dicrobracstar
Please, meet the newest addition to my collection. Source of inspiration: the blinding starry nights of the Western deserts.

The glass part (formed to follow the shape of the wrist) is made of a double layer of dichroic glass, the barrel weave chain is sterling silver and the fold-over clasp makes it a breeze to put it on and off.

This one is sold already, but many more are following.

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Long time, no see… I can’t believe that 4 months went by since the last time I posted. I have been pretty busy starting my new jewelry activity and I guess I lost track of time in the process.

So far, my decision has been pretty much rewarding. Orders from wholesalecrafts.com are coming in on a regular basis. And the cherry on my cake is that I don’t have to endure anymore the hellish temperatures in my garage where the glass tools are. Believe me, right now, this is a must. It is so hot and muggy that I dread to even have to go outside….

As planned, I have not attended Acre this year and I pat myself in the back for that. Although some artists went back home happy, many reported that the revolution will keep going without them. Anyway, participating to trade shows is not on my todo list for now.

I caught the chain mail bug big time and I’ll tell more about that later. But the biggest news is that I am back online. Blogging and Facebooking. Not fully yet into tweeting because I still need to understand what’s the deal with it… Aarghh!!
Oops, got some work waiting for me in the studio. Tata for now.

A bientôt!!!
Patricia

© 2010 – Patricia C. O’Neill

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After a few weeks in the making, the Invincible Art official logo was born today and I am really excited to introduce it to you. So… drum rolls…. here it is:

newialogo

I’d like to thank Greg of Greg Forstie Design Company in Phoenix for the great job.

A bientôt!
Patricia

© 2010 – Patricia C. O’Neill

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canicrushitI just finished reading Crush it, now it’s time to cash it on your passion from Gary Vaynerchuk and it kept me up at night. So many ideas, so many conflicts were going through my head… I just could not sleep.

I am a long time fan of Gary Vee and I enjoy his straightforward way to speak his mind. Basically, his new book is about living your passion to the max and eventually making a living out of it. The book is loaded with great insight, great advices, great tips. However, while I was up at night thinking about how I can apply all of this to little old me (he, I want to crush it too!!!), my main road block was to identify my passion. Not that I have none. On the contrary, I have too many…

I think the world is divided roughly into 3 groups:

1- Those who have passion for nothing. They are living an ordinary life and are happy with it. They grow up, go to school, get married, get a job, buy a house in the suburbs, raise their offsprings, watch TV and then die content with their life.

2- Those who have one passion. They discovered it early on and never looked elsewhere. They live and breathe that calling. This is pretty much simple to manage. Anything they do, read, talk about is related to their passion. They are known as the wine guy, the queen of clean or the adventure girl. Those are the crush it people.

3- And then, they are those who have multiple passions. This one is more complicated.
I did some research to try to understand the phenomena. As I place myself in this category, I wanted to know if something’s wrong with me. Maybe I have ADD or something?
A while back, I was already wondering if my blog had ADD and here I go again with the same old questions. Ummm… strange coincidence… so, I really had go to deeper into the subject.

I found out that these people are voracious learners. They are able to converse knowledgeably about several topics. But they are also constantly living in the guilt that there is never enough time to truly accomplish or master their passions.

Someone told me that whatever I focus on expands. Yes, but I am not able to focus only on one things. Am I going to be able to expand several things? Arrghh!!!! Going deeper into my research, I found out that it’s a known phenomena (ouff! I am as normal as I can be!). There is no need to feel guilty about neglecting one of your passions because if you are commited to it, it’s not going anywhere. At some point. you will return to it with a fresh perpective.

I am now convinced that having multiple passions is not like having multiple personalities. It is a perfectly acceptable path and that I am not doomed with a life of frustrations. I think it would be a much bigger frustration to have to give up on some of my passions/interests to keep only one. Life is long enough. I have time to explore them all and discover new ones.

As an artist, it could be easy to say that my passion is to create art and that the rest is just source of inspiration.
But in my situation, I see it in reverse. I have passions that I need to express and share though my art.
At first glance, it sounds like the same things. But for me it is not. How do I know that?
Put me in a room with people talking about art, glass, jewelry. I have nothing to say or share and there is not much they can say that speaks to me. But put me in a room full of shooting sports enthusiasts, scuba divers or UFO buffs, and I have a blast.
Give me a booth in a traditional art show and I get skunked. But give me a booth at a dive show, UFO convention or NRA meeting and I am sure I’ll do a killing.

Yesterday, I was expressing myself through glass. Today it’s jewelry. Who knows of what tomorrow will be made… polymer clay… wicket baskets… but I’ll still be a diver, I’ll still shoot guns and I’ll still keep looking at the sky wondering if I am alone in the Universe.

So, do I believe that I can crush it with my many passions? Hell yes. Or I’ll die trying.

By the way, I highly recommend to anyone to read Gary’s book.

A bientôt!
Patricia

© 2010 – Patricia C. O’Neill

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Reflecting on last week events and preparing for a new one.

February 22, 2010

I firmly believe that the Universe is going to bring me what I need at the exact time I need it. It happened so many times in my life. The signs are often subtle, yet they are here.
I was hitting my head on the wall looking for a logo for Invincible Art. Nothing cartoonish, [...]

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Announcing my new bulletproof jewelry collection

February 17, 2010

Monday was a very exciting day for me. I spent most of the day at Shooter’s World where I showed around the prototypes of my new “bulletproof” collection.
The reactions have been overwhelming. Even a customer stopped by to look at what was going on and she wanted to buy something right on the spot.

The [...]

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Am I a social bug or what?

February 8, 2010

Last week, wholesalecrafts.com added a feature to allow artists to share their Facebook and Twitter url from their page.
At first, I was very upset about it. Boiling blood and twisted panties.
I am craving for features like statistics, or more space to describe my products, which would allow me to grow and/or refocus the wholesale [...]

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First bronze and copper pieces are all cleaned up and shinny.

February 8, 2010

The copper and bronze pieces that I took out of the kiln Sunday morning are clean, polished, patina-ed and put together ready to wear. Here they are:
Copper disk with wavy design. Red patina. Fresh water pearl. Fine silver ear wires.
Copper disk with spirals design. Red patina. Fresh water pearl. Fine silver ear wires.
[...]

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Last night firing… oh yeah Babe!!!

February 7, 2010

I am afraid I watch too much Chef Emeril on TV
But do you think he can do that in his super duper oven? Chef Emeril, I throw my Zetex gauntlet at you!!!
Anyway… here is the result of last night firing of my first copper and bronze clay (which went fine).

The two pairs of earrings [...]

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Uff… more than a month later… and still invincible!

February 6, 2010

The month of January has been very busy here at the Invincible Art Studio. So busy that the New Year resolution of posting once a day went down the drain. Oh well… I am declaring it a February resolution.
The workshop with Hadar Jacobson was FANTASTIC! I hope that I am not going to upset anyone, [...]

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