Martha's Moth

Martha's moth is a design that began life as a question... 'Can you make me a moth?'

sketches for the Martha's Moth Brooch

Not one who finds 'No' the easiest word, however busy, I said yes.
So that question led to a heap more questions... how long do I have, who's it for, how big, what colours, how am I going to do this???
On a train journey back from a bead show, I doodled in the sketch pad. wobbly biro is my preferred way of thinking out loud on a page! I know, beautifully crafted sketch book pages would be lovely too,  but the notes are just so I don't forget what I thought.
I kind of knew about the structure from having made dragonflies, butterflies and beetles with wings in various beading techniques. I spent a summer evening watching the moths to check out body shapes and proportions. In our neighbourhood we have hawk moths and hummingbird moths and it's a bit of a tradition to go down with a glass of something nice and sit and watch them fluttering at dusk.

The finished design

Next was the lovely time of choosing out beads, and my ongoing love of clear cabochons came into play. After a few sessions at the beading board, Martha's moth came out pretty near to the original doodle and is now a brooch winging her way to her new owner.
I had fun trying our some new ideas, so next I have a re-make and tweeking session ahead, to see if I can get the instructions written and workable for my tester to have a play with.

Milk crate chic

grape hyacinth and primroses

My lovely German beady chums call the pass time of browsing for inspiration 'Schnicky Schnacky shopping'.
Whilst on a trip to the lovely town of Totnes in Devon (a haven for schnicky schnacky addicts), I found this adorable little milk crate. It reminded me momentarily, of being made to drink definitely 'on the turn' warm milk at small school.
The government meant well, bless 'em, but those little quarter pints of 'free school milk' lined up in crates by the radiator all morning, had toddlers little hearts sinking across the land.
Shuddersome thoughts were soon banished by more grown up imaginings of eclectic mixes of garden flowers and how lovely they would look in a mini milk crate.

Zeitgeist moment

Once home and for their first outing, I took cuttings from the riotous proliferation of primroses and grape hyacinth that have colonised the lawn.
Spring has been even more dreary than the long and soggy winter, so the lawn mower is staying put and these cheerful ambassadors of finer weather are more than welcome.

Anyhoo,  imagine my enormous delight, (and, ahem, a solid justification to self that my frippery was so 'on trend' darling...), when I found 'my' mini crate gracing the cover of a spring issue of Country Living magazine.

Beaded cross

The catwalks are bristling with crucifixes, and it's hard to find a t-shirt without a sparkly metallic cross printed or marked out in studs on it. This fashion, where does it come from? If you google the question, there is a hot debate about fashionistas adopting an overtly christian symbol. Even the Vatican got involved when Mr Beckham was seen sporting a rosary in a high end photo shoot.
Some argue that it's a social commentary against secularism, some that it all began with a band called Justice...
As you know, I like to have a design series on the go,  Symbols and Trinkets, is proving hugely enjoyable, delving into the art history books and jewellery collections in museums for inspiration.
In the  jewellery room at the Victoria and Albert Museum, there are breathtaking examples of crosses, which is where I found the inspiration for this one.

a beaded Cross

I spent my school years surrounded by ornate and beautiful religious architecture and symbolism; also by joyfully strong minded, humorous women who chose to devote their lives to faith.They taught me that, to be really good at something was not the point, to continue trying to be better at something was the honest devotion.
I'm inspired by the way an object can tell a story about an era or a culture and in so doing, be instantly recognisable as from that time or place. How everything we wear has a story or meaning, both personal and cultural. for me this is a fascinating language to explore.
The cross I've designed to fit with my other symbol pieces is indeed following a fashion trend, if you choose to view it that way.
But it also has considered layers of meaning; Moving elements inspired by worry beads and prayer wheels, a central thorny crown, but also inspired by meditation mandalas. It features caged pearls like the jewelled buttons on a reliquary I saw during my visit to Germany earlier in the year, but also because they are the oldest symbol of purity in folklore and mythology. As always in this series, there is a secret place to hide a snippet of paper for a prayer, wish or affirmation, This idea is inspired by personal talisman pieces, perhaps containing a scrap of sainted bone, cloth or an item blessed at a place of pilgrimage. The tiny Tibetan silver prayer boxes given to children and worn through their lives, containing a prayer unique and auspicious to the individual. or medicine pouches filled with herbs and crystals, brought together to protect the wearer.

Do you also have a habit of arranging temporary still lives on window sills and shelves?
For me, these sometimes kick start new design ideas, always make me wish I had time to stop and draw or paint, often give rise to new colour combinations and definitely make me feel happy when I look at them. They are also a really handy way of making the place look cared for when there's no time for rigorous housework... when is there ever!

lasp gasp bouquet! The Scented
Broom smells amazing.

I was buying flowers from a street stall, because they stopped me in my tracks, because they filled me with desire to gaze at them more, and it made me think about how I really choose colours for my designs. In class I often get asked about colour, and try to explain how I soak it up all day long, and relish in colour with feeling. Yet somehow people see my work and say, 'Oh, those are so your colours!' The florist stall has a brilliant 'last gasp' offer on bunches of flowers that are past their best. So for pennies you can have glorious blooms, usually hugely expensive ones, if only for the briefest while. These are the ones I chose.

paper bag vase

I also picked out a bunch of paler pink ones, and have put them in a glass inside this beautiful paper bag, I love the cheerful mixture of pinks and greenish turquoise. The bag is just so pretty and inspiring it deserves an extended life as a vase. Recognise the little lustre pot next to the paper bag? 
The table cloth is a linen tea towel, I seem to collect these along with my china and they make cute backgrounds for photographs, far to nice to use for the washing up!
Anyway, you can see that I'm definitely getting back into softer colours and pink again!

bead stash for a new project idea

I had a morning off this week, to visit my friend Zoe's bead shop in Frome in Somerset. This is a shop you definitely have to go to and relish, with at least half an hour to spare and any significant other parked in a coffee shop until you are done. 

It is a real treat moment for me, a perfect antidote to pre-spring blues. The walls are covered with beautifully made beady jewellery from around the world, and there are many trays of 'other' beads. In no time you'll have a packet of scrummy goodies! Inspired by the flowers, and with a project in mind that needs to be done, I chose silky matt glass long beads, little flower round beads and some in betweeny beads.
Once home I put these with some gorgeous Lucite flower beads and seed beads from my friend Lynn's store. But somehow, despite thinking I'm picking out new colours for me to play with, there is a definite familiarity about the choices I've made. But for now I'm in love with this soft spring mixture and I'll post a picture of the finished project soon.

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.

Exhibition piece

So, after telling you how it got started here I can now show and share my finished piece.
The Beadworkers Guild are having an exhibition of works called 'The Magic of Macintosh in Beads' and hopefully my necklace will make the grade. I love the way that the Guild got us all inspired to explore a design theme, then rollup our collective sleeves to have a go.
Pause to mourn the path not taken, elaborate designs consigned to sketch book pages for that 'one day when' and superseded by fresh ideas. Share the fun of the piece I did get time to make.

the design idea on the day

If you recall, my sample was a little triangle, an idea I wanted to get right if nothing else as my 'on the day' one was a bit lumpy.
This sat in my beading box until the deadline loomed, I hate that life is like this but in between were lots of other deadlines and the somewhat glorious excuse that my brain needed time to think it's way around the technical problems I had set it.
First, I really didn't like the bezel, to get a bead count for three sides gave a sloppy bezel that was pulling out of shape. Next, I knew that the sides and edges needed different bead counts to get them to lie flat and in a more crisp triangle shape. I have long loved Rennie Macintosh drawings and thought my colours based on his drawing of a fritillary flower was a good selection, but taking a harder look at his architectural work changed my mind on colours too. So bead it, change it, bead it, change it and million unpicks later I had a triangle motif in the colours of the Willow Tea rooms.

The Willow Tea Rooms, photo by w:User:Dave souza

The May Queen

I also wanted to hint at a texture inspired by the embedded glass beads and cabochons in Margaret MacDonalds panels, and a hint of the graphic lines and zigzags in the interiors of 78 Derngate, created for a man with colour blindness, so unusually stark and graphic.

Once I had the motif finalised, the final necklace configuration was based on the shapes I so love in Margaret's panel called 'The May Queen'. One of three panels for the Ladies Luncheon Room, Ingram Street Tea Rooms.
It is constructed of oil painted gesso on hessian and scrim, set with twine, glass beads, thread, mother-of-pearl, and tin leaf panel; you just sense that she had the best fun getting inventive with these materials! 
I love the long embellishment that the May Queen is wearing on her gown.

the finished necklace

So my final piece, inspired by these uniquely creative people, unashamedly borrows colours and shapes, makes absolutely no claims or pretensions other than as a really enjoyable process to play with inspiration and make something I will definitely wear once it is home again. 

I've loved the process of transferring ideas into my own medium, beads. 

I've also really enjoyed the 'doodling' process, the jotting out of ideas, those paths not yet taken, but which sit and wait, a feast of ideas to explore. Finally, I like that the process has taken my work in a direction I wouln't normally go, and has brought me some new elements that I'm sure will morph into projects I can share.

Now I'm itching to see what everyone else has made. If you're in Northampton, drop by and see for yourself... If not, join the Guild and be part of our next beady adventure.

More from the treasure quest

New Albion Stitch 'Ancient Treasure'

I've made a promise to try and post more about the beading... much of what I do 'right now' is for next year, sometimes even further ahead, but these new pieces are ones I don't have to 'sit on', as they are my own experiments. Probably for workshops, they show just one of the several new developments in Albion Stitch which I'm currently working on. They are also part of my on going project about Treasures and Talismans.

I'm fascinated by the way in which we have objects of adornment which have different meanings. Collectively we wear objects like wedding bands, or religious symbols made in metals, these seem to be almost universal ways of publicly talking about our status or belief. Then there are more subtle symbols, insignia, badges, which show an affiliation to an organisation or a collective idea. next are the commercially generated tribal symbols of  logo's, band names, brand names and branded objects like watches, footwear and so on.

New Albion Stitch 'Pathfinder Talisman'

Next, an maybe more fascinating are the objects that have deep significance to just the individual, or the individual and a very few, often family members. maybe a coming of age locket, earrings, graduation gifts, or a unique piece of jewellery passed from generation to generation. Stop and ask anyone about their treasure and they will probably tell you a great story.
There are also objects which we give meaning to in other ways, prayer boxes, charms to ward off evil, attract luck, or jewellery engraved with secret messages.
From the first stone with a hole through it, threaded onto the first piece of braided elephant grass, we have taken simple objects and given them a new significance. Even now, finding a stone with a hole through it is considered by some to be magical luck, to blow a wish through the hole a guarantee of happiness.
My curiosity is piqued by our collective need for some kind of touch stone, how and why these come about and what, as a designer of jewellery I can usefully add to this story.
It is a rich and esoteric theme to plunder and a source of fascination. These two pieces are part of what I'm telling myself has a loose working title of 'Talismans for a Time Traveller', partly because I can dip in and out of all sorts of cultural references, going back in time, partly because I'm not sure yet where this little adventure is going.

D'you like the little cake tin I used as a prop? It is really dinky and quite old. For baking Madeleine sized cakes when it was shiny and new.

A day with the antiquities

The Natural History Museum

exuberant column top to go

 My friend Mary and I spent a day in Oxford visiting both the Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean museums. Quite a stretch for the legs but worth it for the simple restocking of inspirations.
We took sketch books, but I find that the brain refuses to engage meaningfully, and instead is busy absorbing things randomly.
Firstly, let's just celebrate the Natural History Museum and home of the Pitt Rivers collection. Stand back and applaud the creative literalism of mid nineteenth century architecture. You can find out all about it here, paid for mainly by public subscription,

what you see today is what was created before funds ran out and interest waned. I LOVE this building and interior, it tells, quite lyrically, of the excitement and energy surrounding the quest for knowledge, anywhere your hand touches a stone ballustrade there is a beautiful curl of carved leaf or bud by James or John O'Shea, those on the stair worn shiny and nearly off by a million hands.

mongoose eating beetle... of course.

What's not to love about the cast iron columns, each topped with a collage of plant life picked out in gold and each one different. The stone columns carved with fruits and animals, insects... I love that the stone masons worked from live samples brought up from the botanical collections... each column in the central hall smoothly carved from a different marble or stone from the British Isles.
OK, enough, visit yourself and enjoy.
Pass quickly by the collections of dinosaur bones and impaled lepidoptera to a small door in the far wall, to enter the Pitt Rivers museum. This I love too, rows of tall glass sided mahogany cabinets stuffed to the gunnels with, well, stuff.

Each cabinet is themed on an aspect of life, the contents brought together from all over the world to show how humanity addressed that aspect, a kind of collective divergence. It is lit gloomy, a little enervating as you really don't know if you will turn a corner and be confronted with a collection of shrunken heads, shoes, weaving looms, pots, talismans, or objects not instantly identifiable, causing you to peer closer to read the inked labels.
It is the ultimate manifestation of all small boy's need to 'collect' indulged to the n'th degree.

Both here and at the Ashmolean, I was fascinated by the personal items, the every day objects that become talismans and votives, the small treasures that may not be precious of material, but imbued with meaning for the owner, and mysterious now to us, the inquiring observers.
I now want a metal thingy with little dangling fish and fruit and a key and a miniature tambourine, how utterly eclectically Steampunk is that!!!

Sparkly Christmas London

Lynn and Gillian

Had a lovely day in London yesterday with my friends Gillian, bead artist extraordinaire, Lynn, who owns a little slice of beading heaven in Dorset, and Jackie who is a gifted bookbinder and lover of all things craft.
We met at the V&A for a visit to the Power of Making exhibition before it closes. Fascinating and inspiring, and definitely thought provoking, not least in the selection of crafts and media. We had a lively debate about it over lunch in the divinely tiled dining rooms. In contrast to some of the sleek computer generated modernist objects we'd just been looking at, the comfortingly familiar font and the soft yet achingly lovely colour palettes of this completely tiled space were kind of reassuring in one way, yet suddenly and overwhelmingly fussy in another, definitely experiencing visual overload!!

Totally tiled tea rooms

Next, we spend several happy hours dribbling over the glass in the newly laid out Jewellery Gallery. With some of the exhibits comes that lovely feeling of greeting an old and much loved friend, often seen in favourite books, but so much more beautiful in real life. With others, the brain tick ticking away over shapes and how to redevelop them using just threads and beads instead of heat and metal and hammers... oooh!!! more experience overload, and still the bookstore to browse!
I treated myself to the book of the exhibition so I can read up some more about the thinking behind it.
Then there was just time to pop up the road to look at the Christmas windows created for Harrods by the Swarovski team. Best seen on a dark and rainy evening, the Enchanted Forest theme is lavish, monocrome, slightly strange and attracting lots of admiration from the passing crowds of shoppers. You can watch the beautiful and otherworldly film created for Harrods online by Anryk Bregman of unit9 here. Or listen to Anryk talk about it here. Or you can see my pocket camera snapshots of the bits I liked best.

moonlight and filigree, window detail 

dove window detail

pretty sparkly lovely things

Definitely a brilliant day. From the serious business of craft and technology embracing new media; tempered by the reassuring evidence that true craftsmanship is breathtakingly beautiful and timeless in the jewellery gallery; to the awesome power of brand to conjure and inspire a creative and completely ephemeral world. Best of all, to see it all in the company of good friends.

We're planning to hop on a train to Paris next to visit the Musee D'Orsey...

 now that will be a grand day out.

harvest an idea

a snap from the i-photo stash

Recently I was being interviewed for an article and interviewer asked, 'do you keep a sketch book?'... long pause, 'Well yes, kind of... I have a little book in my bag that I scribble in with black biro... the scribbles make sense to me, but definitely nobody else'.
I got to thinking about this because I used to love filling sketchbooks with drawings, colourful snippets and ideas. A habit from my art school days when the sketchbook was a tool for processing thoughts. Our drawing tutor also drummed into us that we couldn't expect to understand shape unless we stopped to really look and explore things with our eyes.
To be fair, I also have in my bag an amazingly small digital camera and i-photo folders full of 'eye candy' snaps that I use for inspiration, is that virtual sketch booking?
I love buying sketch books, can't resist the promise of a new one with all those lovely creamy empty pages. Promise that one day I will fill them, then off they go, into the box with all the others.
Just to remind myself, I dug out some old, filled sketchbooks and was amazed at the energy and colour I'd poured into them, a little bit nostalgic too for the days when I had time to start each project with a good long sketchbook filling session.
Then the brain played the 'what if' trick, what if you started with a really small sketch book, what if you got back into using one, what if you just, like, sat down and did a drawing for the first time in forever?
So with some acorns and oak leaves gathered on my woodland walk it was out with the crayons, watercolours wetted down at the ready and a whole afternoon later my first little page is done.
Why Acorns?

first 15x15cm sketchbook... filled!

I'll show you tomorrow...