Elin.b.

09/05/2026

I've been waiting to make these pearl drops all my life.

Thanks to@catherineziboart for helping me find the pearls at

02/05/2026

Tracing matrilineal memory through objects, images, and adornment.

With the help of , the plaque for Matrilineal Fascinator is slowly taking shape—images, materials, and memory settling into place.

29/04/2026

Something pretty I'm working on... This post is an antidote to the last one where I crash and burned. At some point soon this will be a pair of earrings with latch back ear wires....

29/04/2026

Sometimes I crash and burn when I first start making with a n**e technique. Here, I am trying to make some teardrop wood earrings..... But I learned some stuff. And I have a plan for how to continue. I'm not giving up!..... But man this first try was disappointing.

13/04/2026

Matrilineal Fascinator
A wearable structure holding nine objects—
each one tied to a woman in my maternal line.

Some are visible.
Some are partially hidden.
Some are carried inside the form.

Not everything is meant to be seen.

12/04/2026

Working on a maquette for my matrilineal fascinator project today. It's more of a hat than a fascinator, but I am partial to the word fascinator!

My matrilineal fascinator represents the women in my maternal lineage: my mother, two grandmothers, four great-grandmothers, and two great-great-grandmothers. The work honors the legacy, strength, and influence of the women who came before me.

As I have been working through this project, thinking about each woman, I am realizing this work is not only about honouring my ancestors, it is also about my relationship with each one of them, and even their relationships with each other. I am convinced that relationships don't end with death, relationships even exist between parties have never met. I believe that life continues as long as your name is remembered.

I am creating a sculptural headpiece that explores ancestry as a living constellation of memory and relationships. From the structure of the fascinator, a series of small forms appear — miniature jewelry pieces and symbolic objects inspired by women of my maternal lineage. Each object functions as a piece of art representing a particular ancestor through motifs, materials, or stories told about her life by the family. These constellations radiate from the headpiece mapping lineage through fragments of adornment rather than through portraiture. The work suggests that identity is formed through relationships with generations of women whose presence continues to shape the present.

# Artjewelry

05/04/2026

05/04/2026

She's beautiful in this yellow shantung silk dress with crystals at the cuffs!

There's a funny story behind it; 20 years ago she took out two pieces of yellow fabric adorned with giant crystals. She asked me if I wanted them. (I wish I had said yes.) Turns out she gave the dress to someone young and pretty after she was finished with it. But before she handed it over, she ripped off the crystal cuffs. I can only assume she did it so that no one would look as good in that dress as she did.... I assume that because I think she told me.

She was a character!!

While this is not the kindest story about my Grandmother, it is one that sticks out. She was a woman my dad described as the perfect character for being a commandant in Stalinist Russia. We knocked heads as I grew up.

But I remember loving her so much when I was little. I used to run my finger over her blue eyeshadowed lids, rubbing the excess on my own eyes trying to be as beautiful as I thought she was.

She lived to be 95 despite having had an emergency quadruple heart bypass at the age of 70.

03/04/2026

A favourite memory of her was the summer dusk we gazed at thousands of Monarch butterflies resting on the row of trees down to the lake.  They covered the trees, lush like orange and black leaves.   On our way back up the driveway to the Farm, we stopped in front of a Monarch laying on the ground, disabled and left with only one single wing.  My Oma must have known saving it was hopeless, but she took it gently in her cupped hands anyway and carried it to a beautiful spot where it could expire.  

I was 4 and the sky was purple

30/03/2026

Crocheted flower.... Made with my fingers instead of a crochet hook because the wire was too thick. This is part of my matrilineal fascinator project. It symbolizes my great-grandmother Charlotte. More to come.