I had my studio up and running for a year, and a kaleidoscopic vision danced through my thoughts every so often until I knew I wouldn’t be able to shake it off and had to just go for it.
Elizabeth Gilbert has this idea in her book, Big Magic, that if you don’t take an idea up on it’s offer to be created, the idea will fly off and find another person who will create it (this happened to her with a book). I didn’t want to see that happen with my crystal kaleidoscope idea!
When I say my vision never stopped spinning I mean it literally. I wanted to get it right; both the top wheel and the gem wheel had to spin and I had a lot of different thoughts about how to make it work. So my mind kept working after I slept and on countless nights I dreamed of gems and spinning wheels.
These new Crystal Kaleidoscopes feel so personal to me because they combine my childhood loves. I have a kaleidoscope collection that began not so long after my gem collection. But never have I seen a kaleidoscope with actual gems in it! It feels inevitable that I would have made these.
Last year while devouring episodes of Chef’s Table, a concept stuck out for me. Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez was up in the mountains foraging ingredients to create his dishes and he wanted to add color and variety to his plate. A thought popped into my head: you can do this with gems! I didn’t yet know what this gem dinner plate was all about but after making my first kaleidoscope I realized that I had done it!
I started by making the Five Petal kaleidoscope and decided I’d like to offer a smaller version and so became the Three Petal style. I have some more designs and ideas still spinning around for the future. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. They really are a labor of love as each one takes a long time to make! Let me know what you think of them and please, share them with a friend!