A boring and unnecessary post about the things I dangle from my head.
I am not entirely sure when I became an earring wearer, I know I had them pierced at about 13ish, probably remembered mostly from the pain sleeping on studs and I certainly wore earrings sporadically from then on but WHEN did I actually felt unfinished without them? I now frequently leave the house without brushing my hair or looking in the mirror but I rarely leave without my earrings and they are not discreet! My most favourite are a pair of necker cubes (2 inch optical illusion from brass) I bought in Germany in 2007/8. They came from a Mexican jeweller via an English website. I remember when they arrived I fretted that they were too big, too much, too exuberant, I had to build up the courage to put them on in public. I soon discovered that I loved them so much that I bought the accompanying necklace with one on... which I never wore... which was handy because when I lost one of them in NF on Christmas Eve circa 2009 I was able to take then one off the necklace and restore my ears to equilibrium.
The next loss was in New Zealand at a nightclub in Queenstown. The following morning I was allowed access to try and find them, no luck and was most discombob. We later travelled to Chile from NZ and randomly found a gorgeous jewellers in the Elqui valley, despite the ancient jeweller not speaking any English and us speaking barely any Spanish he made me another, however he drew around mine as his template and now they were about 1/2mm bigger in all directions but still made my heart sing with joy. He asked a piffling amount and I think we felt compelled to give him at least a 200% tip!
Since then I have worn these earrings to literally every job interview, sometimes my hair covers them but they need to know that if you hire me you hire my earrings. When my hair goes up it exposes my asymmetric undercut and giant geometric earwear; a quick signpost to my iconoclastic tendencies. At my first teaching job the DT teacher was a jeweller in his spare time, I had lost another earring on maternity leave, probably the extreme tiredness, moving house twice, building a house and having a small capuchin-like human fiddling with me constantly so I actually can't remember the exact when or where... Anyway he made me a lush new one, and was able to make it finer to match the originals, his cost was wine and cheese.
Now it probably ought be mentioned that despite wearing these most of the time now I also had amassed a seriously huge eclectic earring collection, usually ginormous and always quite peculiar and initially all worn about the same amount. But as much as I loved the other earrings and got excited by new finds I always extricably drawn to these. I considered how much I love them and daydreamed I would get some smaller ones made of a more precious metal with more finesse to celebrate my 50th (still 10 years off) but then thought why on earth would I do that... I then moved to America and about that time became an erstwhile minimalist, giving away well over half my collection. Once over there I realised over there that my beloved neckers at some point had become my tag, I sometimes didn't write my name anymore, just drew the shape! I've made coasters, art, pasta, pastries and other various designs with it in.
This Summer Solstice just past I went for a pre-school dawn swim at Pells Pool, but I lost an earring somewhere between the changing room and school. During a break I ran back and Patrick let me scour the site, I retrod every step to my car, but not found. I bumped into Graham from the maintenance dept on my way back into school and I asked him to perhaps keep an eye out for this errant earring. He took a long time looking at the remaining one, and on handing back said 'I could make you one of those', I asked him how much he said 'nothing just the challenge', I suggested wine and cheese like before, clearly a perfect offer. So he did and I was reunited with my newest version in time for the Winter Solstice. Early distress at misplacing soon turned into a chance to wear many of my other earrings, especially my beloved lemons from LollyDoll.
I can sleep in them, I feel empowered wearing them, I ride, row, swim, ski in them, they start conversations and they make me very happy.
I really am not sure if I have any of the original ones made by the amazing Mexican lady, and most replacements have been indistinguishable each being hand made and unique. I have searched high and low for her on the internet but I fear she no longer makes them, or exists? Graham was so pleased with his cheese and wine that he said he is going to make a template and be able to press out multiples. We could go into partnership and I could spread the love, but should I?
Photos to follow - for some reason I find this laptop so hard at adding media which is bizarre as this is meant to be excellent for its imagery options!