The Journey - Part Two

“Life lessons are not journeys traveled in straight lines but are crossroads

formed years and miles apart.”

― Gina Greenlee, Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road 

In my last post I shared some of our team's early work, with the thought of encouraging you on your own creative journey.  Its fun to look back and see how far we've come.  It helps to put things in perspective and it gives encouragement that the future will bring continued progress.

In Part One of this series, I highlighted the journeys of Karen Totten, Jennifer Cameron, Melissa Meman and Niky Sayers. Today let's take at look at Lesley's, Sue's and Rebekah's early work.

Lesley Watt
Lesley started out designing jewelry.  Later she branched out into making jewelry components as well.  Here is an early necklace and earring set she made, before discovering the world of art beads. Lesley says that, "This was the starting point of my design career and it highlights how much I've learned and how much more depth and breadth there is to my work now.

Discovering art beads was a transformative experience for each of the the Art Jewelry Elements team members.  Lesley has made art beads in polymer clay, metal clay and most recently she has been working in stoneware clay.  Here is a picture of her first ceramic beads from 2013.  Lesley says, "I was really excited about these and they still make me feel like that because it was the start of a huge passion that teaches me something new with every batch of beads..."

And here are a few more of Lesley's early ceramic beads.

Sue Kennedy
Sue started making lampwork glass beads about 10 years ago in a class with Mike Mangiafico.  She says, "They only had ugly colors and short rods back then for us to use - there are so many more colors now. You can see the obvious flaws - the wonky beads, the off-center dots, the bubbled up clear glass. But I also see many beads that have great dimpled ends and a hint of talent!"

Sue goes on to add, "These are beads from my next class with Mike (the first class was a sampler I believe). You can see marbles, plunged dots, "caterpillar' beads, hollow beads, how many spacers can you fit on a mandrel beads, an off-mandrel bead etc. And again, wonky beads and not so pretty beads. But more and more practice. Mike was very encouraging to me and I'm so glad he was, because I have been very happily making glass beads all these years."

Rebekah Payne
Rebekah found so many great pictures to share, that several of us encouraged her to do a blog post just about her own development as an artist. I'll just share a sampling of her early work here.

Rebekah is well know for her sleeping critter beads. Here is what they looked like before they became beads! Rebekah says, "The rooster "Button" was my first critter sculpture in polymer—I made him in early 2002. My little beagle, Suzie and the brown owl on the burned tree came next, probably in 2003… somewhere in between there and 2004, I made the chinchilla. I loved chinchillas at the time!! I made the falcon, other owl, and the song birds (and a bunch other birds!) in 2004 for an art contest and to raise money for me and my sisters to adopt a horse.

And here are some of Rebekah's earliest pendants. She states, "I was thinking of making jewelry to sell and these are my first attempts at making my own pendants in polymer from early 2005. The photo makes them look much better than they really are in real life for some odd reason… Thankfully I used the wrong kind of finish and they have a case of the "everlasting stickies", so no one will have to own them!

"This one is one of my first dragon necklaces I made in 2007 for my short, but unsuccessful venture on eBay. I'd been working on this dragon style off and on for about 2 years at this point. My painting was starting to reach a point I liked with the blending of colors… my sculpting skills still need improvement though! Loved seed beads back then!"

I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of reminiscing. All of us are on a journey. None of us can know where it will lead us, but we can savor the trip.

I'll share more early work in my next post.  Till then, enjoy the trip!

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

The Journey - Part One

The AJE team has been talking about their creative journeys recently.  We've each been looking back on our early creative endeavors and reflecting on early work we liked or disliked, how far we've come and even things from the past that might be worth revisiting.  Many of our members have pursued other art forms besides jewelry components and jewelry design.  We ended up generating a rather large collection of old pictures and related musings.

I will be sharing our journeys in my next two or three posts. Since you are also on a life journey, I hope that some of our reflections might inspire some reflection on your part as well.  What sparked your creative impulse?  How has that impulse expressed itself in different forms throughout your life?  Where do you think the path you are on might lead in a few years?  Are you open to new directions?

Karen Totten
Karen has been involved in creative endeavors all her life.She was working primarily in pottery when she needed to have surgery on her hand. In her words:
 "These were made with my handmade stamps. I made stamps initially for pottery, then when I couldn't throw (pots) for 6 months due to hand surgery, I made these beads to keep myself entertained. That's how I got into beads, it was an accident. Lesson: ya never know what is around the corner; go with the flow and you find new work, new discoveries."

"I had an unexpected discovery (while looking through these old pictures): pretty much all of it (Karen's early jewelry components) was hand formed or stamped from my own hand formed stamps. I had an impression I'd used commercial stamps with my clay - but that was more the case with my bronze work. However, I did use commercial cutters for some (my favorite cutter was a very old ruffled pastry cutter from my grandmother (I used it to make all the gear links and other shapes)."

" Porcelain with melted glass chips and various glazes"

 "Earth and Sky Wrist Amulet - Here's one that I made from hand carved leaf, flower and spiral stamps, in a terra cotta style with underglazes and a clear crackle gloss glaze over all. Very early piece yet I like this style and looking at it now I want to make it again!"

Jennifer Cameron 
Jennifer first bead wasn't too bad for a beginner.  I took a lampwork class once and believe me, my first bead did not look like the one pictured below! This bead is from 2005 and Jennifer wire wrapped it into a ring.  The ring was the first piece of jewelry she ever made, also!

Here's another view.  She says she can't remember if she followed a tutorial for the ring or just made it up herself.  The ring is not especially stable or well made, but she still has it.

Next up are two beads Jennifer made at about the same time as the ring.  She describes the one on the left as being ugly.  It was the first encased bead she ever made.  The bead on the right is "very large, very wonky, off center and totally scorched!".

Here's an early floral bead.  It has a nice "dimple" at the hole.

Leopard designs.

Jennifer says she likes the colors she used in this one, but that "it's a very ugly shape. And chunky.  Not very nice."

 Melissa Meman

First up is my very first lampwork bead ever, wire wrapped into my first piece of jewelry ever. I made it into a ring that I still have to this day. No, I don't wear it. - See more at: http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-my-first-time#sthash.IL6JAbJE.dpuf

 Melissa began here jewelry journey by making wire wrapped, beaded chains, like this early bracelet.

Or these earrings.  Of course now she makes not only jewelry, but also a variety of jewelry components.

Niky Sayers

First up is my very first lampwork bead ever, wire wrapped into my first piece of jewelry ever. I made it into a ring that I still have to this day. No, I don't wear it. - See more at: http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-my-first-time#sthash.IL6JAbJE.dpuf

First up is my very first lampwork bead ever, wire wrapped into my first piece of jewelry ever. I made it into a ring that I still have to this day. No, I don't wear it. - See more at: http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-my-first-time#sthash.IL6JAbJE.dpuf

First up is my very first lampwork bead ever, wire wrapped into my first piece of jewelry ever. I made it into a ring that I still have to this day. No, I don't wear it. - See more at: http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-my-first-time#sthash.IL6JAbJE.dpuf

First up is my very first lampwork bead ever, wire wrapped into my first piece of jewelry ever. I made it into a ring that I still have to this day. No, I don't wear it. - See more at: http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-my-first-time#sthash.IL6JAbJE.dpuf

Niky got her jewelry making start with PMC, before the prices for silver went through the roof. She says that she was "..seduced by the possibilities..." of  Precious Metal Clay.  Here are three of her early pieces.

Niky goes on to say, "I still really like these pieces, I like the simplicity of them and the sparkle and I loved how easy metal clay was to work with!

I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of reminiscing.  All of us are on a journey.  None of us can know where it will lead us, but we can savor the trip.

I'll share more early work in my next post.  Till then, enjoy the trip!

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

What are these "resolutions" of which you speak??

I don't do resolutions. Resolutions make me crazy, mostly because I can never, ever keep them. Ever.

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this, right? Who needs the extra pressure and opportunity to feel worse about oneself??

However...

If 2014 was any indication, I definitely need to slow down and take some time to not only do a better job of planning but also do a better job of working my plan, whether that's at home or in the studio. If that's a resolution, then I guess I'm making one... and the more I thought about it, the more I decided I was going to need some help.

First up: planning for my income in 2015.

Maybe this seems like a no-brainer to some of you, but I didn't sit down last year and really examine my goals for each income stream I'm working. So I put together a spreadsheet that breaks down where my income came from last year and where I want it to come from this year. That's helping prioritize where I spend my time and focus.

This was super simple to set up in Excel, and for every line item in this summary I have a planning tab that lets me work through the details. For the 2015 columns, I set it up so I can plug in a bottom-line income number on the total line, and then shuffle the numbers around in the goals section to play with percentages. This particular exercise has been really eye-opening - as it turns out, some of the things that take up the most amount of time haven't been the most lucrative. Being more efficient with my time and energy seems like a logical thing to move to the top of my priorities list.

So: creating efficiencies comes next.

Again, this may seem like a no-brainer, and having spent so many years (decades) in the business world, I was honestly surprised that I was struggling so much with this. In fact, it wasn't until I had a conversation recently with my friend (and business partner) Gail Stouffer that the light-bulb went on. I kept referring to all of this in the context of my "creative life." She said, "It may be your creative life, but it's also your job."

source

Oh. Right.

So I'm implementing a few new "rules" to help me think of my creative life as a job. First, I'm only going to take my laptop into the Roadhouse Studio one day a week. I can pick an hour to handle emails and stuff from home either before or after studio time each day, so one day a week should be PLENTY to do the necessary admin stuff. If my laptop is in the studio with me, I tend to get distracted from the work of "making" that I really need to be doing in that space. 

Second, I'm going to try out some new tools to help me manage my blogging and website tasks more proactively.

Do a Pinterest search for planner printables and you'll get a ka-billion pins to wade through. I found two that looked interesting to me (here and here) and printed out only those pages I thought I'd really use. Mondays are usually the day I update my to-do lists, and since I tend to be more analog than digital about my planning, these printables will give me a place to do my jotting. With three websites to keep updated (mine, Roadhouse Arts' and - soon - my husband's) and three blogs to write for (mine, Roadhouse Arts' and here at AJE), I really need to do a better job of planning and researching updates and contributions.

(As an aside, I do use Asana for my to-do lists and I highly recommend it. Once my plans are finalized, I update my projects online. This is especially helpful for long-term projects and it's essential for teamwork. Gail and Lisa, my Roadhouse partners, can see all my Roadhouse-related tasks, comment on them or ask questions, and see when I've completed or updated things - and I can do the same for theirs. It's been a huge help in reducing emails, confusion, and duplication of effort.)

Finally, keep learning.

Barbara Minor at Roadhouse Arts, December 2014

I am so very, very fortunate in that I get to participate in deciding which guest instructors get invited to Roadhouse - and who I personally would like to learn from often pays a huge part in the suggestions I make to my business partners. I love learning from other artists, don't you?? Last November, I spent a week in the home studio of metalsmith Melissa Muir and in December, master enamelist Barbara Minor spent three days at Roadhouse. I came away from both experiences completely fired up and creatively refreshed, and December was maybe my most productive time all year. I didn't do enough of that throughout the year.

In 2015, I'm going to have the great pleasure of working with and learning from Melissa Muir and Connie Fox at the Roadhouse Retreat, followed closely by two Roadhouse workshops with Robert Dancik. I'm such huge fans of all three of them that I'm a little giddy at the prospect! (Want to join me? Head over to the Roadhouse Arts workshops page for more info!) And I'm teaching at three national venues this year - teaching is always a learning experience for me, as I work to create projects and an experience that is positive for my students, so I'm counting all three in the "learning" category. (More info about those opportunities will be posted over on my personal blog soon!)

So that's where my reflections on 2014 have brought me. What about you? It's hard to believe January is nearly half over already - where are you focusing your energies? What are your plans for 2015?

Until next time -

Beads at the beach: a bead retreat

Two weeks ago I headed to the beach. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to be exact. We were having the coldest temperatures of the year to date - It was like 16 degrees F in the morning! But I was headed to a wonderful three day retreat,  doing bead embroidery.  What did I care about the weather?

I took about 10 minutes on the beach one morning. Until my ears froze. Had the place all to myself - heaven!

Many of you might know Meg and Moggie of BEAD My Love. They are regulars of the bead show circuit, from Beadfest to Tucson. Their company sells everything a seed beader could need: Ultra suede, stiff stuff, needles, cabs... and beads! (And so much more!) This charming and talented mother/daughter duo also host retreats.

I signed up after Beadfest August, if I remember correctly. Their retreats happen a few times a year, and fill up fast. The November retreat I attended was Tuesday - Thursday; perfect for my teaching schedule. I have been doing bead embroidery for approximately a year - and was ready to challenge myself, learn new stitches, go bigger?

Starting out: my kit, some beads from home... my orderly Virgo approved workspace. 

We arrived at 4 pm - a very welcoming group who adopted me and made me feel right at home. Many attendees were there for a second, or third time! Upon arrival we selected our kit for the weekend. Returnees arrived early and lined up at the door to get first pick! Meg makes up stellar kits with everything you need start to finish - in such fabulous color palettes! My kit included: 2 agate cabs, a face cab from Melanie/Earthenwood Studio, needles, thread, and beads ranging from 15s/11s/hex/drops... (More beads than I used up - I am excited to continue to design with the palette I chose. )

Once settled, and introduced around the room - we opened up kits and started to dream up designs. The room is set up to shop - I quickly decided the ammonite  (above) HAD to go with one of the agates... And we started beading. And chatting. And shopping. Designing, discussing, sharing. Meg and Moggie gave one on one instruction to any and all; beginners were started of with the basics of peyote stitch for a bezel. More advanced students planned larger, layered pieces, and composite pieces made from components beaded and joined together.

My neighbor Diane working on her piece with a Marsha Neal Studio button. A gorgeous palette of sages and copper; finished piece on the right. 

A forest of Ott lights: the room seen from the far corner. Thats my empty chair at top right... 

It was exciting to see things from the other side of the table... as a beader, not as a ceramic artist. BEAD My Love has carried my cabs for a few years. ( I'm still honored, and excited by that...) Watching people select their kits - Lisa Peters cabs, Earthenwood Studio , Marsha Neal, and my own "Mythic Nature" cabs... knowing these artists, their clay, their glazes... It was great fun, and inspirational to see the women at the retreat work their own creative magic with the ceramic cabochons. It presented my own work to me in a new light, and for that I am grateful.

My fellow attendees work in progress. Yes - thats my lunar raven in purple! 

Still orderly... All the bags on the left were my "kit". Tubes and labeled bags in the center were my additional beads. 

The three day weekend (I know it was during the week! It FELT like a weekend) was phenomenal. I would highly recommend a BEAD My Love retreat to anyone that is into bead embroidery - or wants to learn. There were break out groups throughout the 'weekend' to demo brick stitch, soutache embroidery... We worked all day and socialized over lunch/dinner. We came away with new friends, and new skills.  The structure was relaxed and informal. The people I met were interesting, creative, and funny! with diverse careers, interests and experience. I left the 'weekend' sad that it was ending/invigorated with new ideas/inspired to try new things/and happy tired. 

From my weekend: two completed pieces and one work in progress. The WIP piece is an enameled focal from Anne of Gardanne Beads. 

There is even a newly created Facebook group for BML retreat alumni to keep in touch and share pictures of new creations. All in all a fab weekend. When can I go again?

For now - you know I am bead embroidering Holiday gifts... off to the studio!
Jenny

Goodbye Rehoboth! Until next time... 

The retreat included your project kit, and additional supplies, one dinner, 2 lunches. Snacks and beverages were also provided. Lodging was not included. 

I received no loot, favors or free stuff from BEAD My Love in exchange for this review. 

Playing With Push Molds

My first polymer clay components were all made with textures impressed into them - either commercial rubber stamps or else designs I pressed into them with various tools.  Having created the designs, they were then cut out using cookie cutters or, in one case, the lid from an aerosol can.

So this week, I decided to try making some push molds, using a 2 part silicone compound.

 

To make molds, you take approximately equal amounts of each color of putty, mix them together and then press your object into the putty.  

In a few minutes the putty hardens into a rubbery silicone mold.  You then remove the object and viola, you have a mold into which you can press your polymer clay.  It sounds easy and fun.

I gave it a go earlier this week, using some buttons that had interesting textures.  But all the molds I made were lopsided.  It turns out that it is a bit tricky to press the button into the molding compound with exactly the same pressure on all sides.  Fellow AJE team member, Kristi Bowman, suggested that I try pressing the molding compound onto my objects, rather than pressing the objects into the mold.

So that's what I tried yesterday.  I used a fun flower shaped magnet and pressed a layer of molding compound onto the flower side.  Then I added more compound and built it up around the bottom and the edges, so it would be thicker, (when I made molds the first time, several were too thin on the bottom and they tore).

  When the compound hardened, I popped out the magnet and this is what I had.

It's certainly better than my first attempts, (for which I have no pictures), but if you look carefully at about the 9:00 position, you'll see that some of the petals have dents in them.  I think this is because I un-molded the magnet too soon and I damaged the still-soft mold while trying to get the magnet out.

Then I went through the same process with a heart shaped faux cinnabar bead.

 

I'd only worked with light colored polymer clay so far, so I decided to try something darker.  I mixed one part black clay with  three parks purple clay.  The purple was quite bright, so I wanted to mute it a bit.  

I

I pressed the polymer clay into the molds, popped it out, added holes at the top and placed the shapes on a piece of cardboard.

I placed the cardboard on top of a pizza stone that came with the oven, but you can also use an unglazed tile.  Then I covered it with an small inverted loaf pan and baked it for 45 minutes at 275F.

They came out of the oven nice and firm, but quite a bit darker than I had hoped.  I wanted a muted purple, like an aubergine, but these were nearly brown.  So I used some paints, in many layers, including some brighter highlights. That helped, but it is still not quite what I had pictured in my mind.

Its clear to me that I am still in the practice mode, with lots left to learn.  However, I keep reminding myself that I learn a lot when the outcome is less than what I'd hoped for.  Its a process and I'm learning step by step. And, hey, I burnt my first batch of polymer clay and I've never made that mistake again!

Linda

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