Posts from — May 2010

I’m back from the Mayfair juried arts show in Cloudcroft, NM that took place over Memorial Day weekend, and tomorrow I’ll share pictures of the new booth design I came up with. 

But for today, I’m honored to report that I have been chosen as “Designer of the Week” at Art Bead Scene blog! Wow, what a wonderful surprise. Before I left last Friday morning I was so busy working on last minute details that I didn’t have time to blog about my entry, which was inspired by Marc Chagall’s painting Le Jongleur/The Juggler. I was just happy to have made the deadline! I’m so proud of myself for making it, despite everything that was going on in preparation for Mayfair. This is the result. I’m calling it Time Flies, and if you look closely beneath the clock gears you can see the number 2 has “flown” off the clock face and is winging away on the orange parrot feather:

The pendant is a large oval collage bead made of Kato pearl and dark blue concentrate clays, gold-colored metal foil, a stamp with snippets of paragraphs in French, parrot feathers, an antique watch face and gears, a random piece of antique jewelry, and resin. The antique piece of jewelry had a hole at the top where it had been connected to other pieces, but because I knew the piece of jewelry embedded in the clay wouldn’t be strong enough to support the entire pendant, I created a bead hole near the top of the oval focal piece for a 20-gauge sterling silver wire,  and I created a festoon-like drape of lightly oxidized sterling silver chain. For the necklace I used hand-dyed royal blue silk ribbon, lapis lazuli oval beads and amber chip beads, which were a perfect match for the orange parrot feather.

With the watch face and gears, this piece is in the tradition of the popular jewelry style known as “Steampunk,” which I would describe as “mechanical Victoriana.” After this, I was inspired to create more Steampunk pieces, so I bought Christi Friesen’s book, Steampunkery.

Though my style is nothing like Christi Friesen’s, this little book is filled with ideas and inspiration. It’s also full of Christi’s wonderful humor, which makes reading her books fun. She describes Steampunk as  a “sort of Victorian-era mad scientist adventurer look–all clockwork gears and brassy bits, leathery straps, and even the occasional bit of “lacy filigree.” I think I may have too much of the “lacy filigree”  look in this piece to be truly “Steampunky,” but it was a fun introduction for me, a way to stretch my imagination into a new arena. I’m looking forward to doing more jewelry in my own Steampunk style.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, the books I recommend are part of that associate program, so if you decide to buy the book, I will earn a percentage. However, I only recommend books on my blog that I am happy to read and use myself.

Summer is my favorite season, and it always takes its sweet time getting to my neck of the woods (and it never sticks around as long as I would like), so I’m always thrilled when it finally arrives. I was no less excited to work with the items I chose for the Summertime Blogging Fun promotion for Artbeads.com, featuring charms, pendants, and glass beads. Landlocked ocean lover that I am, I love paua shell and dolphins, so I combined two loves  in the Paua dolphin pendant I chose. The pendant comes plain with the paua shell on the front and black acrylic coated resin on the back, like this:

This dolphin pendant is pretty on it’s own, so I could have happily put a jump ring in the hole and threaded the pendant on a chain or ribbon, but of course I saw the pendant as part of a larger picture. So I finally came up with the idea to create a polymer clay and domed resin pendant piece with wire curls that simulate stylized ocean waves so that the paua shell dolphin would look like it was leaping out of the ocean. Combined with some seed beads, seafoam green ribbon,  shell beads, crystals, and blue pearls, the final design came out like this:

And would summer be complete without butterflies? Of course not. Lately I’ve been admiring the necklaces I’ve seen that feature decorative clasps somewhere in the front of the design, so when I saw this Sterling silver 3-strand butterfly hook and eye clasp, the design idea came pretty quickly. I’m primarily a wire wrapper, but in this case I thought a lot of wire work would just detract from the beauty of the butterfly clasp, so I kept the design simple and elegant, using some cyclamen colored Swarovski bicones and Czech glass maple leaf beads that I chose from Artbeads.com to go with the butterfly clasp.

When I ordered this clasp, I couldn’t really tell how it worked from the pictures on Artbeads.com, but when it arrived I figured out how simple it was. The clasp is well hidden. The middle ball of the butterfly’s body hides the eye, while one wing hides the hook, and when the clasp is closed you can barely see the seam. The butterfly has a slightly oxidized appearance, but parts are still shiny and reflective, as you can see in the pictures; the colors are a reflection of the aqua and purple fabric I used on the surface where I was photographing this piece. Though I chose to use the clasp in front, I could easily imagine how beautiful a necklace would look with this clasp in back, either with short hair or an up-do. Perfect for a summer wedding.

And anyone who knows me knows how much I love hummingbirds, so from the extensive selection of charms, I chose this sterling silver hummingbird charm to work with:

In my opinion, this is one of the prettiest sterling silver hummingbird charms I’ve ever seen. I’ve used other sterling hummingbird charms, but none had quite the detail and graceful appearance of this one. This one is very dimensional–so dimensional you do need to be careful how you use the charm in your jewelry, because the little guy’s beak sticks out and could be a bit uncomfortable. This would make a nice bracelet charm, and the attached hidden loop on the back is perfect for threading the charm on a chain or ribbon, but because of my penchant for complicated jewelry, this is what I ended up doing with it:

Though I sometimes receive free items because of Artbeads.com’s blogging program, I also order other items from them on a regular basis because of the quality of the items I’ve received. I’m thinking these items have been some of my favorites so far. Plus, you can’t bead free shipping in the United States.

Disclosure Notice: The sterling silver butterfly clasp, the paua shell dolphin pendant, the Czech glass leaf beads, and the sterling silver hummingbird charm used in these pieces were provided free of charge by Artbeads.com for my participation in the Artbeads.com blogging program. I have not received any payment from Artbeads.com, and this post represents only my personal opinion.

I feel like a juggler lately! So many things to keep up in the air at the same time. And now this contest that I really want to enter. Art Bead Scene is a blog that sponsors a monthly contest in which entrants are supposed to “create something using an art bead that fits within [their] monthly theme. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.” And you can’t just string the pretty bead on a chain or cord and call it good.

So the painting that is supposed to inspire entrants in the May challenge is this piece by Marc Chagall called Le Jongleur, or The Juggler. I studied Chagall a bit in art history, and I love his use of color. But his work also intrigues me because of its mixture of surrealism and symbolism; I appreciate the fact that I can look at one of his paintings and find interesting hidden meanings. For instance, whether Chagall intended it or not, I see the saying “Time flies when you’re having fun,” because the winged, bird-like juggler in the center ring of the circus seems to be running to take off in flight with a bent clock draped over his arm. Of course that also makes me think of time melting away. Interesting, because Salvador Dali, a surrealist, melted a lot of clocks in his art, too. This is probably Dali’s best known “melted clock” painting, titled Persistence of Memory:

What is it with these surrealists and their melting clocks? Some say it speaks to the belief in the irrelevance of time, but if time is so irrelevant, why bother painting it melting away? Seems to me time is pretty relevant, and anyone who is trying to juggle numerous things (especially with deadlines looming!) would probably understand that. But both paintings do make me think about prioritizing and spending my time wisely doing what I love (creating art and jewelry, enjoying and sharing in the creativity of others), and spending my time with those I love most: God, family, and friends.

So now I’m going to attempt to come up with a polymer clay art bead and a piece of jewelry based on thoughts and colors inspired by Le Jongleur. I’ve been wanting to try something that involved the look of “Steampunk,” and since time, watches, clocks, etc. are part of that look, and since I just got some antique watches and watch parts, I think I’ll melt some of my own time working on this today.

Before I go, and since it’s Sunday, I’ll leave you with another inspiring work of art by Chagall, a stained glass window for the Catholic church of St. Stephan in Mainz.

Today ends an online course I took with Laura Bray on Multiple Streams of Income for Artists and Crafters. What a great course! I recommend it. Although I was already enjoying several streams of income, I was also driving myself crazy trying to do too many things. I needed some help focusing my energy on specific goals, and one of my goals has been to create a more cohesive public image, a small part of the process of branding.

(Side note: my cattle rancher husband understands the original practice this business concept comes from pretty well, since he had a little run in with the branding iron last week. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad; his cheek has peeled and healed.)

I still don’t know all I want or need to about branding, but I do know that with the coming arts and crafts show season, I want my jewelry booth and displays to better complement the business card I designed–which I really like, and which usually gets compliments. So I started with an idea for new earring cards. Somebody mentioned that they used business cards for their earring displays, so that got the creative juices flowing, and this is what I came up with:

I make both long and short earrings, so I used business card dimensions for one earring card size, and for the longer cards I created a design that would give me 2 earring cards printed on a single post card. Vista Print, where I usually print my business cards, was running a special on postcards, so I uploaded my postcard/earring card design. Whey the new cards arrived, I cut them apart and glued them on some plain black plastic hanging earring cards I bought when I first started this jewelry making madness. I did notice that the biz card size cards came back more purple than I intended, so I need to double check my color balance in that Photoshop file for future printings. They’ll still work, although they’re not the blue shade I really wanted.

I’m still experimenting with the walls for the new booth design, but since the earring cards have ivy leaves on them, I decided to go with an ivy leaf stencil on unbleached linen. We have lots of great linen scraps from when my husband built stretchers for an artist, so I figured why not find a way to use them? I’ll post pictures of the new stenciled linen wall panels as soon as they’re finished! The final result should look a lot cleaner than what is in the picture–I hope. That’s the plan, anyway.

In the meantime, the next project is repainting my tabletop display risers. I think it will all come together in the end.