Wire Jewelry Make It Funky! - Release Your Funky Wire Jewelry Style

By Carol George-Rucker

A simple fun guide for wire workers who want their jewelry to stand out from the rest. It's got tips, techniques, and a bit of Nice Lady jewelry philosophy on the side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312872158

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Wire Jewelry Make It Funky! - Release Your Funky Wire Jewelry Style

Wire Jewelry Make It Funky!

Release Your Funky Wire Jewelry Style

By Carol George-Rucker

Copyright © 2015 by Carol George-Rucker

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN 978-1-312-87215-8

Nice Lady Jewelry DIY

Cincinnati, Ohio

www.Yourcraftyself.com

For My G-kids: Sasha, Daniel, & Emile; The Sarah Center Jewelry Ladies, & all the jewelry makers who need encouragement to release their inner funk.

Section One - A Funky Jewelry Making Philosophy*

* You can skip the philosophy part and move on to the making stuff part if you want to, but you’ll miss all the great things I have to say

1 | Calling out Your Funky

Funky Defined… just in case you didn’t know

urbandictionary.com - different but cool/nice

dictionary.reference.com - passionate, soulful, of or pertaining to funk

I’m not the official Funk Authority. That would probably be the late James Brown. The man practically invented funk back in the 60s. He sang about funk. In fact, I can hear those Funky horns in my head as I type these words.

I’m pretty sure old James was talking about getting Funky on the dance floor; but his song, Make it Funky, is what came to mind when I was trying to decide the theme and title of this book.

Of course I don’t remember James Brown--or anybody else--calling out jewelry makers to surrender to a Funky style. Since I’ve been teaching my Funky way of making jewelry for a few decades now, I decided that I had to be the one to do it.

No rules

My teachings don’t follow anybody’s rules except the ones I thought up over my years of jewelry making. And because Funky jewelry making is a do-your-own-thing proposition, you don’t have to follow my rules either. That’s one of the important things about making it Funky. There really are no hard fast rules

No projects

I wanted to share my wire techniques and a few metal and upcycling tips as well, but I’m not a project sort of girl. So I’m doing what I’ve always done. I’m sharing the way I do things--my tips and techniques with a bit of my craft-your-own-style philosophy on the side. I’m presenting options that can take you to the brink of mild mannered Funky. You have to do the rest.

It would be really cool if you could take what I offer, wring the gritty essence out of it, and give your wire work a Funky rhythm that makes you shout, HEY! That’s what James Brown did. He called out the Funky with every tune he offered and it made him a star. As a jewelry maker, you can do it with wire, beads, and metal.

Funky Big - Funky Small

It just so happens that when I slip into a Funky jewelry making mood, most of what comes out of it is big, bold, even wild. But I can do lower case Funky as well. You can too. To create small Funky earrings, just use small tools--you know those tiny ones that fit in the palm of your hand. Then create the same shapes, use the same free-form creativity and Funkiness as you do when you’re making things big and Funky. 

2 | You Know Funky When you See it

An artsy Funky jewelry making style is just like old school Funky music. It’s a vague idea, a know-it-when-you-see-it notion. Jewelry Funkiness--just like gritty 70s jammin’ on the dance floor Funkiness--is a secret only the coolest, artsiest makers know. And they’re not sharing it, mostly because they probably fell into Funkiness by accident. Like I did.

Funk slips into your fingers after a weeklong wire jewelry-making marathon or a tour of an I-can-do-that art event. It forces all that prim and proper coiled, swirled perfection to the back of your brain. It mixes it up so it’s not so prim anymore and not always proper.

As a jewelry artist, funk is something you might not recognize in your own work until someone whispers in your ear. Love your Funky jewelry style. It hits you. Then all you can do is shake your head and say Thank you. You can smile and think to yourself, ‘Yes, my jewelry is Funky.’

3 | Get Funky Because You’re Not the Only One

Every time you think about presenting your jewelry to the world, you should realize that you’re not the only bead in the box. You’re not the only maker with talent, nor are you the only one trying to get the world to get excited over what you’ve created.

Arts and Craft shows are packed with jewelry makers. The jurors who evaluate show entries hardly pay attention to jewelry people any more. They believe that they’ve seen it all; and of those they’ve seen, they have their favorites. It’s the same with online jewelry shops. You need more than Pinterest, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or some other look-at-me social media presence to hook a buyer’s devotion.

Do it anyway!

You should still make every effort to show off your handcrafted jewelry-making awesomeness. You’ll just need to get an edge over everybody else, something that makes true artsy jewelry lovers stop in their tracks just to see what you’re up to. You probably have an edge already, you just have to take a little time to figure out what it is.

You’ve got a personal style that no one else can replicate. It’s okay if it’s not artsy or Funky or even fabulous, but there’s good news. Like any contemporary artist, or mad scientist, or highly creative child genius, you have permission to experiment until you find the thing that works best for you.

Your style can be Funky or it can be something else. Simply begin creating jewelry the way you normally would, then...

Think a bit edgier

Add in a few techniques you’d never dare to try in jewelry class

Mix things up a little. 

Present yourself however you choose.

Get strange.

Get wild.

Get Funky.

Get loose… Hey!!

Slip into a Funky frame of mind 

In case you didn’t notice, that’s what I just did. It’s not so easy, especially if you think of yourself as mild-mannered, sweet, or simple. That low-keyed mindset will slip out of your fingers every time you create jewelry. Your swirls will be perfect. Your coils will be exactly the same. You’ll create symmetrical beauty. Most people will love it, and that’s great if that’s who you want to be.

But what if it’s not? What if you want your jewelry making to be so fabulous that you jump up and scream Hey! because you’re too excited to sit down? Well, you’ll probably have to fake it until your head’s in a space that will allow you to create jewelry a world and a dream away from what you normally do. You must change from the inside out, or fake Funky until you make Funky.

Get a Funky attitude

To make the transition to artsy, Funky, fabulous jewelry making, you have to start with your attitude. You must free yourself to be not just a jewelry maker, but an