I have attempted in the past to do something with all the used guitar strings that both my husband and I have been saving for several years. Trying to find a way to recycle them into jewelry. I dabbled in trying all kinds of bending and wrapping and twisting and crimping. Trying to find my voice in the design.
Well, I finally found some inspiration. Not exactly sure where it came from but I’m not going to complain. I took out a coiled up guitar string and just stared at it for the longest time. My thoughts went in
and out of my bead cabinet trying to imagine what would work the best. I put this bead on with that spacer, took them off, tried another combination, yuck!!! That’s the way it happens most of the time and yes, yuck is a perfectly suitable reaction. Then, eureka!!!!!! A flash came to my brain, the right side cause the left was still asleep. Why not just treat it as you would using regular wire wrapping techniques. Ok. So I pull out my wire wrapping instruction book, ponder this and that. Hmmmm.... OK, maybe this will work.
The one thing I do remember one of the artisans on Artfire saying about wire work, you can’t force it, the wire has a mind of its own sometimes, just follow where it takes you. Ahem.... Well guitar strings are from outer space because they definitely will walk their own walk and bend however they want with no regard for what you might have had in mind. So I let it flow, eased my grip and went along for the ride.
Now, any kind of string vibrates to a certain frequency and each one makes a unique and beautiful sound. Once that string is plucked that sound moves out into the universe and just keeps on going and going. These have echoes of both my husbands and my personal history. I actually got a little choked up thinking about it. I asked myself why it took me so long to tackle this project again. Was I holding onto those memories in those old guitar strings? Is it even possible to hold a vibration? No. And those strings I believe are still alive with all the songs we ever played with them.
Might sound corny but I don’t care. All I know is that I put away my expectations of what I thought those darn strings should do and allowed the reverberation to create a unique and soulful piece of jewelry. It works for me and it’s pretty cool that I am able to share an important part of our lives with all you folks out there in an unexpected, creative and somewhat uncommon way.
So, it's time to get back at it so that I can make more cool guitar string jewelry for your listening enjoyment.
Thanks for visiting my blog
Blessings to you All
Nancy
(aka Martie)
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