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.

tired but inspired

Takako and I smiling for the camera

I've just emerged from the chaos that is getting back into work mode after a week away. I've been to the Creativa show in Dortmund, for a week of selling my work, meeting the amazing beaders of Germany, and teaching too. I have lots of stories, some repeatable, many not (you know who you are). Some lovely boast moments, who knew I'd be exhibiting my work next to the legend that is Huib Petersen.
But for today I'll show and share something jaw droppingly amazing.
The major exhibition was loom woven beadwork by the Japanese artist Takako Sako. I had seen and written about her amazing kabuki Theatre Kimono when it was exhibited in London, but great works become like friends so it is always a pleasure to see again now at the end of a world tour, the Kimono will now remain in Japan at the Kabuki Theatre Museum in Tokyo.

Glorious Kimono

Woven in cylinder beads, over 1.2 million of them, in loomed panels this is an astonishing piece on many levels.
For me the colours and patterns are deliciously traditional with a refreshing twist and enough delightful mixes to keep  you wanting to go back and take another look. It's fascinating to see how woven glass picks up and extends some elements of conventional woven and embroidered silks, but has reflective properties unique to loom weaving with glass as well.
Then there is the slow realisation of the sheer technical mastery required to make such a weight of glass remain fluid and sag free, and the enormity of the task in terms of hours at the loom required to weave even one of the many panels required.

Technical perfection, patterned beaded spheres.

With this show stopping creation were a row of simple belts, another of lanterns of beaded spheres and woven ribbons. Those beaded spheres caught my technical eye, more were scattered on the floor with yes, a confetti of individually beaded flower petals. The spheres measure about 15cm diameter and are perfectly spherical, completely covered with pattern and so cunningly constructed that at first, you simply cannot imagine how, beading at it's very best!
I am deeply honoured that Takako Sako, herself author of 13 books, visited my display of Albion Stitch flowers and insects and travelled home with a copy of my book, telling me that she was delighted in turn to have found, 'Something different I have not seen before'.