Just After the Inauguration

I predict yellow coats and red headbands as one of this years big preteen Halloween costumes, walking next to little girls in black robes and lace collars.
I confess that usually when I see big moments like the Inauguration, part of me really stings with pangs of all the things I didn't do -- the impact I could have made, the tables I don't sit at, the fields I didn't go into. A sort of constant back end gaming silently goes on about how to get out of where I am and transition into something more important.
For the FIRST time EVER, I watched something so important and was really excited about Jewelry and the role it plays and the role I play with it, for it, and for the people who wear it!
So many women are stepping into positions of power, and that number will obviously expand and increase exponentially- and the power in the jewelry that accompanies those moments has me excited about my own field in a way I never have been before.
I figure that comes with age -- with some excellence in what I do, with experience in it, with acknowledging the trust other people have put in me. It comes with some commitment - maybe I've just decided that actually Art Jewelry is my field, that this is the arena of the impact that I make, that I speak in objects and that that's important. Someone held a piece of my work this month and said, "I think my life is being saved right now," and started to cry. I didn't understand it but I'm unpacking it.
Maybe it also has to do with having a child old enough to start seeing her own dreams crystallize and my heartstrings are met by seeing doors open for her, rather than see them as closed for me. Maybe it has to do with so many amazing women rising together, on top of each other, because of each other and holding space inside that community apart from any particulars.
I looked up the first artist statement Chris and I ever made for Merzatta - this from back in 2012:
"When a woman feels more beautiful, she is more powerful..."
"... and we are interested in powerful women."
"When she stands taller because of a pair of exceptional earrings..."
..."or a statement necklace that falls just so..."
"That is a design victory,"
"...a cultural victory,"
"...of the very best kind."
It doesn't have the history in it - the power of jewelry statements that both reach into the past and project into the future, but it does show me something of where we were almost a decade ago with regards to power. And while I'd write it very differently today, I'm newly so excited about what we do.
Someone said to me this winter - "It''s actually amazing. I don't know if people get it - but what you offer is a celebrity care experience for regular people."
I brushed that under a carpet too, with lots of other nice things people say.
But it isn't untrue. All of the impeccable care that went into designing Gaga's brooch, that helped to choose Amanda's caged bird ring, that moved Kamala's signature pearls to her ears in custom wreaths last night -- that's exactly what we do! Except that we do it with your mother's pearls. And with a coral, or seeds, or branches that help tell the story of how much you care about the world around you - that silently refer to centuries of adornment while pushing a contemporary edge.
Amanda Gorman announced her run for US President in 2036 two years ago -- Laurily will be 26. Wonder what they'll both be wearing! For the very first time, I'm confident in the excitement my field gets to have as it builds the answers and finds out.
Didn't expect all that from the peaceful transition of power, but what a nice feeling to add on top!