Enduring, oldfangled silver
I have been working in sterling silver for over fifteen years and it is something akin to a material love affair. I first fell in love with silver as a young girl… my mother and grandmother had beautiful pieces in sterling silver amongst their more costumey pieces, and there was always a quality about these silver pieces that I loved. They were collectible, inscribed, and felt real. They were treasured, worn and loved. They had a history and felt cultural and special.
Silver can be worked in so many ways - I just love these processes. When I visit our artisans in Bali and watch them work, I am just swept up in the humble humanity and warmth of their techniques. Pulling silver wire by hand, assisted by a small motor, is the very beginning of it. Casting, hammering, twisting, polishing, pickling, oxidizing... all with the wonderful energy it calls for (and maybe room for stones in various bezels that are hand set). This feels like the authentic way to produce our designs… the antithesis of mass produced jewelry. So enduring, like the people who wear the jewelry.
This warm, clean artful metal remains timeless and at the core of Waxing Poetic’s aesthetic, and ready now more than ever to grace our lovely necks, wrists and fingers when we need a dose most.
Keeping it real, xo,
Patti
Ways to wear Waxing Poetic
As in any moment, you have a choice
Choose JoyChoose LifeChoose AcceptanceChoose BeautyChoose Kindness
Happy Valentine's Day
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where."
For all the ways we love, and in awe of (and joyful participation in!) the grand Mystery of Love itself: here, one of our favorite poems on one of our most inspirational subjects, by the ever-so-tender Pablo Neruda. Wishing you a Valentine's day that touches the divine soul of love.
by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
Design Inspiration: Introducing the Melange Collection
Feel free to play.
It takes such bravery and freedom to allow the abstract to become something real. This notion is at the heart of the our new Melange collection.
Inspired by one of Patti's favorite abstract works of art, "Lavendar Mist" by Jackson Pollock, the collection's gestural forms and colors dance and play, celebrating the divine and the imperfect, and inspiring us to do more of the same. What feels like an accident is actually just un-edited art making: a flow, a kind of channeled movement, by our own hand (and we get out of the way).
Have fun. Do it now. Wear with joy. Be brave. Play more!
Coming Soon: The Personal Vocabulary Collection
Sharing love, sharing a new language.
If I close my eyes (something my daughter always prompts me to do when I am trying to remember) and think about one thing that made me happy each day, it would look something like this collection over time.
Another birthday.
My daughter.
A celebration.
Good fortune.
A gift.
Something that makes me smile…
The world is perfect, and filled with the many wonders that, when recognized, for each of us, add up to a joyful life. Personal Vocabulary is an expression of this.
If there is one language that begs for increased vocabulary, it is LOVE. So, you’ll notice that the word LOVE is in the title of each piece in this collection, because we just couldn’t shake it! It is infiltrating our open hearts.
So, now, a peek into our new, collective language: an ever-expanding vocabulary of joyful living, piece by marvelous piece. Let’s spread the word (love)…
Xo,
Patti
Design Inspiration: Our new Ancora Charm Catcher
Allow yourself to be an anchor, and anchored by others.
Patti shares some some thoughts on the not-so-heavy anchors of her life.
This past summer, I spent some time crossing the Santa Barbara channel with my family (and a few friends), and living on our brave little boat for several days. I am usually inspired by the sea, but this time, more profoundly: my 4 year old daughter was with us, and much of the trip was seen through her eyes (What lies beneath? The stars above. The ANCHOR!). Yes, Lulu was enthralled with watching dad drop and lift the anchor, and the whole concept of anchoring in general.
Heavy. Chained. Necessary. Life-saving.
Upon return to (wobbly at first, now stable as it should be) ground, I began working with the iconic anchor shape as the basis for a new charm catcher. Having always loved the lines of the anchor, and the iron-forged fabrication (and the important place it takes in sea travel... which is such a metaphor for life itself...) the design revealed itself. These things are graceful despite their weight. And SOLID (and meant to go deep). Yes, this needs to be imagined to hold markers of my ( and other's) journey.
I sketched out a simple, knife-edged design, with a hinged-arm mechanism to hold the charms in place. The original mechanism was eventually replaced but an even more effortless and lovely swinging arm. I loved it the minute we got it back from casting, and could not stop playing with it. It feels good and is perfectly analog and mechanical in a warm, useful way.
It is a reminder of that life on the sea, which is Life itself: the unknown, the magical, the sublime, made available to us by slowing down; the exhilarating, shown to us by making the effort and responding to nature; and the true, by surrounding ourselves with the reality of what we cherish and love.
And it is also an homage to that beautiful, utilitarian hand-made object that keeps us tethered, so that we can go deeper and explore ourselves.
I am thrilled to add this piece to our collection on January 27th, and can't wait to see what you do with it.
Here's to your most thrilling journey... With ahoy!
Xo Patti
Design Inspiration: The Tree of Life grows
A look behind the process of an evolving collection.
When we first introduced our Wing & A Prayer Tree of Life charm over six years ago, we had no idea how beloved it would become, or that it would eventually play such a central role in the Waxing Poetic story.It was actually one of the most difficult charms we have ever designed (we created countless hand-sketched tree iterations and carvings before arriving at the one we now know and love... Who knew it would take months and months, but it did).
Exploring every branch, twist, leaf and root (and nuance) of our Tree of Life was, and still is, a meditation. This is one of those designs that you just channel and get lost in, and then go back to and get lost in those branches all over again, discovering something... 
The Tree of Life sparked something in our design team from the beginning, and our customers responded the same way: love, love, love. The Tree of Life may be one of the most universal symbols of the energy of being alive and connected to each other on this planet. The tree is also a symbol for family, which is where, we suppose, it all started for us. And then along came the wonderful locket.
For all of these reasons, we continue to return to our Tree. This time, it is reimagined by our lead designer, Stephanie Kheder, who created additions to this collection, including a new signature “Celebrate the Journey” medallion. 
Oft taken for granted, oft portrayed in so, so many ways, a tree is almost like a sunset: hard to “see” for its truth. Such natural perfection is challenging to interpret sometimes ... so magnificently beautiful, our tree is a central force of life and central to our understanding of who we are.We love our families, this planet, and the great Tree that connects us all. We only hope we have done it justice, and that it holds as much meaning for those who wear it as it does for us.
And this probably won’t be the last time we return to the tree, looking for, well, everything.
View our current Tree of Life designs.
Welcome to Nota Bene (both Latin and Italian for “note well,” which we do around here!). At Waxing Poetic, we make things, and get the chance to see them made real (and loved, and changed – by all of you). Here you will find tiny actions, tiny pieces, and tiny particulars of our process – the small (and not so small) things that matter much.
Enjoy!
Patti Pagliei, Founder
