Do I look completely exhausted? I should. This picture was taken at about 2:30 am after hours of a store reset. I was covered in dust and paint. This necklace had been on my neck all day and I really should have been smart enough to take the picture earlier.
I wasn’t.
The necklace consists of a charm that is a hollow glass drop holding watch parts. It looks like a weird old fuse, but it’s really just a new pendant. A Raleigh artist made it (his name escapes me…) and I really wanted to order more for the store but he disappeared. That happens a lot with glass bead makers, by the way. They are great, talented, fun to talk to…and then they are gone. Off to Boone, or Burning Man, or Boulder.
Anyway, this necklace originally had a pendant down one side that said ‘poseur’ but that broke. I made it for a staff craft challenge at Ornamentea and it was kind of a personal joke. The steampunk-ish pendant, the gunmetal, the vintage button and that word, ‘poseur’ all are a bow to the fact that even though I design jewelry that many think of as Steampunk (whatever that is) I’m not exactly Steampunk. I do like the modded, pre-industrial ray gun now and again but then I don’t own goggles. I guess I’m more goth, but not really. I mean, I love black nail polish and big, thick black shoes but I also own brown clothes. And flowery prints. Maybe I’m more of a hippie except I can only stand the Dead on rare days and I shower even when I’m camping. With my chickens and love of home gardening maybe I’m a country neo-hipster (I do live downtown!) but no, I never wear skinny jeans and I don’t voluntarily drink PBR.
What were we talking about? oh, yeah. Poseurs.
Way back in the day, a black-clad, Souxie-listening me would have defined that as anyone who was not totally INTO whatever they were into. Youth subculture was so rock-solid when I was 19. There was no fluidity, except when there was. A poseur was something you did NOT want to be called. Fake. Faking it. Pretending. Bought your gear at the mall, pre-ripped jeans and pre-pinned tights. Even if I did want to wear a pink flowered dress with my Doc Martens I wouldn’t have. We were years from Courtney Love and besides, I lived in Ohio. After a while I got married and moved to Austin, TX.
Suddenly, I was a married middle-school teacher living in a place where black clothes could KILL you. It was hot. Very hot.
I bought a flowered dress and some love beads and decided to bend genres. Became a post-goth, cowgirl hippie. Grew up.
NOTE: this post and then next few are being published AFTER the date I wore the necklace. I never promised you an up-to-the-minute rose garden. I said I’d wear a different necklace every day for a year. Life has intervened and I didn’t press the button to send these posts into the interwebs. Enjoy them now, all in a row. It’s like skipping the regular broadcast and catching up with Netflix.
AND one other thing, that is possibly the worst photo I have ever taken. It was not the photographer’s fault!
365necklaces 
I’m really enjoying your 365 challenge but this post in particular really spoke to me. In a world that demands we label ourselves as something, I can’t figure it out. I recycle and wear long, flowy skirts. And watch horror movies, wear black nail polish and play roller derby. But I also like ironic t-shirts, indie rock, and going to shows. The only thing I’ve figured out is labels are dumb.
Labels are dumb. I think that’s why the ‘poseur’ tag broke off the necklace. It was too dumb to live!
(and today I wore a 50’s ish shirtwaist dress with really high Japanese platforms and a fuschia belt…what’s that mean?)