Interview with Sharyn Wolf for Links

Sharyn Wolf, author, singer, jewelry designer, social worker, and beautiful person!

Sharyn's latest book, This Old Spouse, a witty yet REAL way to revitalize your relationship, using sensible "DIY" tips, in a fun fashion! Wonderful and useful! Worthwhile reading for everyone

Sharyn's jewelry on a shoot with Self magazine in August in Tahiti. Some of the jewelry which she made used in this shoot incorporated African amber (Copal), Ethiopian beads, and African date wood.

I want to be a piece of jewelry and go to Tahiti!

Sharyn said to me, "These [two photos above] are my lucky Vogue shots on the model Gemma Ward. They were shot by Grace Coddington, creative director of Vogue for almost 30 years. I got lucky." I think Sharyn is extremely modest. What great energy her jewelry has and the photographs capture it perfectly!

Sharyn has a cat named Lily and this is such a sweet picture. Sharyn loves all animals and has adorable dogs as well!

Here are a few of Sharyn's many beautiful jewelry creations:

I love this for the brilliant design and colors.
Sharyn explains: "These are my vintage Japanese beads I found. Every one thought they were so bizarre till I put them together. The pink ones are paper. There is a bit of old coral and other vintage things I found, just thrown in whereever."

This is a fabulous use of air and space and choice of beads and ostrich egg heishi. An incredibly dramatic necklace using many of the beads from her collection of vintage beads which she has found over the years. Sharyn is an explorer, both inner and outer.

I love this one for the powerful impact yet its subtlety. A very natural and unforced design. Not easy to do.

Sharyn says: "These are two of the mixed lariats I make. The bottom things are
pre WW II Chinese military medals and white turquoise Buddhas. The beads are mudbone from a small village in Kenya."

Thank you for the use of these images, Sharyn!

all images copyright © Sharyn Wolf

What can you say to introduce Sharyn Wolf ? It is impossible to simply list off a person's accomplishments, sometimes, and expect that to be sufficient. I am so glad Sharyn was willing to be so open about her life with this interview, because in the end that says it all.
She is a frank, lovely, curious, and charming person who delights in life. Sharyn doesn't rest on her laurels either, although that stack is getting larger by the year. She just keeps investigating what life has to offer, and deriving the utmost enjoyment and educational experiences from the world around her.
I would like to take a page form her "life book" and remember to appreciate everything as fully as Sharyn does!

Interview with Sharyn Wolf for Links

Tell a little about yourself and your background.

Grew up in Springfield MA, just down the street from the zoo. I went to bed every night listening to the lion’s roar. That is the truth. Roaring shaped my life and made me who I am. I came to NYC in l987 as a singer and worked here doing that. Hunter School
of Social Work was up the street and I got in and went there. I have always done too many different things, to my benefit (life feels full) and my detriment (I’m scattered at times).

What happened to you that made you consciously decide to become the person you are?

I am a social worker, so I have seen and heard a great deal of sorrow, joy, change, inability to change, miracles. I have been a witness to fast living and slow dying---babies being born---one day a patient came in and said, “I think our session might be short. I’m going into labor.” Then she said, I AM in labor.” We got in a cab together and went to the hospital. Three weeks later she came back to therapy with the baby. This work is one great influence in my life—that chance to have such long term intimate relationships with others and be part of their lives, loves, losses, triumphs.
Animals are another. I used to travel to see them. That was how I chose a place to visit—biking in Alaska, visiting bird sanctuaries, having a dolphin come up to me when I was alone—the only one in the water. I have two dogs and a cat. When I got these dogs 12 years ago—I don’t have children—I became a different person—a less self absorbed person—a less bossy person—a person who knows how little I know.
Animals heal (or are meant to heal) internal chaos. They are hungry. They want to play. They want to be near you. They want to sleep. Many many years ago I was very anxious and sad about something and I sought out a therapist who told me that she practiced a Japanese therapy where you get up, brush your teeth, make tea. I thought she was a lunatic, but when I got my animals, I got it. There is a core day to day self that gets buried under ambitions, drives, hormonal Armageddon, jealousy, desire, pettiness. Sometimes, in a certain moment and/or light, you can cut through all that and walk your dog. Animals touch me—their unabashed mischief, humor, quirkiness, soul, weeping---I just love the wagging and purring and stomping of them. They reach the unreachable in me.

How did your creativity, which you have chosen to fashion into a career, first express itself?

Funny. At 24 after graduating college and getting a divorce (-: , I moved back home with my mother and step father. I had no job. They’d just gotten married, and, I think, sweetly, he wanted me to vamoose. He thought I had a nice voice and got me an audition as a singing waitress. I ended up becoming a singer and did that for my full time profession for 17 years. I came a long way from being a singing waitress serving prime rib and singing show tunes—that goodness. In the end I was lead singer for a 16 piece big band!
And, seriously, I think my early rock and shell collection had a place in this. How would you wear this stuff so people can see it, I used to think.

At what moment did you know that you would never turn back?

I think I would cite a “Quintet” moment on the bandstand where the pianist, drummer, sax, bass and I were completely in sync.
You get such moments once in a blue moon but it was as if we had become one force with five ways of expressing that force. We were feeding each other. I mean that phrase seriously. We were literally feeding each other good good food. The music took an exponential leap to a new level called jazz. I sang for 17 years but I only got several moments of that fluid grace. Same is true in my writing. Fleeting moments.
I sang for years, and then, I took up poetry. I published a bunch of poems. I was a broke singer writing poems and a friend suggested I write something I could make money from. I wrote my first book on dating, “50 Ways to Find a Lover”. I made $36 in royalties. Then, I was called for an interview in what turned out to be the National Enquirer. The day it came out I got a call to be on Oprah. On the first visit, she loved the color of my suit and I did a good job. I got invited back a month later. And, so it goes or so it went.

What are you most proud of?

I took a solo bike ride from Astoria, Oregon to Crescent City, Ca with my tent and sleeping bag on my bike. Just me. All alone for 325 or so miles. That was an amazing meditation. I have found it interesting when I think about it-- that the moment I felt most proud was a totally solo moment. I have wondered what that means. I am also proud of my abiliity to care for others and my animals. I take care of a person on two on my block. I watch over a homeless man or two. Funny, I don’t have proud feelings about my books, and though I love my jewelry, really love it, it doesn’t give me that kind of proud feeling. I’m glad I did that, but it’s different. I am proud of working at the Family Assistance Center after 9/11, and those people and that experience led me to making jewelry. That overwhelming experience made me want to make things with my hands—a visceral need to work that way, rather than with my head only.

What makes you feel fortunate?

For me, the major sustaining factor is having something to look forward to---as long as I can find something to look forward to, I feel fortunate. It can be a challenge, dear, a real real challenge at times. And, for the momentary, transitional day to day contacts with others—hellos on the street, a great great sentence someone speaks or that I read, a pat on the head of a dog—just being able to be present makes me feel fortunate. And, when my dog poops outside instead of inside. That, too. Also, I feel fortunate you asked me to do this---very very fortunate for such a chance to talk about what I do. Words make me feel fortunate--Hearing, reading great skill with words and great wit. I live for that. What do you see happening for yourself in the future? For example: things which will change for you, things you hope for, things which will stay the same-just thoughts-go anywhere you like. I want to leave New York City after 20 years of living here and be in a green place. My deepest dream is a mountain, a pond and a duck---and lots of lots of animals, inside and out. I want to live with a deeper connection to the land. I want to keep making things and see what develops. My work now is vastly different than my old work. My head buzzes with ideas I can’t keep up with. When I have that life on the mountain, I want someone to come and pick up the dead mice and dead big bugs. I am a city girl with a country heart who knows my limitations.

Do you think you see the world differently than other people? If so, is that a positive or a negative force in your work?

I think most people who know me would say I see the world differently and I think I do, too, for the bad and good of it. Not being motivated by money and living in New York City is just plain stupid, Jean. In my books, I am able to condense the psychobabble—to reduce the complicated way of thinking about relationships into ideas that are not pejorative, but, rather funny. I think the way I think and talk about relationships is helpful to people. I know the couples I see feel helped. I have a knack for being able to be very direct and directive—while the couples feel I am on their side and not picking on them or being blameful or mean. I see art and jazz in every corner—the turn of a cabinet, the wonder of a marble, the hint of a collar bone, the color of thunder—all that stuff seems to amuse and inspire me. The two cardinals who live on my block. I can watch them for hours. What voices!!!! My house is filled with dinosaur bones, as I said, 50,000 year old mammoth ivory (Old walrus teeth and polar bear teeth and oosik (walrus penis) African mud cloth, old arrow heads, good paintings, African masks and shovels, special books, time. I am most excited about my Stone Age spoon. I make my patients look at these things. My dogs come to every session. I’m a workaholic. I love to work for hours. Also, I have an overdeveloped bullshit detector. I cannot tolerate falseness. It is like scabies for me. I am perhaps eccentric to some, and it is great that I have grown old enough to be eccentric rather than and odd creature.

Do you have something to say here in this article to sum up something important you would like people to know about the creative process?

I can only say that I believe it’s creative when you are working in a state of flow. You have thought, agonized, done and redone and then suddenly, it is like what I said about the bandstand---something else takes over—the whole body is participating in an event, the event of creating. I would say that I hope everyone can find the way to let go of the self enough to have that feeling—flow---where you are not thinking about who will like it, who will wear it, who will buy it—but you are listening to the piece. The piece is telling you who she is and how she wants her life to turn out. That is what I wish most for people—a sense of authentic, fluid creations—whether it’s a necklace or a breakfast or sentence. Actually, what I think that is—is joy. I could have just said I wish for all artists their moments of joy and that many moments of joy are art, if you think about it.
Contact Information for Sharyn:
website: http://www.sharynwolf.com/
email: jewelry@sharynwolf.com

Thank you so much, Sharyn!!! for this wonderful interview, which I loved completely! It is a real privilege to have you as a part of my Links interview collection!--jean

Note: This interview is a part of my Links series of interviews, which are available on my Amazon blog as well, see here:http://www.amazon.com/Links-Inspired-Bead-Jewelry-Creations/dp/1600610161/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198879933&sr=8-1

Thank you! jean