When inspiration fails, try changing your surroundings

Despite everything I tried when it came to my bead making there was one major issue I couldn’t work around. I was working in an energy sucking hole - my basement. The walls were dark concrete gray and while they were poured to look like brick the pattern didn’t fool anyone, the whole thing looked and felt like a dungeon.

Working in a dungeon killed my creativity and made me want to get out of there as soon as possible. Therefore I never cleaned up after myself when I was done and that made things even worse when I couldn’t find my tools, or the glass I wanted to use. It got frustrating and lacked efficiency so I finally decided to do something about it.

Here is the before -

And after -

Dramatic difference don’t you agree? I painted the concrete with white drylock and then rolled the light blue on the brick so that it only hit on the high areas. Then I painted the rack I store my glass in and did a general cleaning and purging.

I now have a bright cheerful workspace, hopefully bright cheerful beads will follow.

Heather blogs out of her home in Watertown, WI. You can see more of her work here and read her blog here.

Sculptural practice - Just having fun!

I’ve been keeping up with my sculptural practice and been having fun doing it. My latest venture has been blobby aliens. In my first post on sculpture you saw I was having some trouble making sure that I didn’t let parts of my beads get too cool while I was working on other parts. I decided to go back to simpler sculptures to practice insurance heating more. Hence the blobby aliens were born.

They aren’t very complex but they were good practice in keeping a bead warm while not loosing definition in features. As you can see from some of the legs on some of them I still need more practice but making these little weird guys is fun so that won’t be hard to manage

Heather blogs from her home in Watertown, WI. If you would like to see more of her work you can check out her site here.

Stretching Myself - Sculpture

Its the start of a new year and traditionally the time when we make resolutions to change something or create a new habit for the coming year. Every year since I got married I’ve resolved to lose weight. Some years I do, some years I don’t but every year I have the same old boring resolution.

This year I decided to change things a bit and decided that one of my resolutions would be to make at least one sculptural piece each time I sit down at the torch. I love sculptural beads and have dabbled in them a bit but never really made a concerted effort at them.

Sculpture is posing interesting challenges for me. I have a hard time driving it into my head that insurance heat is a good thing. This means that while I’m working on a piece I have the occasional failure and suddenly I’ll find myself dodging Cupid’s foot as it explodes because I’ve let it get too cool. I also have issues with melting features in all the way so that I have to redo them while trying to keep other features from melting in. Then I make other parts too thin so the bead breaks while I remove it from the mandrel.

Despite these issues, each bead teaches me something about the art of hot glass sculpture. If I can stick to my resolution I am confident that someday I will make cute sculptures that people would love to buy.

Above are three of my attempts at sculpture. You’ll notice that my cupid is missing his foot (it landed in my lap). The butterfly has a chip at the bottom that came off when I took it off the mandrel. And my poor cat (Letting the Cat our of the Bag) had his paws melted in while I was giving him a face.

Oh, and I did still resolve to loose weight

Heather blogs from her home in Watertown, Wisconsin. If you would like to see more of her work you can go to her site here.

Assembly Part 2 - Just Do It!

The comments and a couple private emails on my first entry about my assembly style made me realize how intimidating some people find the process of design and assembly. This is a shame because the comments/emails were all sent by people I know for a fact are tremendously creative. Therefore, part 2 is going to be a bit of a pep talk along with a few ‘rules’ I have come up with along the way.

1 - Don’t be afraid, beads don’t bite.

You can do pretty much anything you want with beads. You may be the only person who likes it but as long as you are happy who cares what anyone else thinks of it? Jewelry is so subjective that no one can ever tell what will or will not sell.

2 - Stringing or other Assembly techniques are not permanent.

If you make a piece of jewelry and don’t like it, redo it. Stringing a bead is not a permanent commitment. Nothing says that you cannot take your piece apart and redo it if you don’t like it. The necklace in this picture was taken apart about 10 times before I came up with a design I liked.

3 - Symmetry, Take it or Leave it.

Symmetrical or pattern based pieces can be quite lovely, but don’t be caught up in the trap that says all pieces must be symmetrical. As long as a piece you are working on is properly weighted so that it hangs properly the rules of symmetry can be tossed out the window. Try using a pretty clasp as a focal point, group a few focal beads together in one section but don’t have an identical cluster on the other side. Here is a picture of a necklace I made where I decided the clasp shouldn’t stay in back.

In this picture you can see the cluster of lampwork with no corresponding cluster on the other side.

4 - Experiment with different sized beads and uses for the beads.

Just because your focal bead or the bead set you are using in your piece is a certain size don’t be afraid to use other beads that are wildly different in size from your focal pieces. Seed Beads can be great with lampwork despite the vast difference in size.

5 - Experiment with wild colors.

Just because your focal bead is one color doesn’t mean the accent beads have to be shades of that color. The necklace I posted in the first Assembly entry had a teal focal, and yes, some of the seed beads were teal, but I also had cobalt, light blue, and emerald green in the necklace. The colors didn’t match, but they did coordinate into a harmonious whole. If you missed that post you can see it here, complete with the picture of the necklace.

6 - Experiment with fibers.

This is one I haven’t used yet but I plan to. There are so many cute eyelash yarns, silk ribbons, and other fibers available now there is no reason not to add them to your work. These fibers will add not only an interesting visual component but a textural one as well.

And last but not least, the most important rule of all.

7 - THERE ARE NO RULES!!!

What I just typed is what works for ME. If you find that you wildly disagree with one of my rules, or it just doesn’t work for you then toss it out the window. Not only is jewelry making subjective for the buyer but it is also subjective for the maker. If you take nothing else from this post I want you to take away one thing. Just Do It! As long as when you complete the piece it doesn’t fall apart and you are happy about it then you have done it right. There is really no wrong way to create jewelry.

Now get up from your computer and go make something. Don’t forget to let me see what you have done.

Heather blogs from her studio in Wisconsin. If you would like to see more of her work check out her site at www.squareonebeads.com.

Assembly, the other half of jewelry making

Most of the articles here have been on the creative process of working with the glass to create beads, sculpture, tiles, etc… Very little has been said about the creative process of making jewelry though, and for many of us who work with glass the glass we create is not where the process ends. For me, only about half of the glass beads I make are sold as beads, the rest I turn into finished jewelry and sell it that way.

When I write out my work plan for the day I designate on my plan what will go to auction and what will go for jewelry. Sometimes however, I like something so much I will make two similar sets, one for jewelry and one for auction. If I REALLY like something I make three sets, one for jewelry to sell, one for auction, and one for a piece of jewelry for me. After all, if I’m not going to wear my jewelry, why should I expect anyone else to?

After I’ve made a bead or bead set for jewelry I then compare it to the image I had of the finished jewelry in my minds eye and make any adjustments that may need to be made. Sometimes the adjustments take a while so the bead(s) will sit on my desk until I have decided on the final product.

Lately I have been on a seed bead kick. I really love how slinky and slippery a hank of seed beads feels when I run my fingers through it so the last time I was at a bead store I bought 5 or 6 hanks of seed beads just to have and fondle until the prefect lampwork beads came along. I thought the beads were pretty just on their own so I wanted a piece where they were allowed to shine. Here is one of the necklaces, mostly seed beads except for a single open lampwork heart connecting the two sides of the necklace.

I think it turned out great, don’t you?

Heather blogs from her home workshop in Wisconsin. If you are interested in the necklace featured here you can see it at her Etsy shop. Other pieces of hers as well as links to her current auctions can be seen on her site Square One Beads.