lo and behold

Before I write about my little Urchin, I want to take a moment and say that T-giving was wonderful.  I loved cooking, I loved hosting (for the first time in about 10 years) and everyone had a great time.  I am thankful that my life is full and rich and can move happily on to the next big thing:  getting ready for the house art show this weekend. 

And before I write about that, let’s write about the intersection of dance, underwater sea life, and my jewelry.  Lovely ballerina Rachel was invited to dance in a production of A House for Hermit Crab at the Eric Carle Museum for Picture Book Art.  She was the sea urchin.  As the month-long run ended, we designed a gift for Therese Donohue, the director of the Picture Book Theater.  Do you see a resemblance? 

My photos are terrible, but we get the idea, right?  Both are shades of purple and brown, a lovely combination that I would never have thought of.  I strung a second bracelet in the same palette, but without the spikes.  Will show that one when I’m done.  As Rachel wrote in her note to Mrs. Donohue, “I loved my cast, I loved my costume, I loved my dance.  It was perfect.”  Her first professional gig as a dancer.  I was a proud mama all month long!

I’m not in art school – I’m in culinary school! 

These shortbread tart shells come from Nick Malgieri’s cookbook called Cookies Unlimited.  For now, they’ll go into the freezer and when they emerge again on Thanksgiving, I’ll fill them with homemade lemon curd and just a tiny dollop of whipped cream.  I’ve made them before and we love them!

I also made split pea soup for tonight’s dinner and to have on hand for lunches over T-giving weekend. 

The countdown has begun. 

This is the bead that changed my life.  I made this bead, and it is far from perfect, but I love it.  I love the colors, I love the shape, and I love the design.  It is the first bead I ever made that looked like I wanted it to.  And at the same time, it surprised me.  I got the shape I’d been going for:  the elusive sphere.   But the shape of those dots – oh wow.  I stuck them on, four on each hemisphere, and they turned out not circles, not triangles, not all the same size, and certainly not the same shape.  I love them.  And I love the colors, too.  The base is dark opaque brown, the first dot is light ivory, the next dot is transparent light brown/topaz or maybe root beer bottle brown, and then again. Four gorgeous stacked dots.  I discovered in this bead how the transparent puddles and an an opaque can float on top of it.  I love the delicacy of the design and it’s boldness at the same time. 

I made this bead on home on my  Hothead, some time during the summer. I had taken my eight week class, I had set up the Hothead, and I had been making crappy bead after crappy bead for months, all the while wondering if I even liked this new hobby of mine.  Did I want to conquer the challenge?  Did I have any talent?  Any ability?  Any ability to acquire the skill.  I did not know but I kept on trying.  And then I made this bead.  I was totally in the zone, and I brought out the bead that was in me, and my life was changed.  Still, I wear it around my neck on a long ribbon, and I like to touch it, to hold it.  It’s there to remind me of something.  I can’t even say what that something is, but I know it’s important.   

Months before last week’s proclamation I’m not in business; I’m in my own private art school, I planned a Holiday Open House and Art Sale with two friends to sell jewelry and art.  Of course, I’m still doing it - an Open House is not exactly being in business. . . .but tonight when I sent out the email invitation, why did I feel terrified? Why have I been sitting on the invitation all weekend, tweaking this word and that, tweaking the mailing list this way and that, doing everything but hitting Send?  Anyway, it’s done.  And it feels like a first.  I’m not in business, but I’m practicing. 

Here’s what the invitation looks like:

Dear Friends,
Please join us for a Holiday Open House and Art Sale featuring yummy treats, warm company, and a showing of beautiful handmade gifts by local artisans Rebecca Fricke (quilted fabric arts), Laura Woodworth (functional pottery), and Lisa Oram (beaded and glass jewelry).  You are welcome to spread the word and bring friends! 

When:  Sunday, December 6, 2009
Time:  1:00 – 5:00 pm
Where:  Home of Lisa Oram etc. . .

After many years of writing prose and poetry, Lisa Oram’s creative interests burst into color three years ago when she learned how to bead crochet. Since then, she has amassed a huge collection of tiny seed beads and never tires of exploring new color combinations in bracelets and necklaces. She has also learned to melt glass and set up a flameworking studio in her garage to make original glass beads, which will be available for the first time at this Open House.                                                                        

Rebecca Fricke’s quilt subjects are often based on the natural world and reflect her love of Vermont and the Connecticut River Valley in Western Massachusetts. She views her quilts as giant canvases; the layers of cloth are like large brush strokes and the fine details are in the stitching. For Rebecca, the challenge of quilting is not in creating precise corners and straight lines, but in evoking a scene with limited piecing and a few well-chosen colors. She uses irregular shapes, appliqué, edges and stitching to enhance her abstract quilt designs. Recently one of her landscapes was chosen to be part of a show entitled "Landscape: Seen and Unseen" presented by the Northampton Arts Council.

Laura Woodworth has been working with clay for about 20 years. Her passion is for rich colors and useful items; her work is sturdy, practical, and beautiful. She grew up in Washington state and attended The Evergreen State College. Currently, she is taking classes in chemistry and nutrition, which has inspired carved figures from schoolbook lifecycle charts on the sides of her cups.

So, about these blue beads. . . .Was I little bit obsessed?  Yes.  But I would argue that obsession can be a good thing in art - and I had very good reasons to be obsessed with these beads. 

1. I love blue.  I really love blue.
2. I love glass that looks like glass. 
3. I love the simplicity and clean, modern look of these beads.  Making these beads is part of finding my voice and aesthetic in glass. 
4. I thought I couldn’t encase (layer one glass over another, usually a clear or light transparent over something darker).   At least last time I tried, I couldn’t encase.  I couldn’t get the clear on evenly;  I couldn’t get the right amount of glass in my gather; and whatever was underneath always melted into a big blob.  This summer, when the family went to the Corning Museum of Glass, I took a private mini bead lesson for the single purpose trying to improve my encasing, but I didn’t think it helped much.  Then, at  Snow Farm, I don’t even remember purposely saying to myself:  “Here we go.  Time to practice encasing.”  I just made a blue bead (or two) and it worked. And when they came out of the kiln and I LOVED them, blue freak that I am, so what else could I do the the next day but make more?
5. The first beads of this set lead me to a question about ends, holes and encasing – more of which I will write about later.   Suffice it to say, I had to try this bead and its holes in many different shapes.  What you see here is a round, a donut, a square, a triangle, a rectangle, a barrel, and maybe one that is just “organically faceted”  but I think it ended up seeming square. 
6. The vision of the necklace was clear to me while I was making the beads.  And now,  I want to make this necklace again with red beads, with green beads, with a rainbow selection of beads all the same shape, with all triangle beads, with all blue beads in different shades of blue, and all red shades in different shades of red, and black beads, and all black beads with one bead of a different color – see what I mean?  I’ve been thinking that I want to make and sell jewelry rather than just beads, and I think this necklace proves my point. 

Next entry:  my quest about holes and ends. 

On the last day at Snow Farm, each class made a display of the students’ best work, a gallery of sorts. These are beads I submitted.

The mustardy bead on the top right is a bead from the first day.  I was working on making a round bead with good dimpled ends.  Nancy showed me two techniques that helped:  1) to roll a donut-y shaped bead into a round marble mold.  The result is a sort of rounded face and somewhat flat sides with a dimpled hole.  Sort of a hybrid tube/sphere.  2) Heat the side of the bead only and tip it so that glass from the middle or the shoulder flows over the hole.  The mustard bead was a pretty successful product of those techniques.

The aqua bead was my attempt to use dots in an asymmetrical pattern. I called it “random” to Nancy and she pretty much laughed at my precisely placed and thought out version of random.  In the end, she said is was her favorite of my beads.

The black flat bead is a new shape I learned, the tubular ivory bead was some practice in stringer control and surface decoration. The other two black beads are just ones I liked. Mostly I think those beads are about color rather than shape. So good to see than I’m not totally one-dimensional in my interest.

About color:  something to think about. I tend to like almost monochromatic designs.  I like using colors that are shades apart and therefore combine to the eye as almost a new color in the same family. These black round beads are an example of that.  Nancy pointed to Bill’s beads as an example of how using a surprising color like red with the black, white, and aqua was a good technique.  Not something that feels very natural to me.  Note to self:  Try it!

About those fabulously gorgeous blue encased beads all in different shapes on purpose – I’ll write about those tomorrow.  For now, just drink them in and enjoy (but there’s no audience here, right? ).