily. I find it very important to feed my mind with the richness of nature, and with art forms of all kinds.
Inspiration 1- Vifilfell Errupting by Orvaratli on Flickr
Inspiration 2- PixilexiP by Xose Zalgado on Flickr
It takes time to develop your own artistic voice. It is about practice, practice, practice..... and adding to those skills a little something here or a little something there. Making small changes as you get better and better at your art form. Never a giant leap. With me, it is developing a new weave, using the weave in a different place in my design, adding beads in a different way or a different place, using less or omitting materials for effect, using different colors or gauges of wires. It is usually only ONE of these various things I choose to focus on per piece. This keeps my look very consistent. I use the skills I have the way my own eye finds pleasing, then add a new element to that. It is not about how many skills you have, but rather what you do with the skills you have. The beauty of making changes gradually is that you can look back and see exactly where you used this or that technique for the first time. I helps to be able to see a clear chronology in the development of your skills, and often makes it more clear the direction that might be best as a "next step".
Inspiration 3- Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly by Sienna62 on Flickr
I created the above piece for my grandmother using a technique I had never used before to make the bezel. It was tedious for me because I had to count how many times I wrapped the wire around for every little section. I may not do this again so soon, but I took the time to try it and now have the skill to create another bezel using the technique. It is all about trying. I started the bezel three times before I came up with a pattern I liked enough to spend six hours on. It was worth it, as you can see...
That's right! You heard it here first.....my 39th year will be the best year of my life. I am confident of this being fact. I have wonderful friends. I have my health, thanks to the acquisition of my new CPAP machine. And I have love. Love for those dear to me, love for life, love for music, love for God. I am confident that this year will bring twists and turns, and unexpected adventure. I believe fully in making my own adventure, one day at a time. So for this, my birthday post, I will share with you pictures from "Huff N Puff". Hot air balloon launch that took place at Lake Shawnee a few weeks ago. So here's to life, and living it to the fullest. Cheers!
Title: Rooted, Brazilian stripes agate, 20 gauge non-tarnish copper wire, 24 gauge gunmetal "Artistic" wire 
The whole group (minus Michael Kora, drums)
Left to right: Ted, me, Steve, Jack, Christian, Milledge
About the CD, Sometimes Things Work Out, Steve Pinkston and Friends
Back in 2006, I began searching for my birth parents, seeking medical information to explain why at 34 years old I was having so many issues with my health. Very early in the search, however, it became much more than that. My birth mother was very difficult to locate, even after I had been able to unseal my adoptive records and receive the name from my real birth certificate. Eventually, I found her picture in a Manhattan High School year book, and then, finally her current address and phone number in another state. I had never expected to be making contact, but it was necessary. I fully expected that she would not want contact with me, since it had been a closed adoption. In fact, the first time I made the call, she denied that she had given birth to me. I certainly understood. After I provided proof of who I was, and the adoption record etc., she changed her mind and we were able to talk for a little bit.
Christian Botto, guitars
Right away, she expressed that she was grateful I had contacted her and that she was relieved I was okay. She had wondered and worried about me all these years, and even tried to find me once. I never could have imagined it that way. She had never had any other children, because she didn’t want children. In fact, I am the same way. I have never wanted children either. She was apologetic and ashamed. But I emphatically told her that she had absolutely made the right decision in giving me up and that I have had a wonderful life with great parents. They were high school students, both planning to go to college in the fall to study music. I was born their first fall semester at college.
Early in that first conversation, my birth mother gave me my birth father’s name. Steve Pinkston.
Steve Pinkston, bass and composer *** Steve's Blog, The Fretful Bassist
Dawn Blair (me!), cello
Right away, after getting off the phone with her, I did a Google search on the internet and found him. I look just like him, and over the past few years have discovered I am just like him in most ways, although I do share my mother’s genetics in the humor category. They were both musicians, she a violinist and he a bass player. Both were very talented classical musicians. In fact Steve had been a cellist, just like myself, through his high school years, and then switched to string bass as soon as one became available. He played jazz on electric bass and began writing his own music. Eventually Steve left Kansas and moved to Hollywood where he played jazz and rock through the 70’s and produced three albums. Steve is a brilliant musician as well as composer. When we first met, in Portland, he brought his records and hours and hours worth of recordings of music he had written. CD’s of music he had recorded with his music partner, pianist Paul Bass, who unfortunately died of cancer ten or so years ago.
Milledge Bennett, percussion
Jack McCreary, flute and alto sax
Steve had wanted to make a CD of some of his favorite compositions, but hadn’t really done much with it up to the point when we met. After I had played cello for him over the phone one night, he decided he should do the CD and include me on it, with his other wonderfully talented musician friends. In August of 2007, we began recording. That visit to Portland was the very first time Steve and I had gotten to play together. It was an emotional, life changing moment for both of us. All my life, I had known they were musicians, and as a young girl and teenager, I used to fantasize that someday I would be somewhere playing and they would be too, and that we would figure it out, and somehow know…
Ted Clifford, keyboards
A good portion of us in the recording session.
We finished my part of the recording in Kansas City in July of 2008, and Steve got to meet my parents for the first time. It was amazing how much he and my dad had in common, swapping stories of playing at Ft. Riley and all over Manhattan and Kansas City. Steve had the chance to express to both my parents his appreciation of the sacrifices they made raising me, and I think that provided some closure for both Steve and my parents. The CD went into production this winter and now is finally published. This is a fantastic, quality CD featuring jazz, blues, and world music, and is the most meaningful project I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.
On the cover: This is a photograph of Steve’s bass and the card I made to give to him when we first met in person. Notice the puzzle piece in the center. My feelings about finding my birth parents, my birth father in particular were that of having found the missing piece of the puzzle. There had always been a part that was missing in my life. I was never truly sure of who I was or where I was heading in life, because I never knew where or who I came from. You must know where your journey started, I feel, in order to know where you are on the path of life, or where you might stop and rest, or aspire to go to. When I met each of them, a part of my life was solved. The mystery of why I am so different from my parents and family. Although my dad is a trumpet player and also a brilliant jazz musician himself, and my mother crafty and artistic like I am, our personalities and ways are so vastly different. We don’t understand each other or why I am like this and they are like that. Knowing why, and that it is largely genetic, was the missing puzzle piece. Now I am not grabbing at straws trying to figure it out, because I know now.
Dawn Blair (me!) outside recording studio dock
