lo and behold

One thing I can say for sure is there are worse ways to have a mid-life crisis.  Traveling the country to learn about glass is cheaper than a sports car and at least as fun as (and less destructive than) having an affair.  I intend to keep this up!

My two day class with Heather Trimlett was excellent.  I feel like I learned a whole bunch that will improve my fundamentals and another whole bunch that will challenge me and give me great tools to experiment with.  In the Button Class (Austin Day 3), we learned about the whole punty thing – and it was very fun.  I have been shown how to “punty up” before, but it was just beyond me. I could not wrap my head around tapping the glass and have it pop off and not break. But now I get it, and it is so satisfying when it works, which it did, at least some of the time.  We also worked with the two hole button mandrel.  I definitely want to play around with buttons and see what I can come up with.  And, note to self:  check to see what art buttons they are currently selling at Webs, America’s Yarn Store which happens to be located just down the road in Northampton.  

In the Big Hole Bead Class (Austin Day 4, and Heather says let’s find a new name for the “Big Hos”), I was stunned by how hard it is to wrap glass around a big mandrel.  I don’t know really why it should be so surprising.  It’s hard to wrap glass around the small mandrels I’ve been using for over a year, so big mandrel = big hard.  Of course.  I  look at Heather’s beads in a whole new light.  Not that I ever thought they would be easy to make, but still. Sheesh.  It was great to learn about how to make disks, how to control the glass, and Heather’s way to make twisties which is so much better than what I have been doing. 

The beads I made on Day 4 were still in the kiln when I left early in the morn on Day 5.  When they come in the mail, I’ll do a little photo shoot, including showing off the gorgeous things I bought from Heather’s stock. 

In the meantime:

My girlies went crazy over these beads that Jill Symons made for them!  And these off-mandrel hearts – one made by me and one by Jill, and I bet this time you can’t tell which is which!  Jill showed me an awesome trick about drilling the hole with a tungsten pick.  And by the way, the two beads I showed yesterday, the one on the top is mine.  Luckily, that crack didn’t go all the way through, so it’s still a decent bead. 

And lastly,  Heather prescribed “a bead a day” as the best way to practice and maintain skills (she gave credit to Kristina Logan for the idea).  I usually feel I do best when I have a longer block of time to get into a groove, but the bead a day also makes sense to me.  Just a bead a day.  Keep the feel and the rhythm in your hands.  What if even when the garage is too cold, I sat out there and did just one bead?  Who cares if it cracks?  It’s not about the bead – it’s about the practice.  I am going to give it a try.  Starting today.  No decoration to start.  Just a spherical bead.  I really need to make 100.  I want making a round bead to be as automatic as breathing.

But beads are a little like potato chips.  You can’t have just one.

About two years ago, I bought this bead from Nancy Tobey at a Bead Show.  It’s color and intricacy is really much more than what is visible in the photo. 

Last year, in the weeks before I was taking a lampworking class with Nancy, I designed a necklace around the bead.  I have to say, I love the way the necklace came out.  One thing I consistently love about making these rope type necklaces without a clasp is how many different ways you can wear them.  You can wear this one with Nancy’s bead and the oval gemstone on opposite sides of each other.  You can wear it with either one of them hanging down center front, and you can wear it with either one of them hiding in the back so there is only one, clear focal.  Each bead crochet piece is a different length and this is the most asymmetrical piece I’ve made. 

Today, I finally sent the photos to Nancy because she is having a contest for people who have made jewelry with her beads.  After years of asking people to send her pix, she finally had to bribe us to actually do it.  You can see my entry, and others, on Nancy’s Facebook fan page. 

One week from today,  one week from right this minute, I will be sitting at a torch in Austin, TX with Jill Symons. OK, maybe we’ll be eating lunch, but anyway.  Close enough.  When Blue Moon Glassworks had to cancel the Marble Class with Heather Trimlett that I had signed up for, I asked if they could get Jill to teach me a class. I had already bought my plane ticket, and even though it would have been nice to spend a day touring around the lovely town of Austin, I really wanted to use the day for learning glass. It’s like when I went to the hospital to have my first baby.  It was the middle of the night, and they said I wasn’t really ready to be there.  They gave me some medicine to help me sleep and in the morning, I woke up with no contractions.  Everyone kept saying, “Oh, but you slept. That’s so great.”  And I wanted to scream, “But I didn’t come here to sleep, I came here to have a baby and now I have no contractions.”   

So, now that I’m giving birth to myself, I did not want to sleep through a day in Austin.  So, I asked, they asked, and Jill said yes.  How’s that for putting what you want out into the universe and having the universe give you a big ol’ high five in return?  I’m very excited. 

Jill said I should suggest some things I’d like to learn, and this is the wish list I sent to her yesterday:

1. shaping spheres consistently
2. shaping and decoration - I will bring some specific examples of this problem
3. encasing:  how to avoid air bubbles, how to get the holes nice, how to control thick or thin layer of clear, design options for the core bead, how to use encasing as a design element
4. working with transparent glass:  how to avoid air bubbles, how to layer over clear evenly
5. colors:  is it my imagination or is Lauscha white stiffer than other whites? what’s the best black? purple – how do you get a good bright opaque?  how do you get a clear, saturated transparent that is still light enough to see through? 
6. working with metals:  copper, silver, gold, palladium, sheet, foil, wire - I have done none of this and it would be fun to get some overview instruction from you to save me the many hours of trial and error it will take me to figure it out on my own
7. working with silvered glass:  I have done none of this, so same as above.
8. would love to look through your “catalog” of past beads and see some demos

Have I mentioned I’m excited?  And following a day with Jill, I get two more days in class with Heather Trimlett. I don’t get to set the agenda in those classes, and I can only imagine what Heather will impart while she shows us her magic on buttons and big-hole beads. 

And, don’t worry.  Day of Discovery Part 2 is still coming.  I need to get some photos taken first.

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. 

After the art sale at my home in December, it was time to do some giving. 

I gave these bracelets and necklaces to Beit Ahavah for a silent auction in honor of our tenth anniversary.  I am a member of Beit Ahavah, and I serve on the Board of Directors. 

I gave this necklace and bracelet to Thompson’s Gymnastics for a silent auction and a calendar raffle.  My daughter is on the team at Thompsons.

I gave these two necklaces as gifts to women who work with my husband. 

I have some other necklaces and bracelets tucked away for gifts that I haven’t given yet – we like to extend the holiday season well into January, so I’ll show those when I send them off.

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? ).

Just spent a week at Snow Farm in a week-long class with Nancy Tobey.  I love that place, and I feel so lucky to have it in my backyard.  So much to write about . . . .

One thing I realized this week is that I love learning about glass and about art.  I have been anxious and intense about not loving my work, and I have wanted making and selling beads to become a new job for me.  But this week, I remembered that I love learning and it’s a luxury and a privilege to learn. So, one night, after many hours at the torch, I came home and jotted down notes to clear my mind.  I realized that I am going to treat myself as if I am in art school. With a “four-year-plan” I can graduate when I am fifty!  That’s kinda cool. And then, who knows what I’ll do, but in the meantime, I am in art school. 

So, what does that mean:  I need to take classes.  Two or three a year. I need to go to conferences and learn the field.  I need to find a mentor(s).  I need to do research.  I need to give myself projects and assignments that help me grow.  I have to take electives.  I want to immerse as much as possible (with two kids and a part-time day job) in the world of art so that when I emerge in four years, I will be confident in my skills and I will have found some good blend of those kills and my voice in glass. 

Sounds pretty good, right? 

One of my more immediate goals is to write the blog.  I am going to assume that nobody reads the blog but me, and I am going to write it to capture my experience.  It’s going to be one of my assignments – a rather typical one for someone in school.  Write to learn – like in my old days as an English teacher.  I am going to work on the photos, but I am not going let lack of photos stop me.  If you do happen to stumble on this blog and you have a question or a comment or I’ve written something you don’t understand, just e-mail me.  Readers, you are welcome, but I am trying to ignore you.  Life is full of contradictions. 

This is Bill, an 84-year old man in my class.  He was at Snow Farm with his wife, Bernie, who was taking a knitting class.  It was their 8th time at Snow Farm.  I loved them both.  Bill was a barrel of laughs – reminded me of my father: making jokes with Nancy, flirting, bursting into song, being sarcastic.  But unlike my Dad, he was so open to new things.  Eight times at Snow Farm – among many other Elderhostels they’ve been on in their retirement!  I don’t think I ever in my life been as happy, healthy, and full of life as he was.  Maybe I can still get there. 

Here a few of Bill’s best beads.  The color in these is really great, and his improvement in shaping over the course of the week was remarkable.  I’ll show my best beads tomorrow. 

And one more thing I want to remember.  There was a kiln glass class in the studio downstairs from us taught by Paula Williams Kochanek.  They were making these gorgeous glass pendants from “pot melts.”  As I understand it, they fill clay flower pots with small pieces of glass and let them cook in the kiln for 19 hours.  The glass melts out the bottom of the hole in the pot into these rounds of bubbly color.  Then they cut and polish pieces from the melts and they are stunning. I am going to take her class sometime.  It’s an elective. 

How absolutely gorgeous is this bracelet!  I love the purple blue combination of stripes in the bead crochet and the handmade glass bead lays flat on the wrist perfectly.  The small round disk beads are 6mm Czech rondelles which are just the right size to finish off the bead crochet rope with a clean, simple line.  No frilly, flowery bead caps for me!  Many  more like this on the way. What color do you want?