bangle tower

Bangle tower

In my last post I was pondering out loud about how the zeitgeist of beading seeps in, invited or not, and you probably picked up on a slight confidence wobble. This week I've been wrestling a new design into shape, which I'll show and share soon...
but have to keep under wraps just a weeny bit longer... it's got six legs is all I can say.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd take a bit of time out and review and rummage in the beadwork box.
This  picture is of a stack of pieces from different moments in my beady life. From the top, three coral reef inspired bangles, which are layers of peyote and fringing on a loom woven base. They were made for an exhibition way back in 2004. Made using size 9 Czech seed beads, they are nicely big and chunky and go from pale at the edges to dark in the centre.

Hollow Netted beads

The biggest part of the stack is of bristling Sea Urchin bangles, the patterns for which appear in the Bead Net book on CD, which was originally written in 2007, and is still available.
I continue to wear these and it's fun to have complete strangers ask if they can stroke them! They are completely hollow, self supporting netted structures. I so loved trying all the different netting techniques from around the world when I was planning and writing. These hollow beaded beads are another project from the same book...

Between them is a ribbed bracelet, a mix of netting and right angle weave called Fandango bangle. This one has been worked in all sorts of amazing colour combinations by friends and students, much to my envy. At the very bottom is the good old Cellini Spiral, which I made not long after I'd started beading, it took an absolute age to complete, I had to go back for more beads, so it changes colour about two thirds round and weighs a ton to wear! It definitely taught me that densely textured beadwork was not going to ever be a quick fix hobby and to always buy more beads than you think you'll need!

So, did this trip down beading memory lane have any outcomes... Well in a funny way it did, it reminded me about how I still really love playing with the structure of beadwork, about how much fun it can be mixing techniques. Looking at more recent work I can see that these things are still true, and that I am happiest when 'drawing' with beads to make creatures and flowers, foliage and insects.
Mojo is back!

bauble zeitgeist?

Estelle variation

The Estelle workshop is proving very popular, it's fun and easy,  and works up into prettiness in all sorts of variations. it is also a proving to be a fun class to explore colour and sparkly mixtures.
I'll carry on teaching it over the next year as requests keep coming in. In one class, we had a long discussion about math and beads, so I decided to tweek the basic bezel and work up some examples of how it can be used to make three dimensional forms.
In the next class, I shared the discussion and showed the baubles which were the result of my experiments. I had several requests to offer it as a follow up class.
This is always a lovely thing about teaching, to have students wanting to explore an idea some more, and to have more on tap to offer their enthusiasm.

I was just about to show and share on my facebook page... finger hovering on the upload button, when I noticed a very similar bauble being shown off proudly as a latest creation. The math determines there can be only so many ways to make a ball shape with bezelled stones; indeedy, a quick pootle round the facebook beading community revealed at least four more... so no show and share for me then!  I'll keep mine within the boundaries of my class as an interesting discussion point.

Estelle baubles

This got me thinking about how design ideas so often emerge en masse. There are the obvious ones, like everyone playing with a new bead shape (spikes or Rizo's anyone?). There are also more subtle ones and they can be profoundly frustrating!
I've more than once worked long and hard on a really exciting new idea, only to consign it to the 'Doh! can't use that now' folder.
And, yes in the pursuit of honesty, I do sometimes see designs that make me wince at their similarity to work I've already published.

That we get excited by the same processes with similar results is, I guess, inevitable. That we all fall in love with the latest colours, finishes or shapes of beads, likewise. We're also all working under the same powerful but subtle influences of media, trends, fashions and styling, even more so now, with a whole worlds worth available at the touch of a button, and arriving daily in the in-box.

For me, it's about searching out ways to have a genuinely authentic voice, and coincidences like these, I take as a gentle reminder to try again and find something new and fresh to say.

Pretty flowers

Prettyfleur

I've had a little spare time recently, just enough to play some more with Rizo beads and complete the Prettyfleur pattern for print or download. I've also noticed that I seem to blog as much about ceramics as I do about beads. There is a correlation between the two I guess, with gorgeous glazes and tactile qualities, but the truth of it is that I just love me old china!
Prettyfleur is no exception in that the inspiration came from the pattern on these Staffordshire plates. These have lived on my desk since forever, because the vintage bouquet in the centre is just lovely. I can't tell you anything about this china except that it appears in small yet very tempting lots on ebay occasionally and has no name, simply the number F14753.

Jurassica to brighten a dull day

Like my ceramics, the Rizo collection grows, as more bead colours arrive; there are up to 93 to choose from so far! not that I have even a fraction of this amount, but have still managed to fall in love with more than I'll honestly have time to sit and bead with, but still lovely to gaze upon.
I did have time to make myself a Jurassica bracelet, in greenish mustard and turquoise, to go with an unseasonably cheery turquoise jumper which I'm wearing with a bright peachy orange scarf.... a colour combination recommended to keep the spirits up in these freezing and wintery february days.

Spilled ink and old wood

Original Nouveau Droplet necklace in
Atlantic Wash, with a second colourway
called Firecracker in the background

One of the immense delights of being a teacher and seller of my patterns, is seeing them made up and being worn by a satisfied student or customer, there is no greater complement.
For me, the joy is even greater when I see that my suggestions for playing with colour have inspired too. My beadwork patterns deliberately don't give any bead colour codes (gasp!). Firstly because not all beaders will be able to source the same beads, (certainly more true when I started than perhaps now that beads can be bought on line). The second reason though, is more sneeky on my part, because I really want to encourage the creative process and get everyone to feel they can play with colour. In class it is always great fun to see the different colour stories, each an inspiration and often the source of unplanned bead buyingas I am tempted by yet another lovely mix.

The most delicious interpretation
of  Nouveau Droplet

I was busy on such a buying mission the other day when a fellow addict leaned over and revealed a Nouveau Droplet Necklace in the smudgiest, dark ink spilled on an old desk loveliness of a colour mix. It made me think of 17th century interiors, oak gall dyes, candle lit wooden panels and worn metal sconces; great colour mixes start their own stories, which is why I find sharing colour ideas such a magical exchange.
Happily she was willing for me to photograph her creation, shown here against the nearest prop we could find in the store, a stack of baskets!

friends and inspiration

I love it when an idea takes flight, this week I caught up with my friend Mary Yaeger who is over in the UK for a flying visit. She has long been a champion of my Albion Stitch books and has written some very flattering articles about my work to help spread the word. We met for the day in Oxford and had the best time catching up.

Mary's Albion Stitch necklace

When beaders meet there is usually the 'baggie' moment, when the serious gossip is done and dusted and we turn to our passion for beading. Mary's baggie was full of some stunning pieces of beading, she has a great eye for the mixing of media, and I just had to photograph this particular confection. Albion Stitch beaded beads with bold accent beads on wire links. Much brighter in real life (I'm using a pocket camera here, in the corner of a cafe... note the instant styling moment on the retro sugar dispenser, haha!)... and I'm always forgetting to re-set the settings.
I love this necklace!!!!

We spent the day in and out of museums, (more posts to follow), discussing the state of beading; the serious business of art in craft, design and development, how to identify the zeitgeist of creative innovation. Is beadwork, craft, art, folk art, none of the above... needing to be one or more of the above... how social media is changing the way craft and creativity is talked about, practiced, explored and exploited...
BUT... and I can totally see how you really had to be there to get even a teeny bit interested... MORE EXCITINGLY....
discussing my trip to L.A and it's environs to do the teaching of the beading an the visiting of the beading stores... hurrah!!!! More on which as the departure date draws nearer.

Venetian glass 'trade' beads

Meanwhile, here, from the Pitt Rivers museum a whole cabinet of our beloved seed bead's ancestors... the Venetian trade beads. The very sample cards that were shown to
the indigenous populace of far flung, soon to be colonies... the source of the pounds of beads traded for silks, spices, furs, pelts, gemstones, minerals and what all else.
The starting point for the very same beaded treasures of Africa, the Americas and beyond, that we now pour over in museum cabinets and at antique fairs.
The original source of the river of beads that flows endlessly around and around the world.
Doh... she's waxing lyrical again, time to go bead!

trees... with beads on...

Tree with beads on

There is a row of splendidly huge and ancient Plane trees lining a busy main road nearby. In the summer these trees are leafy green silent havens for crows, blackbirds, moths and insects, while far below the traffic roars past. They are beautiful, each one a different gnarly shape and I love to walk past them. In the winter and spring they are magical trees because they are festooned with beads. Really they are the seed heads that cling on to fine stems throughout winter storms and snow with amazing strength, only to fall and crumble into a million seeds when the weather turns soft and mild.

Tree with beads in in Dortmund

 When I was over in Germany, the road       outside the exhibition hall was lined with Plane trees too... obviously a staple for the parks and gardens authorities needing to line busy roads.
As another step on my occasional quest for beading nature (see acorns), here is a first experiment. I just love the juxtaposition of branches and seed heads against the blue sky, so I am wondering whether this has some design mileage. Firstly though, the practicalities of making some beady shapes and deciding if they are nice or not.

Plane tree seeds

When you get close to them, the seed heads are kind of spiky, in a really dense pattern.
I've used the gorgeous 2.8mm Miyuki mini drops in dark bronze along with 11 seeds in a soft grey and 15 seed beads in dark bronze... worked over a wooden bead.

The Branch is some rather intriguing wire with a soft foam coating which I found in a garden centre. I think designed to be soft against delicate plant stems that need tying back I thought it had HUGE possibilities for beading and was tempted to buy heaps, as it came in different diameters. Sense prevailed so my experiment with this is to see if it is strong enough to hold it's shape when also covered with beads...yes is the outcome there.
Not sure where this is going yet but thought I'd show and share.... I'm kind of liking the detail and texture.

beaded seed heads with netted 'twig'

like the texture...but not the herringbone stitch stalks