Twiggs

What materials do I use for my earrings?

My goal is to not purchase wood specifically for earrings. I like the idea of found materials. There are plenty of exceptions to this but the theme is there. I used a pine 2x4 but it was lying around in my barn. I have some incredible brown colored cedar but it was purchased over 10 years ago and lived a number of years as a hand built boat. I think this qualifies as not purchased anymore. I have also used firewood. Technically this is purchased too.Epoxy… OK, I completely purchased that. My goal is to never let the epoxy be the star of the show and to never color it with anything other than black. Speaking of which, my black pigment is straight from our wood stove.

So what species of wood do I use?

I mostly know what they are, but as a scavenger, I often don’t know. I’m OK with that too. I want to use wood because its color and grain interest me. Some of my first material was a sumac log found in my barn. I liked it so much, I collected some more from under a powerline (you’re welcome Green Mountain Power). It turns out the original “sumac” log was really from a flowering bush outside my workshop that I hope to identify in the spring. This spring, I hope to identify some more wood I collected this winter. I do know that in the future there will be weeping cherry, apple, sugar maple, red maple, sumac, walnut, ash (I think it’s ash at least) and whatever else I find on the road side. This will be mixed with 100+ year old pine that came from a stud in the wall of our house. Regardless of what it is, I hope to make the grain and color unexpected and fun to look at.

Thanks for reading, Scott