Quotes: Witty sayings or sage pieces of advice once regulated to yearbooks and the front of greeting cards have now infiltrated the feed of nearly every social media network out there. Much to my annoyance, I can't seem to avoid these lines of supposed wisdom &/or encouragement, often plastered over a field of daisies or a set of washboard abs. Scrolling through, I've trained my eyes to skip over such posts in order to get to the more important stuff, like pictures of cats and crazy cool manis. But every once in a while, I stumble upon one that makes me realize that it's not the actual words of supposed wisdom I'm frustrated with, it's just the constant frequency in which I see them. In the rare moments of my pre-caffienated state one morning, I saw this:

"Stop thinking about artworks as objects

and start thinking about them as

triggers for experience."

The quote was attributed to musician Brian Eno, and I confess that I don't know much about him (or if he actually deserves credit for these words), nor do I recall which one of my Interwebz friends posted it, but the words have stuck with me because I consider all betsy & iya jewelry – and most handmade accessories for that matter – works of art.

My mind ran wild when thinking about jewelry in this context, as "triggers for experience." Something about that phrase is extremely powerful and gives a different perspective on what we do here at b&i. Not only do we bend metal, paint brass, wrap leather, sweep floors, encourage each other, compliment customers' awesome style, etc. but we are also in our own way triggers for experiences. I mean, how cool is that? In my thoughts, the Voyage collection is the perfect visual companion to this quote . Each of these pieces touches on a past experience and once purchased, goes off into the world to trigger new ones.

Shortly after it hit the shop floor, our Jalisco necklace (above) was purchased by a woman who was flying to Spain the very next day and wanted a special piece to take on her trip, the first extended time off she'd had from work in over a year. That necklace, artwork conceived by Betsy and made by a member of our production team, was a trigger for experience for that lucky lady. Her Jalisco will be around her neck while she roams streets she never knew existed and eats food unlike anything available at her neighborhood grocery store. Now that's a necklace whose Instagram I'd follow if that were at all possible. Inspiration, like so many things in life, often presents itself when you're least expecting it, perhaps even while reading something you'd normally skip over. This quote has helped me within my first few weeks whenever I'm struggling to express the awesomeness of jewelry in a fresh way. I mean, I'm always thinking "OMG THIS IS AMAZEBALLS AWESOME BETSY YOU'RE A GENIUS" in my head, but for the sake of you all, I try and keep my enthusiastic freak-out statements fresh. Considering a new necklace as a not only a gorgeous object but also as potential for experience has aided me in everything from writing captions to staging, er, taking pictures.

Always thought of your jewelry as shiny objects? Try considering them as triggers for experience and see what adventures you'll have together. And from now on, I promise to read at least 10% of the quotes I come across, because you just never know when one might be exactly what you need. xo Anna ***Song of the Moment : Are You Experienced? by The Jimi Hendrix Experience***