lo and behold

One of the many times I was trying to explain to someone what this blog is about, I launched into a story that went like this:

I remember when I turned 40; I had just stopped nursing my younger child.  I knew that my baby-making years were behind me, and I felt a wonderful freedom thinking of the new decade as one in which I got my body back.  Then, when I turned 45, my younger one had just finished kindergarten.  I had two children securely ensconced in school, more sure and capable every day – I felt it was the beginning of the era in which I got my brain back. 

As I told this story, I realized that I am a person who seeks out markers.  I need milestones and I rarely let one pass without imbuing it with meaning.  Not that this surprised me much, the evidence has been there for, what, 45+ years.  With my birthday in June, the New Year in January, and the Jewish New Year in September/October, I have three nicely spaced markers each year to pause, reflect and make up new traditions. 

What can I say?  This is how I think.  No one ever accused me of being a casual person. 

So, it’s June and if I had my way, I’d celebrate my birthday every day for the whole month.  Or maybe it’s that I want my birthday celebrated for me, with gifts and attention showered from many directions, day after day.  But that is another story. 

This year, I am going to buy myself a present.  Something handmade.  A piece of jewelry.  Funny thing about the artistic journey I’ve been on to become a maker of jewelry is that I actually am not much of a jewelry wearer.  However, I do own a few pieces of jewelry that I really love, none of them very fancy or expensive, and I never tire of wearing those pieces.  And in my online travels over the last couple of years, I have discovered quite a few makers whose work I very much admire, but I haven’t really bought anything.  It’s not that I have such great will power, but more that I’m just not that much of a shopper.  But lately, I’ve been thinking that I need to start supporting other artists more often and building my own collection of handmade stuff.

But what to pick?  Great choices . . . . 

I don’t like gardening, but I do like gardens.  I live in a neighborhood filled with big pines and mossy yards and few lawns – a challenging gardening environment for even the most dedicated.  Vegetables are pretty much out, but some of my neighbors have succeeded in cultivating beautiful beds of shade plants that flower and bring color and thrive in our little bit of wilderness. 

We have lived in our house for 11 years (actually, it’s exactly 11 years this month!), and every few years I’ve made a half-hearted attempt at growing something pretty in a little patch of dirt by our front door.  I put in bulbs which flowered for a while, and now they come up measly green stalks but no daffodils.  I put in a bleeding heart plant and it comes up every year, gets four little pink hearts on it, and goes away.  It never gets any bigger, and it’s really pretty sad looking.

Last year, I decided to give it one more wholehearted try, a decision I’m sure is related to (midlife alert!) the fact that my 10- and 7-year-old children no longer need the daily watering they once did. And, in fact, they even helped.  I got compost from my friend’s house and bought some, too.  I dug up all the dirt and laced the richer soil throughout.  I dug up some plants from the same generous friend and tried to really fill in the space.  I bought a few established plants whose color appealed to me. I  never really understood why a garden needed mulch or what it did, but I bought a few bags and threw it around. By the time I was done, at least it looked intentional.  It had potential. 

This year, I am delighted to say that most of what I put in last year has come back fuller, greener, and healthier looking.  The yellow irises (?) above have been in the ground for something like four years and flowered maybe once, maybe not at all.  The deep red astilbe that match the shutters on the house has started to bloom. I’m most very excited about the pink blooms on the wild geranium that I LOVE in the yards of others.  I bought something new called gentian.   

 We (the kids helped, at least for a while!) put down more compost, mulched again, and planted some of my favorite petunias.  Last year, my daughters went to an amazing arts and crafts camp and made word bricks as one of the projects. Now there is poetry in my garden, too. 

I’ve always said that I like making things more than growing things, and that children were the only thing I could keep alive (haven’t had even a houseplant since the first was born and the pet guinea pigs came only on the condition that they were Daddy’s project.)  But watch this space – I’m growing, and so is the garden! 

I had a HUGE, I mean H.U.G.E day of discovery. Huge. And it came so unexpectedly.  My brain just about exploded this morning. 

I can’t even remember what I was looking at first. I made my hotel reservation for The Gathering, so maybe it was from there.  I made my hotel reservation for the  Kristina Logan class at Carlisle, so maybe it there. Maybe I was momentarily abducted by aliens. . . .I don’t know, but one way or another, I landed on a website called Mostly Glass Gallery.  And what I found there rocked my little artist-y world:  four seed bead jewelry makers, three of whom do bead crochet, on display at this very moment at SOFA in New York City, which opens tonight. 

First of all, I had never heard of SOFA, and I soon learned that the International Expositions of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art: SOFA CHICAGO and SOFA NEW YORK  are the “The World’s Foremost Fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts & Design”  Their website describes them this way: 

At SOFA expositions, prominent international galleries and dealers present masterworks bridging the worlds of design, decorative and fine arts, showcasing the rich visual heritage of the decorative arts alongside new, innovative expressions.

So maybe I am just a babe in the woods, the last person on the block to know about the party, but I have never seen bead crochet jewelry recognized and included at such a high level.  The fourth seed bead artist used mostly freeform peyote to create stunning works of jewelry.  Undoubtedly, they are exceptional.  I have seen amazing stitched and woven seed bead sculptures, wall hangings, and fine art pieces, but it struck me as pretty unusual to find seed bead jewelry in the company of an international collection of sculpture objects and functional art.  At least I have never seen any in my limited travels. If I am naive, please point me the way to more.

But let me just get to the main point – introducing these artists to you.

Hildegund Ilkerl and Gabriele Malek:  These gals are from Austria.  Their personal website is mostly in German and I haven’t taken the time yet to read it in translation, but I did look at the pictures :)!  I think one of them is a lampworker.  Their work features bead crochet all over the place.  Some of it blows me away because it doesn’t seem that different from what I do or what I could do, and some of it blows me away because it’s what I can do but on steroids to the hundredth degree. I am using these photos without their permission, and I hope it will be OK; both the work and the images belong to them.  It looks like they often use size 15 seed beads, and I don’t have any idea how they do the flat pieces.  The third photo is a necklace. Click on the links above. Go. Treat yourself.  But come back.  There’s more to see. 

Karen Flowers:  I can’t even find a personal website for this woman. Mostly Glass Gallery says that six of her pieces are on display at SOFA – right now.  Tonight.  Do those squared have wire in them?  I want to hold that piece in my hand. 

And lastly, Mary Darwall. These beadwoven pieces were exquisite, but even more important for me, when I looked at her personal website, it looked like she and I are not so different:  she has no formal artist training, she was once a teacher, she wove her life around to art, and she loves the tiniest little beads and the process of working one bead at a time. She has an amazing eye for color. I am not trying to say that I am anywhere near as skilled or talented, but she feels to me like a model of what can be done.  Dare I say: what I might become. And look at her list of galleries.  Look at her list of shows.  The prices are high and it looks to me like she sells. I always wonder how the people behind this kind of art have the time to build an inventory, but somehow she has. One day, I will have to learn more about how she has done it.  

OK.  My day of discovery: I haven’t even started to say what I learned at my torch today. Part 2 coming in the next day or so.

I love all the creative energy in the world these days about making old things into new things. I save old things all the time, because one day, I’m sure I’m going to make something wonderful from them.  So far, my record is one creative project from an old thing – wait, I’m wrong, last year we made coasters from leftover bathroom tiles. But no pix to prove it.  Still, not a great record. 

And when I see the great stuff that other people make, I always think:  Wish I had thought of that.  Here’s one from this book, 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer. 

A totally cool wall hanger picture frame thing from old floppy disks.  I have at least one box of such floppies because, well, you know, one day I’m going to make them into something.  Now I know what.  I didn’t think of it, but a great idea.  You can download a free PDF of the instructions for this project and enter to win a copy of the book here.

there’s a bead shop! 

Would you believe there’s a pretty darned nice one less than a mile from my mom’s place in Florida?  There’s not even a bead store a mile from my house at home! 

So, I went to “just look,” and it turns out I remembered that I was desperately lacking seed beads in blue and purple tones.  And a few others that just couldn’t go home without me – or me without them. Plus I picked up a few tubes of basic black.  Can never have too many of those.  I love these large tubes and I usually can only get them on line.  A lovely souvenir, I’d say!

 Dolphins or seed beads?  Seed beads or dolphins?  Hard to say which was the highlight!  

I also really like to stop at the Beadin’ Path when I’m in Maine, and I sniffed out a couple nice shops when we were in Montreal a few summers ago.

What’s your favorite bead shop on the road?

First, an appetizer: 

I’m giving away two surprises.  Here’s how you enter the drawing:

1.  Sign up for my RSS feed so we can stay connected after the party ends.

2.  Leave me a comment and include the message:  “I RSS’d you.” 

3.  I will collect names from the comments and randomly choose two on Monday, February 15, sometime after 12 noon EST.  I will contact the winners and announce it on the blog Monday afternoon or evening.

4.  Want a second entry?  Blog about my giveaway, leave me a comment with the link to your post, and I’ll put your name into the pot again!

Main Course

My ingredients came from Mary Harding. The ceramic focal, the ceramic rounds (left, top) and the clasp were handmade by Mary. 

Then, I made some components:

And here’s what happened: 

Unfortunately, these photos don’t show the wonderful shadings of blue, pink, and purple in all the different parts of this single strand rope-like necklace, but hopefully, enough of the magic will still come through. 

You can see that I transformed Mary’s focal pendant into a link by gluing a small loop of wire onto the bottom.  Maybe Mary will take the idea for a new product!

The large, glass tube bead is one that I made.  It’s got a white core with blue, lavender and clear swirls. 

The chain component between the heart and the tube is something new I made up, and I’m really excited about it.  It’s made from  6mm glass discs that I bought to use as end caps for my bead crochet ropes when I want to use them as links rather than join the ends as in a bracelet.  For this piece, I just strung them together on Fireline with two jump rings on either end.  I used two colors – a lavender and a transparent gray, random.  Its quick to put together and since the discs are the same diameter as my standard bead crochet, it makes a nice compliment.  And, I sent those same lavender discs to Mary, so I wonder what she did with them?!

On the right side of the rope, I used a handmade glass lentil from my stash that I bought from Whirled Peas and the round links are Mary’s beads.  I changed up part of the clasp so instead of Mary’s copper metal part, I used a small piece of coordinating bead crochet. 

I’ve been so focused, and nervous and excited about my piece, I haven’t even had time to imagine what Mary did with beads I sent to her.  Gotta go find out!

Thanks so much to Lori Anderson for organizing this fun blog event.  I’m so I took the leap and joined in!  And thanks to Mary Harding for the gorgeous beads she gifted me.  I will treasure them always - and, in fact, I have some left, so there will be more coming soon  I really want to dream something special for those coral colored rounds . . .

When I indulge, it’s usually chocolate or sleeping (remember that recent post about health), but today I stumbled onto Indulge, a jewelry marketplace at the Bellevue Museum of Arts in the Seattle area.  Now there’s an exciting idea:  indulge myself by buying jewelry! 

Indulge is a weekend show this coming February 5, 6, and 7, featuring 30 jewelers from around the country.  Check out this link for easy access to photographs from each participating artist.  I recognized Lulu Smith, Rona Sarvas Weltman, and Susan Chin.   And here are some folks who are new to me and who I would like to see more of:

This ring by Anat Basanta really caught my eye.

And then I discovered that she has a line of neverending necklaces.   The no-clasp-slip-over-the-head design is also something I do with my bead crochet necklaces.  I love that it allows the wearer to choose and change what part of the design is centered.

This work by Alison Mackey below looked similar to what Lulu Smith does with resin.  Turns out, the color comes from photographs of nature taken by the artist and then incorporated into the jewelry – very cool.  I really like the organic and whimsical sterling silver shapes.

Now, here’s the really interesting thing (to me, at least).  I did not see any jewelry made from glass, or more exactly from handmade glass beads.  Nothing like what I want to do.  I saw one person who did use some clear Pyrex components.   Chihiro Makio, whose work is pictured below, studied glass, but most of her work is metallic with some crystals, and as shown here, what she describes as glass beads that are hand sewn onto the pieces.

So, what I figure is that what I am trying to do is either really original, really old and overdone, or really impossible to do profitably.  I’ll just have to keep going and find out which it is. 

My extended family celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah, and I sent out their gifts just last week.  The packages have all arrived and now I can show the goodies that were in them. 

Some long time ago, I decided we would recognize the holidays with what has come be called a "family gift."  The nieces and nephews all live far away from us, so I don’t ever have a good idea of what stuff they already have and what stuff they really want.  What I do know is that they have a lot stuff, and I just couldn’t bear were the thought of heading out the mall, fighting the crowds, and racking my brain for some original piece of plastic to send to them.  What I decided was to make a gift giving a family event:  our family would make something together that their family could enjoy together. 

For example, the first year, we baked some of our favorite coconut bars and sent them along with all the ingredients and a recipe card so the recipient family could make another batch when they wanted to.  My kids were pretty young then, maybe ages 5 and 2.  I remember that I typed out the recipe cards and Isabel individually decorated each one.  We spent a good half a day assembling all the packages, wrapping things in ribbons and making it all look pretty.  I think I also bought some baskets at the Dollar Store  to hold it all which then became part of the gift. 

One year we made a snowman kit, and Isabel wrote a poem to explain what it was.  One year, we painted mugs I also bought at the Dollar store and sent them with bags of cocoa, marshmallows, and peppermint sticks.  The year after our big house renovation, we made mod-podge collages on leftover 5×5 tiles and sent them as coasters and/or wall hangings.  I’m not really sure that the cousins wouldn’t prefer getting something plastic, but I decided when we started this tradition that it was as much (or maybe even more) about the giving for us and what my children would learn from it.  and And I do know that my kids really enjoy it. During the year, they’ll see some project on TV or in an American Girl Magazine and they’ll say, "That would be a good family gift." 

So this year, we set out to make cards.  Both Isabel and Rachel really like collage art and have made beautiful cards from time to time, so we thought a set of stationary that could be used by any member of the recipient family would be good. Another good thing about this project is I thought we could use up stickers and buttons and sequins and any number of other scraps we have hanging around in our art closet.  I bought the blank cards and matching envelopes at Michaels.

And then I complicated things by seeing a very tempting project in my Internet craft travels that I really wanted to do:  glass refrigerator magnets.  I found some good instructions here, but ignore her links – they aren’t working. When the kids got tired of cards, we made the magnets and then sent some of each in each package.  I had all these Altoid tins that I got from Freecycle and I knew I’d eventually find a good use for them. 

These magnets are really addicting and we’ve made some more since.  It took a little experimenting to figure out what kinds of images and patterns work best.  Valentines gifts?  I am so doing these for teacher gifts at the end of the year!. 

I’ve been reading this book as if it were a novel.  Really.  It’s that good. 

When I took my last class at Snow Farm, I was obsessed with making round, spherical beads, and my teacher, Nancy Tobey, said that Heather Trimlett showed her a method of getting a really good shape using a marble mold.  (I hope I’m not disclosing too many secrets.  This was just one of many, many wonderful things that I learned from Nancy – take a class from her anytime you can!)  Nancy recommended a special marble mold made by Drew Fritts.

So, I wandered over to his website and fell in love with his work.  I ordered the marble mold and also this book.

What I love about this book is that his voice is very conversational and yet fully technical at the same time.  I think that’s a hard balance to strike.  He’s very forthcoming and generous with his knowledge, and he’s incredibly thorough about what he covers. 

There is a huge introductory section about setting up a lampworking studio.  He writes about torches, safety issues, tools, the bench, etc.  In every section, he’s really clear about what matters only if you work at the torch full time and what matters to everyone who lights a torch and melts glass. 

He says, “Here are the options,” and then, “Here’s what I do.”    It’s so helpful.  When an accomplished expert lays out all the options, of course, you want to know which one he chose.  It doesn’t mean that you will choose the exact same, but you can see his work, you can know what he uses, and it feels so much more complete and real than just getting the options and being left there.  I am in the process of moving from a Hothead in my garage to a gas/propane torch in a four-season location TBD, and with this book, I feel like I have a true instruction manual.  If you are a beginner beginner, this part of the book will be immensely helpful. 

He also is very thrifty and handy about his tools. He has figured out how to make items like a rod rest, how to carve graphite, how to make special marble tweezers from a wire hanger and others.  He holds nothing back, with step-by-step instructions on how to make them exactly the way he did.  

After the set-up stuff, I started reading through the techniques, and that’s when it got weird.  I have no access to a torch right now.  I can’t put even a single finger on a rod of hot glass (you know what I mean!) and I’m reading through technique, picturing it in my mind, taking in the concepts, fully engaged and interested.  Reading one after another.  I have several other glass books, and I don’t think I’ve ever had quite the same reaction.  Of course, I will look to the book again when I can actually experiment with the processes, but his writing is so easy to follow, and he doesn’t just say, “Do this and then do this.”  He talks about what the glass is doing and why you need to hold it a certain way, move it a certain way, etc.  The technique section is 115 pages long, and much of what he teaches can crossover to other flamework that is not marbles. 

Another section of the book includes exact recipes he uses to mix Effetre colors.  What an amazing gift.  It could take someone years (as I’m sure it did for him) to figure out all those combinations.  Fun to do, but with his recipes, a person could make just as many new recipes and share them back. 

The last section of the book is over 100 pages of lessons for how to make the twenty marble styles pictured on the front cover.  Fritts says on his website that he doesn’t teach classes, but surely what he has poured into this text is a class in itself.  I am still reading through the techniques, but I fully expect that I will read this book cover to cover before I get back to a torch.  You can buy the book here.

We have a tradition of sending out our annual holiday letter in January – and our family gifts, too.  We like to believe that nobody minds having the fun of getting mail and packages go on a little bit longer.  This year we thought about choosing a time of year when it would not be stressful to get it all done, but we couldn’t think of any.  So, we slogged through and hit the middle of January just like we usually do.  It all went into the mail today!  Yahoo! 

More on what’s in those packages after they’ve arrived at their destinations. And I have no idea how many holiday cards other people send out, but once you’re on our mailing list, you’re on for life!