Update: Art Bead Scene’s May Challenge Inspired by Marc Chagall’s Le Jongleur

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.