After a day of riding our horses at Bruneau Dune here in Idaho I made these earrings depicting jackrabbits running through the sand -- simple storytelling in folk art style.
Bruneau Dune is the largest, single, freestanding sand dune in the USA and one side of it is flanked by a small lake. The juxtaposition of sky, sand dune, and water is rather otherworldly. It feels impossible. The elements are at full strength out there — fire, wind, water, earth, blowing and heaving and burning and cool blue to the eyes. It’s hard going for the horses in all that deep sand so they get a great workout using their muscle groups in a different way than usual. As we move in and out of smaller dunes it’s fun to watch the desert wildlife flicker, tweet, run and fly — and to feel like we are fleet and swooping on the backs of birds of prey instead of horses. The warmth of day radiates up out of the sand and our faces always feel sunburnt no matter how much sunscreen we apply just from the dryness and the reflection of hard light off pale sands. I feel such aliveness in my cells after a day of riding there and tiredness, too, which is a delicious feeling if it stems from being outside all day.
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I haven't used jackrabbit motifs in my work for YEARS and it feels very good to return to using these gentle creatures in my jewelry narrations. If you claim a pair of these earrings, I hope you can feel the desert in them: the sun, the wind, the stars, the blinking jackrabbit in the sagebrush and the owl on the wing.
Hand pierced components, hammer textured, hand stamped, hammer formed, lovingly connected and satin finished by hand -- these earrings are a wonderful labor of love!
Length: nearly 5 inches with hand formed and forged french ear wires
Sterling silver and hessonite.
+Built To Last+
+Made With Love+
+Of The West+