Most people who know me know I suffer from chronic insomnia. I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have trouble falling asleep. This would probably not be a problem if I was free to go to bed when I wished (3am) and wake when I wished (10-11am). I’ve never, ever been one to bounce out of bed, cheerful and ready to attack the day. Oh no. Not I. It’s more of a slow, staggering, where-the-heck-is-the-shower type of rising.

I have a husband and a son, so I therefore get to bed at 11pm (read for an hour to try to relax the mind) and then get up at 7am (staggering) to start the day with the kidlet. My first attempt at creativity doesn’t start until 1:30pm, after I’ve dropped Zack at preschool and hit the gym, and by that time, I’m eyeing the bed with longing and hoping that maybe, just this once, caffeine will actually WORK on me.

So, many times, I fall into a color rut. I can design a pretty bracelet while I’m tired, but often I can’t get my mind to think of new, exciting, or unusual color combinations, and I end up making something pretty, but (to me) “normal and boring”.

I get tired. I just can’t think. So I’ve come up with a solution called a Color Book. I cut out clipping from magazines — bits of clothing, photos of flowers, Pantone swatches, paint chips, anything that gives me an “a ha!” moment.

This helps get my mind out of “I desperately need a Starbucks” to “oh yeah, I do have other beads I can play with”. It’s amazing, like a walk outside, when I flip through this book. Ideas start clicking and I start grabbing beads out the cabinet and cool things start to happen…..

The color book helps me get out from under making an all pink, all blue, or all purple bracelet (easy for me to do!) and gives me a much needed injection of mental caffeine. It’s a great artist’s tool that I highly recommend!

Now, if I could only do something about the insomnia……

Lori Anderson designs and blogs from her studio in Easton, MD. You can buy her work at her website, Etsy, and craft shows, and read more about her at her blog.

]]> http://watchmecreate.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/color-and-insomnia/feed/ limamike lori anderson bracelet lori anderson color book inspiration lori anderson bracelet lori anderson bracelet jewelry lori anderson lampworkw silver bracelet http://watchmecreate.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/keeping-a-spirit-alive-with-art-glass-beads/ http://watchmecreate.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/keeping-a-spirit-alive-with-art-glass-beads/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 22:22:13 +0000 Sheila Morley http://watchmecreate.wordpress.com/?p=1065

Beads can be little keep sakes. Years ago I enjoyed making neck pieces with seed beads that would tell stories. Little pictures of landscapes and stick people, would go around a 1/2″ tube of seed beads. I used a geometric square stitch. The stitch only had so many possibilities; I had limitations. Unless I made the piece huge, I could not really get the detail I was looking for, so I lost interest.

One of the things I LOVE about lampworking glass beads, is that I am not limited at all when it comes to detail. The only thing that has held me back in the last few years is my experience, and skills. At this point I feel my skills have come along way, and I am much more confident with the custom orders I take. In the last couple years I have been making family beads, and keep sake beads with animals or people.

My most recent commissions were gifts made for a mom and daughter that lost their family in a car accident. I was asked to create two beads. One for the mother who lost her daughter and husband, the other for the mother’s other daughter that is getting married this weekend. The flower girl was the little girl killed in the car accident. Sad.

The bead for the mother, with the family of three was created as a keep sake, created to remember her family by. A family of three Soul gestures with a rainbow horizon. On the back of the bead is three hearts, symbolising that someday they will be together in heaven.

The bead for the step daughter is a gift for her Wedding. On one side, we have two soul gestures, representing the couple to be married, and a horizon with a rainbow. The back of the bead is two murrini hearts in the sky. This is symbolizing her step sister, and Dad in heaven looking over them.

Traditionally Art has been used to depict historical figures. Usually to show our appreciation for the people that come before us, and to remember what they stood for. Seeing a piece of art, custom made, that is about your family, is priceless. It is awesome, and exciting.

Creating something that has a strong meaning, and can make someone have feelings, is inspiring to me. A keep sake like this can keep the spirit of those two souls alive for years to come. This bead will tell a family story that may be sad, but in the end, that family will enjoy the memory of those two people forever; keeping their spirit alive.

You can visit my website (www.sheilamorley.com) if you are interested in seeing more of my work.

After my recent show I crashed, as I usually do. This wasn’t a particularly hard show…it was local and the hours were not too early nor too late. And there was a Starbucks. Regardless, I slept for two days afterwards. I’m such a wimp. Upon returning after a show I always feel like I should be at the torch but I really don’t have a purpose. What the heck would I make? My next show isn’t until September. I guess I could work on orders.

As I sat down I wondered what would happen. I didn’t have designs in mind. I didn’t even have color ideas. I dreaded the thought of just sitting down and playing because that never turns out well for me. But, I sat my butt down anyway. And this is what happened:

More large, flat-backed medallions that more than stand alone. But wouldn’t a whole string of them, choker-style, be cool too?

Somehow the bright colors called to me…which they usually don’t. Simple forms on a grand scale.

They’ve already morphed into something else and I better get out to the studio to see how they turned out!

I have another studio that has nothing at all to do with glass. In this other studio I work with colors and flame to change, rearrange and transform an organic material into something all together different. Wait, no that is what I do in my glass studio. Well, maybe the two are not so different after all.

My other studio is my kitchen. It is one of my favorite places to be. I enjoy making people happy with what I cook and I love the process so much. For me, cooking is like glass, it is part science, part art and all passion. Previously I worked as a chef and although I do not do it full time anymore, I still love it.

I am catering a gourmet dinner for four this weekend and today I am playing in my “other studio”. I am doing some prep work for the dinner. Things that have to be made ahead of time for the best flavor. I am making soffritto today and I am making garlic comfit. The garlic comfit is not so time consuming but a good soffritto takes about 4 or 5 hours. By the time Saturday comes both of these should have full flavor and enhance the dishes I am using them for.

As with glass, in cooking the process is a huge part of what draws me in and keeps me intrigued. I love to watch glass as it reacts to the heat, to the flame chemistry, to items like silver and to other glasses that you mix with it. Today, with the soffritto I am making, that is what I am doing as well. The process is what is important and there is a reaction happening.

I am creating a reaction by applying slow heat, very slow heat so as not to burn it. Moisture is getting slowly driven out and sugars, acids and other flavors are getting concentrated and mixing together. I can see a very gradual change as the heat begins to caramelize the sugars. Heat control is of vital importance today.

I am also making an aioli with the garlic comfit I made. Again it is the process that intrigues me here. An aioli is an emulsion made basically with egg, oil, lemon juice and garlic (a mayonnaise). The acid in the lemon juice will help de-nature the proteins in the egg and that will allow the water in the egg and lemon juice to get caught up in the proteins of the egg and it will bind together with the oil. Sounds complicated but it really isn’t and it is very tasty.

The color pallet is also a natural draw for me. The stark contrasts of red tomatoes with the pale yellow and whites of onions or the earthen muted tones of garlic cloves against a sprinkling of deep green chives. There are so many possibilities.

The flavors again are part science and part art. I like to layer flavors so you get hints of different tastes as you eat. I like contrasts in flavor, texture and temperature. Of course you take the science, the art, the colors and the flavors and then add fire and who wouldn’t love it?

So, today I will play in my other studio and maybe go play with glass later. Somehow though I know they are both related. Creativity is often where you allow it to be.

Otter

Otter is a glass artist who blogs from The Pacific Northwest.

I got a kilo of happiness in the mail!

No no no. Not that kind of kilo. Although it did come from a tropical island!

I love, love, LOVE larimar. Larimar is a rare blue gemstone found in only one square kilometer of the world — in the Dominican Republic. Larimar is a volcanic rock, and since it’s in such a limited area, it won’t be around forever.

It’s not often that you find jewelry made with larimar beads. There’s a lot of wasted stone when cutting beads, so it makes sense that they aren’t readily available. I feel lucky to have a source.

The other day I emailed my supplier and asked if any beads had come in (last time I’d asked, in February, he’d said there wouldn’t be any until September, but I figured there was no harm in asking). He said no, and he doubted there would be any at all until late next year.

Panic mode. No no no.

And then Divine Intervention — it must have been. Because he said, “Oh wait. I do have a kilo sitting here of all random beads that never made it onto strands. You want ‘em?”

Heck yes I wanted them.

Three days later, FedEx arrived, and I poured them out into a big serving bowl. (Cue angels). Aaaaaaaah.

I don’t know why, but I dearly love to sort beads. Sorting is also something I tend to do when the Creative Muse isn’t bothering to make a house call. So not only is this a mega mother lode of larimar beads, I get to sort and string and weigh and it will be an enormous pleasure.

However, I’m not looking at my credit card bill for a while.

Lori Anderson designs and blogs from her studio in Easton, MD. You can buy her work at her website, Etsy, and craft shows, and read more about her at her blog.

Look! I made a bead!

Okay, so what’s so special about that, seeing as how I am a lampworker after all?

Well, I gotta tell ya that I may be the only lampworker on the face of the earth who never practiced making those 100 spacers or perfected a simple round bead. I suck at it. I discovered sculpting, my beads grew and grew larger until they became sculptures, and I rarely try to make a wearable piece any more. . .

One of the rules of marketing for an artist is to always wear a piece of your work if at all possible, so I try to keep one or two wearable overgrown beads to wear. Yesterday, I sold my favorite one, and I figured it was time to make a new one. That’s it in the picture, and I gotta tell ya I am pleased with it! It’s only about an inch long, but it sure packs a nice bit of orange-y pizazz.

Whoops, I gotta run! Gotta fit in some torching time today. . . and methinks, I’ll be making one or two beads just for the fun of it!

AngelinaBeadalina is running behind yet again and so instead of leaving you a clever message here will just say: www.angelinabeadalina.com for links to my blog, my Etsy shop, and my BeadArtists.org gallery pages.

I was recently asked by Amy O over at www.zooziis.com if I might be interested in testing a new top secret tool for her. She said she liked the new things I was doing with Mixed Media Art and thought the new press might lend itself to things I could use in my pieces.

First of all, I gotta say… I was totally honored to be asked. Secretly, in the back of my tortured-in-high-school-always- picked-somewhere-in-the-middle-for-dodgeball mind, I hoped that someday I would be “good enough” to be asked to test something. LOL… silly, I know. (hmmm… now that I have had that secret wish filled, I wonder what one will replace it.) Anyway…

The tool is fantastic! Amy came up with the idea of having interchangable word plates that allow you to press messages into the surface of glass. They work with the texture plate presses she already has out. She let me choose a few words that I wanted to play with. I chose LOVE, DREAM, CALM, CREATE, & JOY. I picked words that spoke to me. I think JOY is such an under rated word, don’t you? It isn’t used nearly as often as it should. Looking back though, I should have asked for LIVE and LAUGH to go with LOVE because that would make a really sweet bracelet!

When the new tool arrived, I knew right away what I wanted to do with it… off mandrel flat back discs!! (what? wasn’t that what you were thinking? LOL) I think one of the reasons Amy asked me to test the tool was that she knew I wouldn’t go for the “supposed to” way of using it. Paired with cabochon mandrels by Inspiration Toolworks, I was able to get out of my head just what I had in mind. I love these new clasps!! And I also used a couple in ACEOs that I have been working on (shown up top).

Eventually Amy gave me a gentle nudge and asked if I had tried using it on mandrel as it was designed. I was so excited by the results. I found that words came out really crisp and clear with opaque glass and more subtle in transparent colors. Both very cool, very inspiring findings. I love the texture of the word in the surface of the glass. You can run your fingers across the bead and feel the bumps of each letter. I love love love jewelry you can play with while you wear it, and these beads definitely lend themselves to that.

Anyone else ever tested tools? Did you find it inspiring? I would love to hear more about it. And if you make beads and get one of these tools, I would love to see the kinds of things you came up with for it!!

Kerry Bogert is blogging about her glass art beads and jewelry from her home studio in Ontario NY. Check her work at www.kabsconcepts.com.

This we be the first post in a series of two or three post I will be writing about combining techniques. This post will have no photographs but I will post photo examples in my next two posts.

I started out in glass art doing kiln work. I had no interest in glass beads at all. In fact I would absolutely say that when it came to beads, I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t understand what all the hoopla was about those round little bits of glass. I wanted to make sushi plates, candle stands, platters and slumped, fused glass art. I was well on my way to understanding the process and starting to make some pretty decent fused pieces.

Then, one day at the museum glass co-op, someone brought in a Hot Head torch and some glass rods. I wasn’t really interested in lampworking but I thought I would give it a try. Maybe I could incorporate some lampwork elements into my fused projects. If nothing else, I could at least say I tried it.

So, I sat down in front of the torch, stuck a rod into the flame and in just a bit, the glass I was holding actually started melting and moving. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at that glass I thought, look what it is doing! Those first couple of minutes on that Hot Head torch changed my entire outlook on glass. I knew then that I was going to be a lampworker from that point forward.

I gathered the tools needed to do lampwork and started in like a mad scientist experimenting every day and working into the darkest hours of the night. Unfortunately I didn’t have anyone nearby to teach me lampworking so I decided to jump into it and teach myself as much as I could.

I completely stopped doing any fusing and slumping. The only thing the kiln was for now was annealing. I had forsaken fusing and slumping and dedicated myself to the torch. I am not a fickle person by nature but I had completely changed tracks in no time at all.

Fast forward several years now and I was out in my studio in the wee hours of the night working on teaching myself a new technique, new to me anyway and then it hit me. Hey, this would look good if I combined it with some fused work. Could it be? Did I actually say that? Yes, this piece would look really nice if I combined it with some fused work. So now I have to figure out how to do it. I am hoping it will turn out as nice as I think it will. When I get it worked out I will post photos of it.

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that each and every artistic media, technique or style I have ever learned, even though I may not have continued with it can always be combined in a totally unexpected way. I know most of us have worked in other media. I would encourage you from time to time to sit down and think about the different techniques you used and how they may be applied to the current media you are working in now. This can really help you think outside the box and possibly point you in a new and exciting direction.

Otter is a glass artist that blogs from the Pacific Northwest.

Here are all the views! This was a fun bead to take pictures of. Continuing from my last post; creating warring states dot/eye beads with people on them. I am creating Dzi style beads with the same style of dot/eyes. As I strived for perfection; over, and over again, trying to have straight, defined lines. Wanting each dot to be centered…the people in relief, no bleeding colors between the layers. Most of the parts of this bead are very defined, and perfected. Here is a stage of my progress.

Hm…that was a patient one….This is a one of a kind. The pedestal the bead is on is copper plated, and will someday be finished (when I get around to it).

The people remind me of cave paintings thousands of years old, and the design is ancient as well. The two together makes a good story.

Taking the time to be objective about my work has allowed my brain to take it this way. Thanks to this team blog.

You can learn more about me at my website. I currently have auctions at E-bay, or you can visit my fixed price shop at Etsy (with new marbles and my Largest DZI bead).

At last, the final installment of the adventures of my weekend metalsmithing class!

This project was actually the second piece I made, but I saved it for last because it was the most complicated, and the one of which I’m the most proud. This is also a piece that I’ll never sell.

I sketched out a design ahead of time — a shield with a stone bezel set in the center.

For a stone I ended up with a round piece of blue dichroic glass, about the size of a dime, but tall, and I decided that the blue would look best with all silver, so scrapped the copper/silver idea.

I was a bit afraid of the saw, so instead of sawing the shield out of 20 gauge silver sheet, I cut it out with shears. That meant a lot of heavy-duty filing. And we weren’t using any power tools whatsoever in this class. Hand drills, hand files, (and of course no pickle) — all elbow grease.

(I think next time, I’ll use the saw.)

Next, I made the bezel. In my summer class, I worked way too quickly and subsequently didn’t do such a good job. This time, I took my time, took deep breaths, and got that bezel just right. Once the bezel was done, though, I realized, the glass bead was a good 3mm taller than the bezel wire. “What do I do?” I asked the teacher.

She thought that if the bezel fit tightly enough after soldering, and I pushed the bezel wire in enough, it might hold. That didn’t work. So we looked at the piece, looked at each other silently, and she said, “You know. You could put a dab of glue in the bottom.”

Thank heavens she wasn’t against glue like some metal teachers!!!! Besides, this was my piece, not something for MOMA, so who cares. ‘Tis mine. Glue it is.

While soldering the bezel to the shield, a cool thing happened — the solder “bloomed” in a beautiful pattern all the way around, just like a sun’s corona. I marveled at how that happened, and decided that was a sign that it had to become part of the design. So I took a repousse tool and deeply scratched the surface of the metal to create sun rays around the dichroic glass.

Next, I wanted to stamp the word “DREAM” under the glass, but heaven forbid if I screwed that up after all the work I did soldering and filing. I practicing on copper first, but when I tapped the stamps on my pendant, I hit them HARD — all except the E. So I got little half circles above the letters. Oh well, I thought, we’ll call those clouds.

And then I got brave.

I had some empty space at the bottom of the shield that just NEEDED something. And it needed negative space — it needed me to cut something out. That meant using a saw. So I drew a tiny heart, drilled a hole in the center, threaded the saw blade through, bit my lip, and began to saw.

And I’ll be dipped, but it worked. I didn’t even break a saw blade.

Here you have it….

My Insomnia Talisman. Blue sky, suns rays (to help me wake up), “DREAM”, to help me get to sleep, a heart for Heart’s Ease and Relaxation, and those clouds over “DREAM” because who doesn’t like to look up at the clouds?

Finishing the pendant was a challenge. I should have drilled the holes on the sides, per my sketch, but forgot in my excitement. I tangled wire up on a 16 gauge branch, thinking for some reason about bird’s nests, and finally, it’s done.

Not in the least bit perfect. But I am so incredibly proud of myself for doing something that is completely against the grain of my comfort zone, working with metal in this way, making something rustic when I normally like whimsical, and taking the time to work without power tools so I can feel what I was doing.

No idea where this will lead. But I’m glad I took the road.

Lori Anderson designs and blogs from her studio in Easton, MD. You can buy her work at her website, Etsy, and craft shows, and read more about her at her blog.