Janet Edkins – Master Bead Artist & Gaia’s Jeweler
My hometown is Sheffield, England – famous for steel, cutlery, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday (Football). Although an extremely large industrial city, nature is always close, with many city parks and the wonderful countryside of Derbyshire and the Yorkshire Dales not far away.
My husband Chris and I moved to America in 1998 shortly after our wedding and were quite vagabondish for the first few years. We lived in Dallas (N Richardson & Plano). Then we moved to the Chicago area (Evanston, Skokie & Wheeling), and finally in March 2003, Chris was offered a position at UTK College of Veterinary Medicine.
We fell in love with this area; the Smoky Mountains, the wonderful people, and the general ambiance. So much so, within weeks of being here we bought a house!
My creative her-story.
I have always been creative, it mainly showed up in dress-making when I was younger, then turned to set dressing, props & furniture during my stint in amateur theatre.
In the winter of 2000 Kay Thomas was offering a class in Japanese Ink Painting at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. An amazing artist and gifted teacher, under her tutelage I found a real outlet for my creative soul. Zen Buddhist priests used Sumi-é as a form of meditation; grinding their ink, gathering their thoughts and creativity. I had tried water colour, pastels, crayons and oils previously but none spoke to me the way the ink did.
Traditional Sumi-é is black ink on white rice paper, the simplicity and complexity of the variations in black and white are a perfect reflection of my own complexities and tastes in colour.
I started making greetings cards from scraps of spoiled Sumi-é paintings. I hated to waste that one flower, or particularly fine leaf, that was good in a piece gone sour. Amazing reactions from family and friends to whom the cards were sent, encouraged me to create small pieces especially for more cards.
This one is called Black Bamboo. It’s one of the original 1950s vintage buttons where I started my journey.
Proud Member – Foothills Craft Guild –
As many of you will know, one thing lead to another, and now I make all kinds of cards. My love of fine papers, beautiful beads, flowers and herbs allows for even greater expression. I truly hope that people find as much joy from the giving and receiving of my cards as I do in the making of them.
So now beading! I used to make lots of small beady things for my cards and always said that “I did not make jewelry!” Oh how wrong that became, and believe me when I say that my “beady/arty” friends rib me relentlessly every time I come up with another design or a twist on someone else’s design. It all started with vintage buttons!. You can read more of that story on my blog.
When I started using crystals & stones I was truly amazed and humbled by the compliments and accolades. I was honored by the flow with which ideas, designs and creativity just seemed to stream through my hands. Everything around us is energy, and I was obviously picking up on this sub consciously. The crystals allowed me to connect to that flow, to understand them, work with them, and to heal myself as part of the process. This all became apparent whilst I was taking my Reiki Training and the energy flow became more concious. After creating a piece I began to make sure it was cleared, both of general negativity and also of any imprint from me during production. Part of that ceremony includes my asking that universal energies be infused into the jewelry, augmenting the stone or crystal’s own vibrations and metaphysical properties, for the best & highest good of its new owner.
“Handmade healing stone jewelry; you’ll be guided to what you need.”
Crystals and stones carry frequency and vibrations natively from Mother Gaia. When you wear or carry them inside your energetic fields they can assist in bringing your bio magnetic sheath into alignment. Many many stones are known to facilitate rebalancing and realigning the vibrational stasis of the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical bodies.
Disturbances in your energetic fields and bodies can be caused by electromagnetic smog from cell phones and towers, computers, TVs, and microwaves, even power lines. They can be affected by your own mental gyrations, stress, depression, and physical illness, to name just a few.
Whatever is going on with you that has you feeling “off” can be supported in healing by carrying or wearing a appropriate stones or crystals. This is ancient knowledge and wisdom coming back into the fore of peoples awareness. I am so grateful for the gift of creativity to be able to bring these talismans to my clients and my earthly tribe, allowing small wonders and miracles. My role is not to heal you but to assist you in healing yourself, and trusting yourself to know what works for you. I give thanks and gratitude daily to Mother Earth for allowing me to live this healing practice, being of service.
Crystal healing is a type of alternative therapy that involves using gemstones to bring balance to an individual’s life and mind. Understanding how much benefit I have found personally, guides me to bring my kind of therapy, my jewelry, as a healing modality to a wider audience.