Today was the challenge.Into the home stretch.Both exhausting and exciting. Clients, family, friends banks, business... final jewelry designs, marketing materials... etc. etc. We are down to the wire. I leave Tuesday and it's Friday. A lot of things HAVE to be done today...or we're out of time.

I am so spatial/visual...I can see things exactly; in my mind as they will be. And I see it quickly.I depend upon others to execute my designs and concepts into tangible creations or actions. That delegation isn't instantaneous...it takes communication in many forms that are verbal, visual, tangible and interpretive.I am talking, sketching, talking and oh...talking...a lot. Thank god I have good verbal skills as well;)

Tucson makes a lot of the logistics easier. I can get anywhere I need to go in half an hour. And I'm so spoilt that half an hour seems too much. L.A. or N.Y. traffic kills me. I gauge my agenda by distance when I'm those cities... which is soooo inaccurate. I forget about getting through people and traffic.I don't need a coat when I run out the door here, or an umbrella. A sundress and sandals is about as quick as it can get to be dressed and out the door. No socks shoes, belts, coats; easy, breezy... and gone! It's also pretty much always sunny in Tucson. I grew up in Vancouver.I REALLY know the hang-ups that weather can bring. Here... there are no meteorlogical hang-ups pretty much ever. Tucson is where I am to produce what I need to get done. I can fit in more to my agenda than anywhere else because of logistics. And I knew this, and planned on that when I started out. I had limited resources and only one of me, so I needed to be as efficient as possible. I didn't, and don't have time to be in traffic for two hours a day, or to waste an hour back and forth to an appointment.

The sterling line (which I'm taking to show in Paris) is produced in Latvia. The logistics of getting my designs and materials to them, and back to me in Tucson in time to leave.. are challenging. But when that package comes in the mail, and I open it -it's the biggest gift to see in my hand...something that was born in my mind a few weeks ago. It is ALWAYS a kick. Always.

So today was ....just getting things done so that I can get on a the plane on Tuesday and focus on making my show - the best it can be.

It's 8 pm, and the dressmaker will be here at 9 for a final fitting for the things I have designed to take to Paris. It's Fashion Week...in PARIS... so you can imagine how much fun I'm having making my wardrobe for this trip! I'm such a girl...I'm going dress -up crazy:) and everything will be Mahlia Collection.... of course.

I am getting ready to leave for Paris Tuesday. I am going to Paris Fashion Week to show my jewelry collection in the Tuilleries.....truly a dream come true. I was looking at my journal from last year, and I had noted in it"Paris Fashion Week" .It seemed like such a pipe dream at the time and now....here I am with my display materials on their way, my customs documents on their way, my ticket and hotel, assistant lined up ( and handsome, english speaking model/actor Frenchman) to also model my men's jewelry and a runway photographer lined up to shoot my show and me as a record of this incredible professional and personal milestone.

I began my business, Mahlia Collection, 5 years ago in a ratty, old co-op warehouse.My rent was 150 dollars a month for about 14 square feet. No windows, air conditioning, heating or bathroom for me and my helper...the only girls out of eight in the building.We ran down the street to the coffee shop restroom for the first year, until I made enough money to build my own bathroom.

That was January 2005.By September 2006, I was ready to move and by January 2007, opened my first small shop in the Historic Depot in downtown Tucson.

I began to get industry attention from the get go.I had no idea -having no connections or experience to the jewelry industry-but it seemed that I was doing something different...in a good way that the editors and industry leaders noticed. I won Rising Star in 2006, Luxury Designer of the Year 2008, Cool Store of the Year in 2008 and placement with the World Gold Council's Global Portfolio in 2007 and 2010. Mahlia Collection was also an evening wear finalist with the Women's Jewelry Association in 2010.

Saks 5th Avenue was my first account and QVC 'discovered' me in 2006 when I won Rising Star, and put me on air in the spring of 2008, twice with my own one hour show. It took me from July 2006 until January 2008 to negotiate the contact.

And now I'm going to Paris....to show with the best. Wow. One day I'm crazy with excitement, the next down on the ground because the clock is ticking and everything isn't perfect yet- and THE bar, and my bar are both very high. It soooo much work people have no idea. SLOG work...just packing and shipping things off. Getting everything ready -the paperwork, the logistics, the time tables, the people..etc.etc.etc.But I am going to Paris for Fashion Week..to show my jewelry collection !

It took me two weeks to get their attention, another week to get through to the right people and then I was accepted. Last week they asked for images of MY jewelry to promote the show...to the WORLD. At times it feels surreal, at times exhausting, at times like I can conquer the world and it also feels in the strangest way ....like it was just meant to be.

My two bits extracted from all of this would be.."Aim for the stars, follow your dream, believe in your passion, don't give up".....you just might get where your heart tells you you should be.

I read this last night:

" After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect.It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one's tears. I can fancy a man who has led a perfectly commonplace life, hearing by chance some curious piece of music, and suddenly discovering his soul, without his being conscious of it, had passed through terrible experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild romantic loves, or great renunciations." Oscar Wilde

I think that music has the capacity to affect us that immediately and that viscerally......but so does all great art.

Art takes you to a place where you see yourself, in the flash of a moment, past, present, future, and your place in the world. It takes you away, and it envelops you;it is a soul connection and a universal connector than overcomes all the conventions of culture, religion, society- to create a profoundly  limitless bond between one and the universe.

Georgia O'Keefe wrote," Art is what I give the world , for what the world gives me." And that is simply put, how profound and cyclical and symbiotic the connection is, between the artist, and those that can share of it.

I don't think that there has been a more difficult time to be a designer starting a business, or an entrepeneur following their dreams and passion. It is the middle of the WORST recession in history ( some say the end, but those experts to whom I have access say it will be another two years, and my senses believe the same.) How can you step back and play it safe when it's everything you believe you should be doing with all your heart and soul?

 

Everything I create is covered with iconography...leaves, berries, rope, appear on my furniture designs, my jewelry and my clothing designs.I was, and am surprised to see how these themes consistently weave themselves into the stories and values that I put out into the universe. I'll look at a jacket I've done and the trim is the garland of leaves weaving its way down the face of the jacket, and I'll say to myself.."Oh...of course. How could I have not bought that trim...it's a garland of laurel leaves... and those leaves represent loyalty, triumph and success to me... so out of 50,000 trims I could have chosen...I liked that one. Duh" Or I'll look at a piece of furniture I've done... and the front of the screen is covered with tacks , forming arabesques and points... and I'll think..."Those look sort of like the granulation that ornaments the Deja ring ....and the granulation represents fruitful endeavor... so- of course I would be drawn to tacks and studs on the furniture, because they sort of simulate the granulation on the jewelry and subliminally... they are telling the same story... which is to fight and struggle, and struggle  some more... and maybe perpetually struggle for what you believe in.  

Because I do believe that at the end of it all, it is those who persevere that will succeed. And I have to believe it, or I wouldn't preach it, I couldn't preach it, because I believe that telling the truth -that a life lived with honour and integrity, a life where you respect others and treat them as you would like to be treated is going to make the world a better place; for us, and for those we leave behind.

So on this overcast day in Tucson ( which is rare)I find myself looking inward at what I am doing, and why...and it is good. It's all good because it comes from my heart. I might stumble a bit, and am probably my harshest critic when I do... and in spite of that- it's good.