Valentine’s Day Goodies!

I’ve just ordered a bunch of new material from Rio Grande and am revamping my work station.  Watch this space for new and exciting items that will make perfect Valentine’s Day gifts!  In the meantime, I’ve already got a gift section set up in my Etsy shop, AntiGenre Arts, full of sparkly treasures, including my Cassis and Lillium Earrings.

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Adorn Yourself…

…with these beautiful necklaces!  I’m offering 15% off.  These are some of my more intricate, colorful creations, and they’re all one of a kind! 

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The Element of Supplies

Because I live in student housing, work full time and run a fair trade company, the two things that I am rather short on are the time and space in which to make the jewelry that I sell at AntiGenre Arts. Hence I’m forced to be very organized when I head off to the studio that I’m currently using in New York. I don’t have a soldering station at home (…yet), and studio time can be expensive, so I like to be prepared with as many sets of the basic necessities as possible. I spend a few hours at home making, sawing and finishing the various-sized rings that will become hoops, links and organic shapes that I use for items like my best-selling Lotte Earrings or Cycles Necklace. When I get to the studio, I’m ready to sit and solder for a solid few hours. The end result is always very satisfying – a bundle of bright shiny hoops and links, ready to become something beautiful:

 

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Gettin’ Lucky!

I have never considered myself much of a conformist and have always tended to gravitate toward similarly off-beat people, people who are not afraid of the unknown and of not fitting in.  That said, the path I’ve followed seems pretty damn tame compared to the women of Lucky Cheng’s! 

My husband just got back from a four-month stint in Japan, and to celebrate, we spent the weekend in Manhattan hitting some of our favorite places.  Lucky Cheng’s, rightly known as the drag queen capital of the world, is one of them. We actually hadn’t been in almost ten years, so it’s not like we regularly visit. We just had a really good time the on the last occassion we did. This time was just as much, if not more, fun. The food was delicious, the drinks strong and the lap dances outrageous!

Staffed by talented drag and transgendered performers and waitresses, Lucky Cheng’s is a fabulously fun place to spend an evening. Be prepared for wild costumes, loud music, decor that puts the most outlandish love hotel to shame… The camp factor is off the scale.

The one concession that the waitresses and performers made to this being more than an act, a way of life and not simply a persona to put away at the end of the work day, was a plain white envelope handed out to each table at the end of the evening’s show.  This envelope, when filled with money the patrons were to hopefully contribute, represented a step closer to the sex reassignment surgery many of the staff were saving for.  In a time and place where homophobia and bias crimes are still a problem, I have to applaud a person who can stand at the front of a crowded room and ask for money for a sex change.  It takes a lot of guts. 

Of course, so does this:

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More New Creations

I’m in love with freshwater pearls now.  I just got a great supply of these lovely magenta pearls, and they look great with blacked sterling silver hoops.  I linked three hand-forged hoops together and hammered them slightly out of shape.  I love the irregular, organic look of these earrings.  They are now listed in my Etsy shop!

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