challenge of color!

here we arrive at erin prais-hintz' final challenge for 2012; the challenge of color! thank you so much, erin and brandi hussey. i've long been a fan of brandi's work, and am thrilled to finally be able to use one of her palettes to make a piece of jewelry.


i saw the blog hop last year and decided i would try my best to do it this year, because it looked like so much fun. i actually got to participate in all four of erin's challenges this year. i've so enjoyed them and feel like i pushed some boundaries with my work. :) yay!

so i chose the richat structure.

the richat structure is located in the sahara desert.

the sahara desert

it's a wonderfully mysterious land form; no one really knows how it came to be. there are theories, and i'll share two of them here. first; it's a crater from a meteor. this idea really isn't given any credence by scholars because the structure isn't deeply concave and is missing the kind of rocks and minerals formed when such a high-velocity collision occurs. so, the other supposition that i would like to mention is that it was once a dome, that has slowly eroded in a totally unique fashion.

richat structure

but everyone agrees it's a fascinating land form and requires much more study. i thought one of the coolest stories about the richat structure is that the astronauts can see it from space, and always look for it on missions. they've named it earth's bulls-eye. ;) visit this amusing description from a scientist's point of view of how the structure might have formed and how the structure has been rather sensationalized by some psuedo-scientists.

i chose to focus on the astounding circular aspect of the structure.

i created this spiral focal with heavy gauge copper wire. then i added a few circles on either side to create a framework, to which i added gemstones, in order to reflect the rich geology of the structure. and i went a bit crazy with the wire.

so the colors on my screen are really disappointing me. :( the piece in person is much more like brandi's palette, i swear! ;)

for the back i used simple chain and a cassie donlen toggle.

so here's my dilemma; it doesn't feel quite right to me. but i'm not sure what it needs. more wire? more beads? more *color*?

i'm so glad i was able to participate in all erin's challenges this year. thank you so much, erin and brandi!!! please visit erin's blog for the full list.