In May, I had the honor of sitting down with artist Billy Zeemann in a garden in Bolinas, California. Billy is a bright light in this world. When you first meet her, one cannot help but be dazzled by both her kindness and her vibrance. Billy and I immediately hit it off and felt a deep connection. The jewelry and artwork she creates is absolutely beautiful. Her jewelry pieces are not just jewelry, but talismans for the wearer to hold the energy of a thought, prayer or memory with them and on them at all times. Her work has an aura of the spiritual in that it allows us to have a tangible reminder of the beauty and magic that is always around us, no matter how much it seems to be fleeting or ever changing.
I spoke with Billy about how her upbringing and background shaped her creativity…
Shanti: I was just looking at your website and it seemed like you've been doing artwork most of your life. At what age did you start drawing, painting and making jewelry?
Billy:
Pretty young. I think I was reading at age three and a half. My mum was a librarian. But all the women in my family are creatives and do various crafts, such as knitting, weaving and textile art. I learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine early on, and then I was also drawing, painting, creating, you know just the things kids did. I also started learning the violin when I was five, as my granny was a concert violinist, and then the piano, and then the guitar self taught when I was a bit older. But I think it was mostly more craft before that. Mum always knitted and sewed clothes. Much to my chagrin when it came to our high school uniform though, which she also insisted on sewing lol. I used to sew all my own clothes, and my mum dyed wool, then spun it, knitted and wove. Same with my mum's oldest sister, and her younger sister was an incredible embroidery artist. And she did that literally in her bed for many years as she had cancer, and was bed bound quite a lot. It was a source of joy and solace for her until she died. Both my Mum and my Aunt created things right up until the end of their lives. Both of them had non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My Mum spent her last year knitting many things. She even made this gorgeous little sweater for my dog Tui, from hand spun, hand dyed wool she knitted.
Shanti: If you need something, is your first instinct to create it? For yourself or if you're going to gift someone something?
Billy: Yes for sure. There’s nothing better than a handmade gift is there? So it’s either jewelry or artwork now. Specifically watercolour paintings. I love making things for people. It's personal, and feels like you can pour your love into what you create.
Shanti: We were talking about the patience of the creative process and the process of creation. You were talking about dying wool and all the steps to creating something. When you were making clothes, did you have to create the patterns?
Billy:
Yeah, or pull something apart and use that as the pattern! I’ve done that quite a few times. Mum always had a huge stack of Burda pattern magazines, which are amazing. I still love to darn and fix things also. We live in this throw away culture which saddens me, so I love to wear things I love for as long as I can, and if a wee hole appears I find it very satisfying to fix it. With jewelry, it’s definitely a process and not everything about it is easy. Especially with custom orders, I often find myself making pieces multiple times until I am happy with it, as I want it to be perfect for my customer. With watercolor this process is similar in that, it’s making thumbnail sketches, before starting on the main and final painting. My mum used to say she was amazed at my patience in the process of creating jewelry. But I was amazed at her knitting and crocheting skills! You find the things that you love to create, then that is the gift you can offer the world right?
With my jewelry making, I make most of my originals in metal clay. And also wax. I love metal clay because it's basically like mini pottery. It's tiny clay, recycled metal particles bound up in an organic binder. You can form it, with stamps, textures and molds, then once it’s dried, you can refine it by filing and sanding it. Then it gets fired in a kiln. I especially love that you can use texture directly from nature into the clay. My mum was fascinated by the process when I was home and she brought me a kiln so I could do some work whilst there in NZ, and I got to show her directly how I took some of her handwriting and made it into a bangle. This is one of my most treasured pieces now. I’m in the process of making it into an 18k bangle now, having molded and cast the pieces from silver.
When I was trying to get my first batches of bronze to fire properly maybe 16 years ago, I was learning how to sinter bronze clay properly, and it took me nine attempts. And some of them were like eight to nine hour long firings. My mum was just like, "I don't know how you've got the patience for that." But I do. I don't give up. I just keep persevering. I don't lose patience with it because I'm just fascinated with the whole process, and eager for it to work. Its really like alchemy. The material that is around now has advanced incredibly, so it is a lot easier to work with. You can fire some things in 15 minutes or an hour. So it's amazing.
I've never been a knitter, but I kind of wished I was. I wished I'd learned from my Mum. In Mums last year, she knitted me this gorgeous poncho whilst I was home caring for due to her advancing cancer, during Covid, and she ran out of wool with 6 inches to go. By the time we got more wool sent from the UK and it arrived, Mum wasn’t able at that point to finish it as her pain and morphine intake had increased, limiting her ability to concentrate, so we mailed it to my other aunt in Taupo, and she finished it and mailed it back to us. It was very special. So because you grow up around this type of creative flow, I think it's just in me to make and do and create.
The time put into making handmade things reminds me of the love and care that goes into them. When I’m making and creating pieces, there's the inspiration obviously first, which is usually and most always love. Then there's just so much heart and soul and the energy that goes into things that makes the finished pieces so meaningful. Like with the poncho, I will be feeling that energy of all the effort and love that went into the making of that poncho forever. It is so beautiful and it is so special to wear it.
Jewelry is the same. These (Billy points to the necklaces she is wearing), I never take these off. Originally I made this design (she pulls one out to show me. It has a lotus and words engraved around the lotus). I sent one to Christine Blasey Ford. At the time she was testifying against Brett Kavanaugh when he was getting nominated for the Supreme Court. I just was in awe of her bravery. On the back of the piece of jewelry, the lines represent all the women and all the men that support women that have gone through these types of traumas. It represents the community that you have around you that holds you up through the hard times. The lotus on the pendant is a symbol of hope and light in darkness. My one has ‘I love you mum’ written in the back, and I’d made it for Mum and she wore it until she passed, now I wear it. This other one (she pulls out a different pendant to show me) is my dog Tui's paw print. I never take that off. The other piece, (I like to layer things), is a rose gold dove with a diamond, strung on the antique rose gold chain my Mum had since we lived in Melbourne when I was a child.
How did you experience Covid times:
When I returned to California from New Zealand after mum died, things were so different. And I was so raw and devastated from loosing Mum, having gone from looking after her 24/7 surrounded with the constant love and support of hospice nurses, doctors, friends etc, and I simply needed time to heal when I got back. It was wonderful to see all my loved ones here in California, dear friends I’d missed very much, but it was equally jarring sensing so many wounded folks, affected by the divisive times of covid and the fire season, and I simply wasn’t in a place to handle it emotionally or mentally. My nervous system was spent. So I shut my gallery, and went to Maui, entertaining the possibility of opening a store there. A dear friend Elaine, an old boss of mine was there at the time, and she was a big reason I went. She had lived there for many years some time back and visited regularly still. She had run a boutique store in Lahaina and so I went to see what it might look like to relocate. Elaine is a wonderful woman, who I adore. She’s like a surrogate mum, mentor, friend and an amazing mercantile. She’s in her 80’s and still zips over to the Alameda antique markets, and has a keen eye for beauty. I decided however, once there, as beautiful and welcoming Maui was, it just didn’t feel quite right to stay. I actually spent nearly a year there, living in this wonderful spot in Haiku surrounded by beauty, birds, tropical plants, flowers, fruit etc, and this was so incredibly healing and inspiring, I kind of painted my way through my grief, and fell completely in love with watercolour painting again. This time more seriously though, and I like to think Mum orchestrated this creative healing time for me. All the love, all the memories intertwined in this experience.
Shanti:
Your pieces are like talismans.
Billy:
Yes. 100%. They are pieces that remind one of a moment, a memory, an anniversary or a person, simply put a reminder of connection we have to those we love. It’s all about love ultimately.
Shanti:
I was going to ask if you prefer doing things that are custom for people or things that you create and that then resonate with people, but I'm sure it's probably both.
Billy:
It definitely is both and that’s an interesting question because I've been really thinking about that lately. Just this morning, I was thinking about that. After you lose someone that is so important to you like my mum, it has taken me some time to get back into my flow with my jewelry making. In everything I do I have to be authentic, and I want to infuse things with joy and love, and I simply couldn’t for some time as I was still processing my grief, and unraveling myself back into my own life. I am in a sense a different person now, the experience of caring for my mum and watching her pass as the sun came up, has profoundly changed me. I am more aware now of the reality of impermanence, and it has made me value even more what I do and those I love. I used to love being in the gallery store so much, chatting to people. I hope to open another place in the not too distant future as I really miss my old customers and friends. I’m an introvert, but I also love to chat and see my lovely customers regularly. I just love the conversations that you have with people, just unraveling life together and finding out what makes them tick, and what brings them joy.
Some people don't even know that I closed my gallery. I just kind of went poof. Escaping for a while. So I feel like I'm just sort of re-emerging again. I'm sort of on the verge of something new and exciting. There's kind of a new line of pieces that I've been percolating on for quite some time all about love and light and peace. Because the world is a difficult place for a lot of people right now, and if I can create some pieces that bring people some beauty and light, then that makes me feel really good.
Shanti:
The piece you created about being the light…
Billy:
“I am light”
Shanti:
It’s powerful because it's something that is important for people to sit in and really just to feel their own divinity and connection to source, but then also to recognize it in each other. It's really sweet. It's something you give yourself or someone would give you. Just so beautiful.
Billy:
Definitely it can be both. I've heard people buy some of those talisman type pieces for themselves as reminders, and also as gifts that are given to someone really special in their lives. The I am light piece, I am currently making into a new design , it’s very exciting….and will be coming out soon. We are living in crazy times right now, and we all need to shine our lights, in whatever way, shape or form that manifests. The world needs it.
When creating things, I usually make things quite a few times until I'm happy with them. There is a Celtic saying, “anam cara”, which means soul friend. I’m working on that piece also, refining it so it will be ready to mold and cast. I made it for my best friend back in New Zealand. It's a friendship that spans the decades and she's been there for me through thick and thin. We would be lost without our dear friends. When I’m here, I miss my besties in NZ, and when I’m there I miss my friends here. There’s a lot of love there in both countries.
When you're creative, you live in a kind of altered reality, everything I see in the world I tend to process creatively. For example, I just lost my beloved dog Tui, my best friend and companion for nearly 16 years. It was time, as she also had cancer, and kept it at bay for nearly two years, but I had to let her go some weeks ago. I was and am so heartbroken by her absence. I’m in the middle of writing her a song. Trying to capture her sweet nature in melody. Then I can sing it as the years go by when I miss her. And so, I never get bored. Right now I'm obsessed with watercolor and using different colors. I notice colour everywhere, now evermore than usual. I notice the sky colour, is it colbalt, or turquoise, or ultramarine? Watercolor is so magical the way it blends together on the paper. Even if you think you know how it's going to dry on the paper, it never does exactly what you think. You have a certain level of control over it then it dries in the most magical and unexpected way. It always does its own thing. I love that.
Working in the metal clay is very much more detailed and precise. Yet also like alchemy. It is magical. I feel like the magic right now with painting has captured me, all I want to paint is the beauty I see around me, because there's so much here in West Marin. The nature, the birds, landscapes. Birds are like amazing flying dinosaurs. It’s true that notion, that at a certain age you start to notice and perhaps even become a little obsessed with birds lol! I certainly have. The hummingbird is my favorite bird here in California and the pelican. I love to lay in the sand at the end of Seadrift in Stinson beach and watch them fly over me. I did that for years whilst my dog Tui dug holes. Both in our element. The hummingbird for me, has so much symbolism, and they always seem to appear and buzz you right at the most interesting moments. They are amazing. I love them.
Shanti:
I saw that you traveled to India. Does that inform your work?
Billy:
I feel like my time in India in ’96 was really a time of adventuring. And of complete freedom. I spent 6 months there, and could have stayed longer but our visas ran out. We did all kinds of travel, and camping and yoga. It was more for me just about immersing myself in the experience and the culture, chatting to locals as much as possible, finding out about their lives and dreams. We did a lot of yoga and various classes along the way. We camped under the stars in many places. I'm just so curious by nature and I just love talking to people, and I'd often find myself at some funky little place with the locals, away from the touristy spots, which I prefer.
Shanti:
You travel to really experience. I always get lost intentionally to find what's off the beaten path.
Billy:
Yeah all that…that’s the way to experience the authentic life of people. That’s why the tours are so strange, because on the tours you're just sort of seeing a surface level glimpse.
Shanti:
What role do you feel mindfulness and spirituality play in your work and the creation of your work?
Billy:
I think it's channeling. It's literally heart centered creation. Tapping into a mysterious source. The pieces I am designing right now are going to be about love and light. Which is so needed in the world.
Shanti:
It’s so important for people to have these reminders and the energy that each piece holds is just really beautiful. So thank you for doing what you do.
One of Billy’s “I am light” pendants is worn by Hillary Clinton. Hillary has a cluster of pendants made by Billy, all with different symbolism and words. It was a gift from a dear friend. Billy also just custom made a pendant for a charity event to raise money for the organization Free Wild Horses. She loves supporting charities near and dear to her heart, especially anything for animals. Billy does not like to promote herself or her work, but more people should know about this amazing artisan, creative soul and humanitarian. Her jewelry pieces and paintings spark joy in those who wear them and see them. The bright light of spirit and love that resonates from her infuses itself into all of her artwork and reverberates out into the world, piece by piece, contributing to the collective healing of the world.
To find Billy Zeeman’s art and jewelry, visit her website www.billyzeemann.com To find out more about the American Wild Horse Conservation, visit their IG page at https://www.instagram.com/freewildhorses?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
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