(Note: this particular project is still in “alpha” stage. In other words, it’s not quite ready for prime time just yet. Enjoy my rough draft for now to see what I am hoping to do.)
Want to see more?
Check out the awesome photos on my Flickr page!
I am designing little certificates to go with this brooch, just like for the old Jumpgate Pins.
You have a choice of purple and green, or green and purple.
Or both. Seriously. 
These are Rarity Series wearable artworks, limited to 20 brooches at $35 each.
If you want a matching pair, (purple/green AND green/purple) it’s a discount at 60 bucks for the pair.
Stay tuned for news on how to reserve yours.
Let’s give credit where credit is due… B5 fan BRIAN SMITH gets my thanks for inspiring this brooch in the first place. I asked him “give me a theme for a brooch I can make.” He replied: “How about a brain?” Smart guy!
Background info:
Back in the ’90′s I had access to some excellent, specialized metalworking equipment. So I used that access to make awesome so-called “Jumpgate Pins” (actually brooches). These wearable artworks were for fans of a particular hit science fiction TV show then (which I shall simply call “B5″ here as a polite salute to their lawyers). The <*> symbol is a creative “secret handshake” for that longtime B5 fan crowd.
In those days, I got to work in various metals, from stainless steel to mainly brushed and polished brass. High quality stuff. One of those works ended up orbiting the Earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery in the year 2000.
Those Pins were a pretty good hit. I’ve finally out of nearly out all the Jumpgate Pins by now. Only a handful are currently left as those Pins fade slowly into history.
That meant that my first creative challenge of Dreamcircle would be to find a way to make new brooches out of a completely different material, since I no longer have access to those special metalworking tools from back in the old days.
I’m proud to say that I have found my new medium.
See this book? I have a copy of it. Believe it or not, that artwork you see on the front is made out of CLAY. Not just ANY clay, but an amazing, advanced, very artistic medium called “Polymer Clay.” It comes in dozens of colors and types, from liquid to nearly solid, from earth shades to sparkling metallics, from opaque to translucent and more.
This special, artistic clay is NOT kids’ stuff. With enough talent, you can make beautiful artworks out of this special material which would be worthy of a New York upscale art gallery. You sculpt it, you mold it, then you bake it at 275 degrees for around 20 minutes to harden it. From there, the creative possibilities are limited only to your own imagination.
I started with the polymer clay late last July. It’s December now as I write this. I guess I should be proud to know that I progressed from being confused and squishing a white ball of clay around to making honestly beautiful, pro-looking, limited-to-20 Rarity brooches in about 6 months. NO PAINT is involved in the making of my new wearable artworks.
(The long name for these brooches goes like this:
“If You Love Purple and Green, You Must Have B5 On The Brain.”)
(Learning that fast has gotta be something, considering I often deal with a whole lot of chemo-induced fatigue. Before the cancer, I think I could have accomplished that in about 2 months. Oh well.)
Anyway, the sparkling, colorful science-fiction-in-joke brooches seen both in this pic and on that “Beyond The Jumpgate” page have a purpose beyond being something nice to offer. My goal was to have a transition project to help me make the journey – creatively speaking – from JumpgatePins.com to Dreamcircle. I’m glad to now say this has been accomplished.