41 weeks, which is, coincidentally, the number of gestation weeks as counted by French medical practitioners.
I know.
FASCINATING.
So today, I have for you a relic of my old life:


The Known Universe
Copper plate
This little monstrosity is what made me decide to study Jewellery & Metalsmithing in art school instead of Fibre Arts.
Now what you need is context. I took the Metals Foundation class on a lark.
Coincidentally, I had a SUPER HOT teacher. Seriously. For an 18 year old girl, Jeff de Boer? With his 'L'Oreal Prince Charming "I'm Worth It"' feathered hair thing?
OMG. SWOON!
Yeah. Always a good reason to pick a career path.
Stop JUDGING ME!
So, ANWAY! We were doing a crit (in case you don't know, a crit (short for critique) is where everyone in the class focuses on one piece of artwork and then TEARS IT ALL TO SHIT... or not, but dudes, it has GOT to be stellar for that to happen...) when Jeff picked up my Universe piece, threw it on the table and said it was shit.
But he said it nicely.
He said that it was shit NOW, but that it had potential to be something really interesting.
And something in my nubile young body fell for this and said, hell yeah, I'd love to wrestle metal into weird lumpy shapes for the next four years and then never touch a hammer or solder another piece of metal for the rest of my life.
Unless you count those plumbing incidents.... Knowing how to solder has been useful in France.
But I digress.
While this may be starting to sound like I hate Mr. de Boer for leading me down a path I couldn't follow through on, it is not. I admire the fellow greatly. Seriously.
It was because of him that I never once churned out something valuable and jewellery oriented (considering my major, this was quite the feat). It was because of this initial experience that I couldn't settle down in my first job as a jeweller's apprentice (ok, it was work experience) because setting gems bored the everlivingcrap out of me.
The man who made samarai costumes for cats and dogs inspired me to make corsets and hats during my school years, rather than brooches and earrings. He inspired me to try and figure out how to bring metal and fibre arts together. No. My attempts weren't always successful, but I still kept trying.
I still keep trying. No longer in metal OR fibre arts, but I still keep trucking.
Slowly.
That's not too bad a legacy, I think.