February notes: fire horse + too much snow

I hope everyone is staying warm and safe amidst the blizzard that’s hitting the eastern US. For myself, I got stuck in New York after teaching a workshop and have been trying to get back home to Philly for the past two days. It’s been frustrating dealing with train cancellations and delays, but I’m so grateful for my friends that have offered me a place in their homes while I’m stuck ♥️ I’m writing this now as I wait in Moynihan Train Hall for my re-rescheduled train (crossing my fingers, third time lucky!) but hopefully I’ll be home soon.

With that out of the way, a belated 新年快乐, chúc mừng năm mới, and happy Lunar New Year to everyone! For everyone like me who missed the boat on their January resolutions, here’s an opportunity to reevaluate our goals and and jump back on that boat.

I’ve spent the bulk of this month focused on making and perfecting my fire horse necklace, so I thought for the February newsletter it would be fun to share some more behind-the-scenes snippets on my design process. This was a really fun project that began fairly spontaneously, and I’m really proud of the result and happy that you guys love it too :)

I suddenly got the idea for this horse pendant while I was at a coffee shop in late January, and immediately started sketching my ideas. My drawing skills are not the best, but from the beginning I knew I wanted the pendant size to be small and minimal, but the horse itself to be a chunky lil one.

From there, I started carving and experimenting on the form in wax. Like you saw in my last newsletter, there were a few different iterations on the silhouette of this charm, and every one got me closer to what I had in my head.

Once I had a horse charm that I was happy with, the next step was figuring out how to make it into a pendant that could be strung onto a necklace. Even though this seems like a small step, it took a surprising amount of time for me to decide how I wanted to do this. This necklace was inspired by the traditional Chinese jade pendants my mom used to wear, so I wanted to do something a bit different from the other pendants I’ve made.

Usually, a pendant is made up of the pendant form + a bail - which is a small loop on the top of the pendant that lets the necklace chain run through it. However, bails are rarely found in jade jewelry, for a few specific reasons:

Because jade is a gemstone, you’re not able to carve the pendant shape separately and attach a bail afterwards (which is often what is done for metal pendants). The jade carver would have to include the bail in the jade shaping from the beginning. Good quality jade is rare, so carving a pendant bail out of jade (which involves removing a lot of material that could be otherwise used for the pendant design space) removes a wasteful amount of that precious material. Instead, to preserve as much usable jade as possible, jade carvers often drill a hole directly into their pendants and rely on simple cord wrapping and knotting techniques to keep the pendant lying flat.

To keep this stylistic tradition of the jade pendant, I decided to do the same with my horse pendant, even though my version is made in metal. The drilled hole + cord combo even makes it look like the horse is wearing a little red saddle, which I admit was completely unintentional, but is a precious coincidence nonetheless.

I knew from the very beginning that I wanted this pendant to be strung on a red cord. But what shade of red? What cord material? How do I want the necklace to fasten, and how does that factor into the design?

After a lot of experimentation, I settled on a slightly darker garnet red instead of the traditional bright red cord, in a nylon double-ply thread. This allows the necklace to maintain the dainty feel that I’ve realized is a core part of my jewelry aesthetic, but still be strong enough for everyday wear. I have two options of necklaces: one on a fixed cord length with a lobster claw clasp, and the other on an adjustable cord with traditional Chinese knotting and sterling silver beads.

Once I had a product I was happy with, the last thing to do was to show it off to other people. I was lucky to be accepted to vend at the Kitsby Lunar New Year market earlier this month, which created a perfect opportunity for me to debut this pendant necklace that I worked so hard on. I was only able to make a few of these necklaces before the market, but to my surprise they all sold out! I still feel bowled away by the support that I got here, both for my horse necklaces and in general - I am so thankful that I am able to make these things for a living and that they connect with so many of you!

If you’d like to order your own fire horse necklace, I’ll have orders open on my website until the end of this month. If you’d like to customize the necklace length, feel free to contact me on either Instagram or through my email at hello@moonkatstudio.com!

Looking towards next month (is it about to be March already?!) - I have a few more designs that I want to try out, and a lot of events in the pipeline:

• Feb 28 [Philly] - Carve & Sip ring design workshop

• March 21 [NYC] - ring-making workshop with RecCreate Collective

• March 22 [Philly] - Yours Truly art market

And some personal goals for the next month:

• I want to start practicing stone-setting again!

• Work on a custom piece for my mom and dad

• Make a short form video?? I just joined Tiktok (finally) - you can find me there @moonkat.studio

Thanks as always for reading, and stay warm everyone!! I’ll see you all next month ♥️