Victoriana in Bead magazine

now that the latest issue of Bead magazine is on the news stands I can show and share the Victoriana floral locket. To create this Winter special magazine, Chloe the Editor invited designers to be inspired by an era, and I got Victorian.. which as y'all know is a perfect fit as I love all things vintage inspiration. I used my oval acrylic windows as templates and took the prettiest snippets from scans of old postcards which were saved by my Grandma. Pretty postcards like these were often posted in the morning and arrived by lunch time! I have one which was an invitation to afternoon tea that very same day, a testament to the power of a penny stamp and a great organisation; I guess they are also the forerunner of our emails and text messages.

Two Victoriana Lockets for Bead magazine

My 'Locket' has room for two images sandwiched between  acrylic windows, so is completely reversible. The project in the magazine give instructions for the embellished bezel, bail and a dainty beady ring, through which you can thread some ribbon to finish off the vintage look.

If you don't have vintage post cards, there are lots of on line sites offering free or very reasonably priced down loadable images, You can also spend a small fortune and many happy hours in craft stores choosing papers and ephemera in the papercrafting section.

Make a matching birthday card and gift

I admit happily to being utterly charmed by anything that is made personal, such as home made greeting cards and small hand made gifts. These will win my heart every time, so I'll definitely be using this design for some presents.

Day trip to Wells

Cloister, Wells Cathedral

I love going to Wells, the saturday street market is great, lots of really good food stalls too. But this time, we decided to be tourists and visited the Bishops Palace and grounds. How weighted with history are these sheltered and moated grounds. Most of the centre of Wells is like a film set for a medieval or gothic drama, specially f you know which alleys to wander through. The twin towered cathedral is huge and solid from the outside, etherial and timeless inside.
The palace grounds are beautiful, peaceful and calming in the soft English sunshine. There is the little bell that the swans have learned to pull at a certain time, to be dutifully fed through a window above. Or you can go play Robin Hood on the ramparts overlooking the moat and the Bishop's see, as in see all that? it belongs to the church, see?

The Wells pool with the Cathedral beyond

Also in the grounds are the Wells. This is the water source for the whole town.
four million gallons of water a day bubble up in several different spots on the floor of this pool, it is mesmerising to watch. Yes, technically springs, but called Wells in this spot for as long as anyone can remember... undoubtedly a Somerset thing.
So I love the sense of history, I am comforted by the longevity of the buildings, the continuity of worship and ritual, even by the stories on the memorial plaques that bring the dead back to us as real people who strived and achieved, or not, just as we do. But just tickling away like a naughty whisper is... why did they build the church on top of the only water source in the region... and the awful feeling of knowing exactly why.
Back in the sunshine, we sit and enjoy coffee and I doodle some motifs to add to my collection and the story about talismans. Here are two of the pieces that began the idea.

I was educated in a convent school, which I loved and hated in equal parts. One summer then nuns were told to hand in their large ornate and very gothic crucifix pendants, which were to be replaced with smaller far more modern brushed steel crosses that were almost not crosses at all. I could see that some nuns were profoundly upset to loose their iconic talismans. Not comfortable with having to build a relationship with a new symbol. This momentary glimpse into lives which held so very few possessions gave me an insight into the subject that has become a fascination in my work.

Eye for Scrying

Scrying Compass

One of these two pieces will be a workshop next year, I've worn it a lot and have finally resolved how to offer a class without making everyone french knit a cord with very fine crochet cotton (! labour of love alert!), as I explore this theme more the shapes for the symbols resolve and rearrange. This will be a fun class too as we get into multiple layers and some really cute beaded end caps.

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!!!

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!