lo and behold

I’ve been practicing stringer control and these little lovelies are going into my next Beads of Courage donation. I’m quite proud of them!

I found each of the artists I am writing about this week through her blog.  And this person, Beth Hemmila, of Hint Jewelry, routinely stuns me with her beautiful and honest writing. Off the top of my head, I remember a recent post about having an open or closed heart, and another about the “every woman’s complex relationship with food.” Both of these posts articulated challenges that are well known to me. Beth shares openly about her failures, her lifestyle, and her business. 

On her blog, Beth describes her jewelry business this way: 

wild west spirit meets far east design :: handmade silver jewelry connecting people through simple beauty, pure craftsmanship, and common stories

On her Etsy shop, the banner says, Stories in Metal. Primarily, her work is making silver charms, mostly out of PMC, and some also in sterling.  Each carved and cast charm has a picture on it that symbolizes a part of the life force – those are my words, not Beth’s, but I think that’s the idea.  Here are a few of the charms that speak to me. The photos and the descriptive text are borrowed from Beth’s Etsy shop, with her permission. 

Prana, mighty life force and healer, come swim next to me in the borderland. Open my body to spaciousness and touch the places that hurt so as to lead me back to the sound of myself — the feeling that sings without knowing why.

Hummingbirds draw on the essence of flowers, extract sweetness from life, and show us the way to find joy in any situation. They are a symbol for celebrating a life fulfilled as well as losses in the form of loved ones and dreams. Deeply woven into the mythology of the Americas, hummingbirds are often considered tiny messengers between worlds, helping shamans keep the balance between spirit and nature.

A tree of life “to evoke the earth’s healing powers of creation, nourishment, and protection” and matched with wire wrapped gemstones in the colors of the seasons. 

Beth sells the charms individually and also uses them in lovely, luscious pieces of jewelry.  She makes some to sell (like the tree of life above), some on request from customers, and this year, she is building herself an “heirloom memory necklace.” Each month of 2010, she is adding something(s)to a necklace that remind her of that month.  I can’t imagine the time she is investing to write and draw and think about her life so beautifully and intentionally.  This is what her necklace looked like at the end of May 2010.

I can’t wait to see where it goes, and I LOVE reading what Beth writes each month about her process.  

As you might imagine, I am very drawn to this whole idea. Poetry in jewelry – that’s an interesting juxtaposition for me, as I feel that my poet self coming back alive but in a different medium.  I love the idea of making necklaces of this type as gifts.  And for myself, I could make a birthday necklace and add something each year.  Or, I could start a necklace now which I could continue to build until I am 50.  It would be a piece that represented the period of my life between ages 45 – 50 in which I feel I am re-birthing myself, or revising myself, or transforming in some powerful way (I don’t have the words yet – maybe something visual will help.)

If I got myself a birthday present from Hint this year, I think I would start with the Tree of Life.  . . . I would certainly add something glass that I have made, and something beaded.  Fun to think about.

I also want to hold Hint in my mind as a model of business.  I noticed that Beth gives away 10% of her sales to a different “good cause” each month, something that I did when I started my Etsy store.  I also wonder if I will find a way to bring meaning to the beauty that I am learning to create in glass.  I’ve thought about it, and sometimes certain ideas come up.  I think I’m getting closer that that ideal, but I know I will have to stay open to the desire and put the time in to really tease it out.  That’s a very good goal, and Hint is an excellent example. 

I am not going to do an in-depth report card like I have for each month this year.  I am going to do a quick review of the month, and the “semester,” and then “my personal fake grad school” is going on summer vacation.  Which is not to say that I will not continue learning or growing in my artist-identity, or that I am going to stop blogging, but that the pace is going to change -  because that’s what summers are for. 

And I feel it, anyway. It has already happened. My stance relative to the project has shifted.  And I cannot (nor do I want to) fight against the movement.

When I started this idea in January, I felt like the blog and the prospect of “being in school” would push me, keep me accountable.  And it did.  I pushed hard.  I kept the belief that I had to move forward on many fronts:  reading, writing, thinking, meeting people, almost elbowing myself into a community and into way of life. It’s a hard thing that I am trying to do, and it would be easy to stop and stall,  or tiptoe and retreat, or to try and then run away scared. But I did not – and do not – want to treat my transformation timidly.  I am nearly fifty years old.  I don’t have the time to be anything but serious.  

So, I traveled to Austin, TX in April and to Millville, NJ in May to take what for me felt like “master” glass classes.  I spent serious time and money absorbing what I could from great teachers.  And now that I have had a big dose infusion of other people’s greatness, it is time for me to incubate.  I need some quiet time with my self and with my “new flame” as Steve calls the torch.  I have been very true to my hour-a-day regimen and it feels great.  But instead of pushing, my job now is being open and receive what the glass has to offer me. 

The one push I need to still focus on is getting my torch set up in a studio that does not need to shut down when the New England winter rolls in.  I have done some preliminary thinking about how to safely set up in a finished room that already exists in my basement, and when I came home from Millville, I thought I had the answer: natural gas and an oxygen generator. It’s a true basement – no windows. At all. But still, it’s a large room, and I began to imagine what color I would paint the walls, and how we could improve the lighting, and what kind of shelving I’d like. . . I was feeling excited about it.

And then, in the last week, the universe delivered me two options for studios outside my home in shared space with other artists.  One is about 10 minutes away in the next town over, and one is literally about a mile away.  Both have pros and cons, and on one of the spaces, I will have to make a decision in the next week.  Each has a story that I will share soon;  for the moment, I am trying to be open and discern what I am meant to do. 

June is a transition month: the kids finish school.  It’s my birthday.  Some years, including this year, we take a vacation at the end of June to sort of launch the summer. 

July and August are going to be about my physical space here at home. The traveling is done, including that I cancelled my registration to The Gathering.  I will feel a longing, I know, when it is going on without me, but I also know it’s the right thing for now.  By September, I will have the room of my own that I have been waiting for and longing for.  Not shared with Steve.  Not the guest room. 

And then, I think another burst of energy will come with September.  And what – I’ll be a sophomore?  A senior?  LOL! 

Almost every glass teacher I’ve had says, “Make 100 spacers.”

In the class, they try to get to you to make 20 or 40, tell you that the best way to get better at home is to make spacers until you can make them with your eyes closed. The basic shape and application of a spacer bead is the foundation of all other beads, they say. 

I actually agree with them.  And I believe this approach to learning will work.  But I haven’t ever done it. 

In the classes, they say, “Make them quick. Get the glass on and move to the next one.  Not going in the kiln. Doesn’t matter if they’re good.”  The idea, I know, is to burn it into muscle memory:  the size of the gather, the touchdown of the glass, the roll of the mandrel and the swipe of the taper at the end.  And then, heating the glass, getting it balanced, and cooling the bead without losing the shape.

It’s not simple. 

For a while, since I got back from Austin I think, I’ve been trying to torch an hour day, rather than wait until I have enough time for 3-hour-kiln-running session.  I start with a mandrel of two or three black spacers, and then I move onto the one or two other beads I am going to make that day. 

I use the black spacers in necklaces I make, and I have gotten much better at them.  If I make three on a mandrel, usually the first one cracks.  I can’t quite manage the heat/cooling thing. 

But last weekend, something new happened with my simple spacers.  At the end of my rare 6-hour session at the torch, I was tired, and decided to make some colored spacers instead of my usual black ones.  I was using pretty thick mandrels – 1/4 inch I think.  And suddenly, I made a spacer that was lovely.  Bigger than the black ones that I usually make.  Something about the size of the mandrel, the thickness of the spacer, and the weight of the bead was in perfect proportion.  Like a cheerio.  And, later, when I got them off the mandrel, I was delighted to see that they were all the same size.  Actually, I measured.  They were within 1 mm of the same size.  That counts. 

The next day, I sat down for about 45 minutes to make just cheerios.  And look:

You can’t imagine how satisfying it felt to produce this little handful of blue perfection.  It looks like nothing, like so simple, but being able to do this is a huge leap in my skills.  Eventually, the fact that I can do this will be buried deep in my glass beads, but it’s like the alphabet.  After you can read  books, you forget that at one time you didn’t even know the letters.  But it you hadn’t learned the letters, you wouldn’t be reading those books. 

I’m gonna go make some more!  And, I’ll bet I get to 100 pretty soon!

Yes, I’ve still got a thing or two to say about beads, even though it’s been a while. 

When you make a bead a day, they start to add up.  Pretty nice collection, eh? 

Nothing particularly exciting or original, but I am enjoying being focused on process and being freed from product.  I try a new color combination, or a new shape, or a new frit.  I pulled some encased stringers today – with quite good success, I might add.  I sit down, look at my glass, and usually decide to make something completely different than what I thought I would make a few minutes earlier when I walked out to the garage.  I love that.  It feels like play.  I usually make two or three beads.  Takes me an hour and I feel very satisfied when I’m done.  I know I’ll be back the very next day.  And then, hopefully, on Friday or the weekend, I’ll get a longer session, three or four hours.  I feel like I’m growing, but I don’t feel rushed.  Sort of new for me. Sort of lovely. 

I had another great weekend learning, thinking, and dreaming glass.  This time, in Millville, New Jersey. 

After this class from Kristina Logan, following close on the heels of my work with Heather Trimlett and Jill Symons, I feel steeped in information and inspiration from the most skilled and talented glass bead makers I could find. 

I could not do it just from reading books.  I did not have the patience to work through trial and error for years to figure out all on my own how to move molten glass into the shapes and designs I see and can imagine.  I am not brave enough to hook up the gas first and ask questions later. 

Instead – and this was not a conscious and intentional plan from the beginning  - I have taken just the right classes from just the right people to now feel I have a solid footing.  

Five classes. Fifteen months:

• Intro to Flameworking – Sally Prasch at Snow Farm
• Into to Beadmaking – Nancy Tobey at  Snow Farm
• Encasing and Inclusion – Jill Symons at Blue Moon Glassworks in Austin, TX
• Buttons and Beads – Heather Trimlett at Blue Moon Glassworks in Austin, TX
• Beads:  The Next Level – Kristina Logan at Carlisle School of Glass Art in Millville, NJ

And now - I am so done. I know enough about theory and enough about practice that I feel grounded and ready to fly.  I can invent. I can build the walls and windows of MY house. 

I have been a sponge, and now I am going to be a hermit.  I am going to bid a grateful goodbye to my Hothead in the garage and set up a real torch in a real studio that I can work in year round.  A room of my own.  Finally.  

Kristina’s class was just the right one to end on.  (And I don’t mean I will never take a class again, but it will be a while, not like in the same intensity as this run. ) In addition to a full and open disclosure of what processes and techniques work for her, Kristina was also very wise and instructive about how to grow artistically.   She asked at the beginning what intention each of us had for the class. Some people said “to learn how to make your designs.”  Kristina was clear that learning to make her designs would not serve us (or her). Instead, her intention was that each of us would leave feeling that we could make our beads better. 

Here’s an example. You know how I love these dotty beads, right? 

Well, they started because of how enchanted I was to see opaque dots on a transparent round of the same color.  Originally, I used an even paler transparent gold so the opaque really stood out.   Something about the bare wisp of transparent color together with the deep rich opaque of the same hue just delights me to no end.  In Kristina’s class, I made “my bead” this way:

Three rows of dots:  big, medium, and small.  Kristina, “the queen of dots,” taught us about control of size and placement, and see – I could take my bead to another level.  I don’t love the bead I made, but I now have better skill with dots which  gives me a new freedom when I sit quietly and alone in front of my own torch.  (Yikes, look at the difference in photo quality between my old camera and my new one!)

There’s much more I could say, and I will, but for now, a few more photos of the weekend. 

We couldn’t take the torches outside, but we spent a few minutes in the sun learning how to prepare a rivet for the hole of a bead. 

Yipee! 

Having fun. Learning lots.  More to come soon! 

from overcast and chilly Massachusetts

across Connecticut

through New York

over the Tappan Zee Bridge

past the Delaware Memorial Bridge

around Philadelphia

and south.

Here’s where we’ll end up: 

I live in a college town and today was the last day of classes. Finals coming up for the students, but not for me!  No exams in my personal fake graduate school. 

Classes:

• Three days in Austin, TX for classes with Jill Symons and Heather Trimlett.  Wrote about it here, here and here.   Felt very welcomed by Jim and Rose of Blue Moon Glassworks.  Enjoyed the social and the solitude.  Definitely worth going. 
• Had more than a few “ahah” moments at the torch in Austin, many of which I felt impacting me immediately when I started working again at home.   Will detail this in another post. 
• Also, visited Nancy Tobey at Snow Farm and got re-inspired to take a class there in the fall.  (Plus, Nancy said she likes my blog and that was a big smile for me.  Hi Nancy!)
• Next:  I am taking a weekend class with Kristina Logan in May.
• Next:  Will continue to keep my eye open for classes with bead makers I admire. I would like to take at least one “travel class” a year.  Maybe Bead and Button next year? 
• Next:  Will also look for teaching studios in a wider driving distance. Recently discovered some interesting classes in Rochester, NY. Need to look into Boston, Worcester, CT, NYC, DC. 
• Next:  I am re-thinking the Gathering in July.  Maybe TX and NJ are enough and I could add Snow Farm. The Gathering is very expensive and long and it may be a better use of my energy to keep up steady practice on my torch and focus on getting my indoor studio set up before the fall. Plus, my mother is having surgery at the end of June and I may want to travel to Michigan to see her. 

Reading:

• Caught up on my magazine reading while on the plane to Austin: Jewelry Artist, Step-by-Step Wire, The Flow.
• Next:  Not sure.  I felt like reading was really important in the winter when I couldn’t torch.  But now that I can, I think doing is more important. 

Blogging:

• 15 posts in April.  Down from March, but still in my zone
• Learned to post from my iPhone!
• Got a new camera.  Long needed.  Can take much better photos now with little additional effort.  At some point, I will actually learn something about taking photos and they will get better still. 
• Added my blog to the BlogHer network. 
• Discovered some more “midlife bloggers.”  Will write about them soon.
• Next: My 100th post is coming up.  I think this one is number 95.  Want to mark this in some way.
• Next:  Stop writing report cards. It’s feeling tedious for me - which means it probably even more tedious to read it. 

Studio:

• Spoke with building commissioner of my town. More food for thought about how to proceed.
• Met someone in Austin who powers her torch with natural gas and an oxygen concentrator in a spare bedroom of her house.  Suddenly, that sounded very safe and comfortable and maybe like the answer to having the studio in an already finished but unused room of our basement (used to be an office that Steve and I shared). 
• Next:  Do some more computer research into oxygen concentrators and maybe look at some at Carlisle . It would be so great to find one there and drive it back in my car.  I assume the class will also use Mini CCs which will be the first time I’ve used something different than a Minor Burner.  One of the best reasons to go to the Gathering is to check out the technical vendor display. But we’ll see. 

Making:

• Heather said “A bead a day" and that’s what I’m doing.  Well, actually it’s more like an hour a day which includes 3 mini spacers for a warm up, and then usually two or three other beads. Where I used to think I worked best if I had at least a three hour block of time, I am rather liking this daily dose of glassy love. 
• Next:  Torch as much as I can.  Go where it takes me.  This is the most important thing and what I most want to do. I may stop writing altogether and post just big photos of what I make every day. 

Professional/Networking:

• Am making local connections through a group called Artisans of Western Mass. Went to one meeting. Will get myself on their website soon. 
• I had hoped to set up my Artfire store and do some selling for the Mother’s Day/Graduation gift season, but I couldn’t do it without a better camera.  I have now taken photos to list ten items and I hope to get them up by end of May.  
• Next: Going to a <free> workshop tomorrow about business and marketing for artists. 

How can it already by May? 

I am working on my April Report Card and also on ideas for my 100th post.  In the meantime, what do you think of this bead, not counting the bead release in the hole?  Kind of a different look for me. Pretty – or do those colors make you think of throw-up on a sparkly party dress?