Introduction: Lori Peterson (Loribeads)

Helloooooo! My name is Lori Peterson - AKA loribeads - and I’ve been making beads since January of 2002.

I’ve taken a couple classes, early on in my beadmaking career but, for the most part, I have learned through trial and error and lots of practice. Every moment at the torch is time well spent and there is no wasted glass. There, now that the formalities are out of the way, I can delve into the question at hand….

Who am I?

I can honestly say that, after 40 years on the planet, I finally have a pretty good idea of the answer to that question. I could go on and on about my daughter, my dog, my husband, my friends, etc. etc. etc. until you all lose interest and quickly click away but I promise I won’t! I want to use this platform for talking about what I am selfishly passionate about and that, my friends, is beads.

I am a beadmaker.

I love making beads, I love looking at beads, and I love talking about beads. I started out wanting to make sculptural, cute, sweet, little beads, and, for the most part, that’s what I make.

I had a vision and I am happy to say that I have honed my skills all these years to realize it. I am happy with my beads and my beads make me happy! I feel pretty lucky in that respect. There are always new avenues to explore, though. I have many, many things yet to try and many ideas that have yet to come to fruition.

Over the years, I have learned a few things about making beads and also about how to market them, mostly through trial and error. Generally, I learn most things through trial and error. I have garnished a wealth of information from fellow beadmaking friends and colleagues, also. I’ve learned to look at the world through a color wheel of glass rods, noticing color combinations that work.

I hope to share with you my process for creating and how I get ideas for making beads. I am really excited to have this opportunity!

Introduction: Lori Anderson

Hi, I’m Lori Anderson, and I’m new to Watch Me Create. I’m currently a jewelry artist, and I use handmade beads, gemstones, wire, and whatever is sparkly and pretty — but in an effort to differentiate, I’ve made a vow for 2008 to Try New Things.

I love eclectic things and have recently embraced quirky, kitschy things. Lately, I’ve been collecting vintage ephemera, making charms out of non-traditional supplies. Here are a couple I’ve done:

These are made with plastic tubing that I bought at the hardware store. I glittered the edges of the tubing, and then inserted rolled up paper from ads out of a 1952 National Geographic magazine. I capped the ends with Swarovski crystal, and added a vintage lucite butterfly dangle.

Next up are altered Scrabble tiles:

These were first painted multiple times. On one side, I glued Asian-print paper. On the other, I glued torn out bits from one of my Korean dictionaries. I sealed all that, and then glittered the edges.

A lesson learned from this experiment — don’t use the drill on the kitchen table. Nuff said.

Lori Anderson is a jewelry artist that blogs from her studio in Easton, MD.

Introduction: Darleen Michael-Baker

Darleen Michael-Baker here, aka DarleenMB. I’m a little intimidated by the company I’ve been invited to keep but I’m going to set aside my feelings of insecurity and just jump right in!

Personal stuff first. I’m married to a wonderful man (say hello, Joe!) and we’ve been together a total of, let me see, 34 years. We dated for 2 years, lived together for 16, got married and HEY! We’re still together! No kids except the 4 footed variety, all of whom have wound themselves around our hearts and so we’ve spoiled them all rotten!

I’d been playing around with stained glass for about 15 years (this was in the mid-’90’s) when I started hearing rumblings about “beadmakers” and the crazy things they were doing. It sounded fun! So I checked all my suppliers catalogs, ordered up a kit from Ed Hoy’s and a video tape on making beads and proceeded to scare myself out of the whole concept.

The tape showed a woman (sorry I’ve forgotten who it was) holding a MAPP gas canister between her thighs while she made beads. I had visions of dropping hot glass in my lap, leaping up in screaming pain, the gas and lit torch rolling under the table and setting the house afire. Unhuh. Think I’ll pass, thank you very much.

Then we moved “out to the country” and Joe began converting the attached single car garage into studio space. I hadn’t worked with my glass for almost 2 years and the urge to melt glass came over me again so in 2001 I signed up to take a class from Ginny Sycuro in Denver.

And came home with brand new Minor burner, about 10 pounds of glass and a fire in my eye that has yet to go out.

I started out working in the garage because the new studio wasn’t done yet (you can visit my studio and see how it all came about by clicking here). I didn’t care as long as I could have some place to just PLAY!In looking back over my work I see that in the beginning I was just fearless. I’d try just about anything. Then I slipped into a rut. And ruts, for me, are death to my creative process. So when I found this group I thought WOW this could be a way to get out of the rut (which has gotten deeper the last year or so) and get my muse back!

I’m looking forward to sharing thoughts and ideas as I struggle to get back that desire to just play with the medium that I had in the beginning.

I won’t have much to share in the first couple of weeks because I’m scheduled to take a class with Kate Fowle Meleney on the 21st and 22nd and then with Michael Barley in October on the 14th and 15th. I’ll detail those classes over on my personal blog and I’d like to invite you all to visit both that blog and my website (just to see what’s coming out of the kiln on a daily basis).

So stay tuned! I have some ideas I’ve been mulling over and I’ll be writing up notes to share so you can follow me and see how they turn out!

Darleen Michael-Baker is a glass beadmaker who blogs out of her home studio in Sheridan, WY.

Bead Muse Gets Distracted

The bad thing about having a broken camera is…obvious! The good thing; you get to get a new camera. Of course, in this world, when it rains it pours! Yep! When the camera breaks, the flat lap has to break too.

So, not only can you not produce the art you are planning, the muse gets a bit confused as well. If you read my last blog, you know I am inspired by Goddess beads. If you read the blog before that, you know I enjoy the meaning different elements add to my work. Without the flat lap and the camera; my muse has definitely been tampered with.

The first picture here is with my new camera (after a nice long lesson in, how this camera works). I just had to show how awesome macro works on this camera. My depth of field (distance from camera to objects in focus…) is HUGE! These are some of my first sculptural pieces (the back three) made with borosilicate glass, a year ago. (For my personal collection.) The piece in the foreground is Kronos, that beautiful Double Helix reactive glass. The space between the figure in the front and the one in the back is about 4″. Yes, my camera ROCKS!

The muse decided to work on those sculptures I have planned in the first picture. The, “how I wish it looked” is starting to come about. Foremost! Size matters! (I think of JC when I say that!) These need to get LARGE! In my mind! And large, to me, could be 4″ or 4′ ….

This one is 4″ tall. The largest to date! Could be larger. These are borosilicate. Now that I have more control with the encasement and the implosions, I am able to make some nice pedestals and backgrounds for my Soul Gestures to be a part of.

Even though my muse has been interupted by failed equipment and lost time; I am pretty happy with the flow. Especially since I have turned back to sculpture (my second artisitic passion; painting being the first). Really, I think many bead makers are sculptors in a bead makers body. If you really think about it, it is true! If we could lift 200 lb sculptures up and pack them in our bags, travel accross the country; that easy! Why bother making it small? I see the small thing as being an advantage to being a woman with a sore neck, arm and hand!

Now that the flat lap motor is fixed, this week I plan to work on the flat; creating geode style sculptural beads. Some research on the metals I am using is required. And, a new figure, that I am sure the energy from the metals will help inspire. We’ll see what my muse comes up with!

For additional information please see Sheila Morley’s Art blog. Sheila’s art work is currently documented in an on line gallery, and can be purchased at her website.

Introduction: Heather Hertziger

Hi, my name is Heather Hertziger and I’m a professional pyromaniac We won’t be telling that to my neighbor, Mr. Fire Marshal. He knows I play with fire but he doesn’t know about the maniac part yet and I don’t really think he needs to

I play with polymer clay, art clay silver, and of course glass. I started out as a jewelry designer. I have a bad nickel allergy so can’t wear the costume jewelry sold at the stores so had to make my own. I started to really like it and started selling. As I sold more I started investing in lampwork beads made by other artists because I thought there was no way I could ever afford to make my own beads. Then I discovered polymer clay and could make pretty beads for myself and so I did that for a couple of years.

Then one year at Bead and Button I found a vendor selling the hot head torch, a few rods of glass, and some basic tools for $99 dollars. Knowing nothing about safety or annealing I took my prize home. I started playing with the glass and researching my new love and through lots of trial and error (and NO classes) I learned how to make glass beads. My husband (wonderful man) bought me a kiln and controller and I started selling my beads. I have since graduated to a bobcat torch and while I still play with polymer clay and have added art clay silver to my collection of skills, glass will always be my first love.

I live with my husband of 11 years, my 8 year old German shepherd Summer, 2 bearded dragons, a rosy boa, and a leopard gecko. Pictures of them will appear in later posts as they are the inspiration for a lot of my work.

My husband is a wonderfully supportive man, as I said before, he bought me my kiln a little over a month after I got my hot head. Then later he bought me my bobcat and my oxycon. He said he bought me a bigger torch so I would quit eyeing the oxy/acetylene torch he uses to remove parts from his hobby car but he and I both know he did it because he loves me (pause for a collective awwww here)

I have never had a real formal class in either jewelry design, polymer clay, art clay, or lampwork. That’s why I have the name Square One Beads, everytime I screwed up I had to start again at square one. Not having a real class means that every time I sit at the torch its another lesson. Right now a lot of my work features flowers because two big techniques I need to work on are dot placement and stringer control. I hope as time goes on I will improve in both of these skills.

I currently sell my work on Ebay, JustBeads and my site www.squareonebeads.com. I hope you will check out my work and tell me what you think.