Being Transformed in the Shiva Shop

 Welcome to the land of Jan E O Jewelry deep in the woods in the Oregon Coast range.  I know the journey was long and dusty so have a seat by the pond while I get you a glass of iced tea. Hope you like dogs because there are a couple that love the Shiva shop and are waiting on the trail to take you there.  So sit here for a minute and wait by the water and let the last two miles of dirt road slip away.  You can contemplate the fish or just listen to the sounds of the water. You might even want to look at the crazy yard art I made to cover up where the satellite dish was.  A few Goodwill finds and a broken rake have been transformed into something else.

Hopefully you are refreshed now, because the dogs are ready to take you the rest of the way to the studio.   Here's the old brick path leading the way..  I am constantly having to fight back the wilderness to keep this path clear.  We are headed towards that red door you see up the path.  On the top of the studio is a statue of Shiva in a Ring of Fire.  Shiva transforms and in my studio I transform wire, stones, tin, and other found objects into jewelry.  This shop is made out of items we recycled from somewhere else.  The screen door came from my childhood home and is hundred years old.  This door was once on a friend's house.  You can see where we patched the mail slot.  I added some metal to dress it up.  Think you are getting the picture that I like to reuse. So please come on in and visit the inside.  I have made a few changes since last year.

Here are a few shots of what you might notice inside my studio. First view as you step inside is my desk for pricing and shelves.  The tins all hold different baubles, broken jewelry, rocks, shells, tins, and other found objects I hope to transform into jewelry. Now on the other side of the studio by the  door there is a ton of stuff stored.  I have most of my power tools stored on this cart as well as my kiln for working with metal clay. While I love that the studio is full of windows it makes storing things difficult and I have finally just decided it is okay to have shelves in front of windows. Most of the work happens on my eight foot long bench.  Like everywhere else it is crammed with tools  and objects to be made into something.  A friend commented that he had never seen so many pliers in one place before.  His wife said, " I bet she uses them all." and she was totally right.  Of course, I do have my favorites, but there really is a right tool for every job and it helps if you have it. Here I'll let you check it out for yourself.  

                                                                                  Now the exciting new addition is another bench for the metal working.  So I no longer have to move all the bead supplies away to cut and pound on metal.   I even bought a rolling mill which is really exciting to use.   My husband has a sawmill so he made me this bench out of wood he milled himself.  You can see it is a really thick sturdy bench and I really love having it.  I seem to always leave the pliers I need on the other side of the room, so I guess I will need to get more of them or attach them to the bench with a wire like the pens at the bank.   The dogs sleep under the bench and while they aren't happy about all the pounding overhead it keeps them out of the way and makes more room for me in this very small shop.  If you read my blog last year you might remember that  I have lots of little cabins all over the property so I can move equipment I don't use that often like the tumbler into one of them.  

The sun streaming through the window makes it difficult to see, so here is a close up of what I am currently working on .  These are earrings made out of some of those tins I was talking about earlier.   Well that gives you a flavor of my little studio in the woods.  Like I said last year, I actually try to be outside as much as possible in the summer so I love to take things outside to work on them.  This blog is being written at the little table where we stopped to have tea.  Thanks for stopping by and can't wait to visit the rest of the studios in this blog hop.  Just click on the link below to be taken to the land where beauty is created.  .