I have been thinking about how China seems to be running things around the globe, how our own American economy is getting worse, how the oil companies fighting for world domination and the wars the US is involved in with drones to keep that oil. I read a New York Times article, "China Reaps Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom", that helped pull my thoughts together, so the majority of the quotes in this piece are from that article. I then went on a hunt for the major oil/energy companies Mission Statements. Unfortunately, they don't exist under the label Mission Statement so I had to read between the lines to figure out what each company was about. I looked into ExxonMobil, Shell, and TransCanada and was intrigued to find they all think they are the world leader in oil energy. Their websites are full of "feel-good" phrases and key words with no real meat to their statements. It is a PR writers heaven.

I did a series of searches today to gather inspiration and pull together a final art piece. Some of my searches included "drone strike aftermath", "oil fields", "US War for oil", "Keystone oil", "Chinese Sweatshops", "American economy", and a few others. I just plugged it into google images and it really gives you a reality check. This is really only the snowflake on the tip of the iceburg, showing just how much is wrong with the politics and corporations of this world. We have a long way to go to make things right.

"Question Everything" Watercolor and ink Collage, 11x15 inches, 2014.

Today I helped a friend work on a quilt for most of the day but I did manage to finish this little book necklace. I bound it with thick, high quality, mixed media paper, one page at a time with thread.  The book closes with a tiny paint brush that slips in the soft leather cover. I even made the custom brass handle for the paintbrush. This little piece is made by an artist for an artist.

I finally finished this piece. I wanted to make a little steampunk faery made out of pearls and watch parts. As I was assembling the little creature I thought about where I wanted to put it. It was too fragile to be jewelry so I decided it needed to be on display. I found this old hand blown glass vile that fit it just perfectly. So I carved a copper tube and wired in a little flickering light as a tiny pedestal. The glass and copper are held fast by a hand turned brass base. How wonderful would this be as a display piece on a mantel or for a steampunk Christmas.

I made this sweet little adventure book while watching the snow fall today at my friends house. This little book is full of colorful vintage maps. This would be a great travelers journal or maybe collect stamps from countries you have visited?

I am in the middle of making a variety of these little book pendants. This particular piece was given as a gift to a wonderful, inspiring and dedicated musician. This book is less than an inch tall. I am kind of into making tiny things this week, can you tell?

Today I finished a new steampunk terrarium. This one has a brass base and I hand cut out the shape of a 4 leaf clover in the glass. There is some moss and of course gold for the leprechauns! They will be visiting soon so I have to make sure they are happy!

Here is my latest USB necklace. I call it Squirrel Tooth Alice because the portrait on the USB is from a magazine clipping The Saturday Evening Post in 1973. It was with an article about the wild west. The following article was from the caption beneath this portrait.

I was out in the shop today creating lots of different things. I started about 7 different projects and only completed 2. This piece is a piece of wearable art jewelry that also has a functional sliding 4GB USB memory stick. I love making dual purposed and functional pieces.
I will be showing a lot of my Steampunk art at Stone Buddha in Silverton, Oregon for the month of March. I am working towards making a few new pieces to display there.

This piece is called "Ancient Wisdom" and is made from all found objects and a modified USB.