Today, instead of my regular weekly ring-a-day round-up posts, which I decided to post every two weeks from now on, I ‘m writing about the RAD packs.
What are the RAD packs? Only the most amazing little packs of inspirations, containing various specimens, that can be used for the Ring-a-Day project. If you open one pack, you have to use it anyway you want within 24 hours to make a ring. This fabulous idea was initiated by Kathryn Riechert, who sent the first package to Victoria Takahashi. Then Victoria also sent some RAD packs and now Sara Westermark has meticulously put together and sent packs to all non Etsy Metal participants of the Ring-a-Day Project.
I loved the letter that Sara sent along with the package. She says that “in relationships, in life and in business we only get to keep what we freely give away. I’m giving away the joy that I so freely received when my RAD pack arrived”.
I was so much moved by Sara’s wonderful gesture of kindness and generosity. I admire her both as an artist and as a person and I feel so lucky to have met her online.
I was expecting my package to arrive with great excitement and it finally did last Friday.
This cross section of a walnut was in the first pack that I opened. Pretty amazing, don’t you think?
When I saw it, it reminded me of the boats that we were making with walnuts when we were kids. As I was making the boat and thinking about the type of sail that I would use, I remembered the myth of Theseus and the minotaur:
After killing the monster, Theseus returned home to his father, the king Aegeus, but he forgot to change to white sail, as he had promised to his father. When Aegeus saw the black sail, he thought his son was dead and committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The sea would be named Aegean after him.
This part of the myth always saddened me, I couldn’t understand how he could be so stupid to forget to change to white sail!…..and this is why I decided to put white sail on this boat.
Of course there’s more to this story than my childish brain could process back when I was in school and there’s a reason why things evolved the way they did. More on Theseus and the myths around his life over here.
The next day, I just had to open another one! What I found inside was another treat: a beautiful octagon smoky quartz! Just the perfect incentive I needed to practice a new setting that I always wanted.
I definitely need more practice with these settings but I loved trying something new!
Of course now I want to open all the packs and see what’s in them but I have to exert some form of self-control. There are 15 little packs and I don’t want to use them all at once. I want this feeling of anticipation and excitement to last as long as possible! t
A big THANK YOU to Sara for this!!!