Jennifer Cameron
Creating with fire and glass since 2005, Jen discovered jewelry making after realizing a small child could easily disappear in the growing collection of beads sitting around the house. She has also discovered the joy of taking metal to torch since then and creates the majority of her own components in her jewelry designs. Jen is the adoring mother of two, jackpot winner in the husband category, and zookeeper of several pets.
Jen is also the instigator for bringing together this team of innovative, talented, passionate and dynamic women to write for Art Jewelry Elements. The goal of our team is to contribute a wealth of information, inspiration, support, and entertainment to those who love to design and/or wear art jewelry.
Blog: Glass Addictions by Jennifer Cameron
Etsy: Glass Addictions
Facebook: Glass Addictions by Jennifer Cameron
Twitter: @GlassAddictJen
Niky Sayers
Niky started creating jewellery six years ago after stumbling across a jewellery making blog while looking for a hobby. She is a stay at home mum with hermit like tendencies, a mild addiction to coffee and chocolate and a love of all things handmade or antique / rusty. While not raising her tribe she likes to keep as busy as possible playing with metal sheet, wire and other treasures and trinkets all at her kitchen table in Surrey, England.
Blog: Silver NikNats
Etsy jewellery: Silver NikNats
Etsy beads: Bits of NikNats
Facebook: Silver NikNats
Flickr: Silver NikNats
Pintrest: Niky
Diana Ptaszynski
Diana is the owner of Suburban Girl Studio LLC. Powered by the magic of all things containing sugar, Diana spends her day making beads out of porcelain, stoneware and raku. She also enjoys hosting various art bead swaps, metalsmithing and heading up the East Coast Bead Mafia. It is her goal to bring together as many bead addicts as possible.
Blog: Suburban Girl Studio
Etsy jewellery: Suburban Girl Jewelry
Etsy beads: Suburban Girl Studio
Facebook: Suburban Girl Studio
Flickr: Suburban Girl Studio
Karen Totten
Karen has worked professionally as an artist and designer for over 30 years in a variety of creative disciplines: architectural design, illustration, art direction, mixed media art, interaction design.
Her current passions are ceramic art and jewelry design. “For me, the creative life has always been one of exploration and adventure. As the daughter of an air force navigator, I grew up a traveler. To this day I am intrigued by stories and motifs that transcend time, culture, and geography.“
Web: Starry Road Studio
Blog: Starry Road Studio
Etsy: Starry Road Studio
Facebook: Starry Road Studio
Twitter: @kartott
Pinterest: StarryRoadBeads
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jenny is a mixed media artist, creating sculptural pieces inspired by nature, folklore, and mythology. These themes and inspirations are a thread unifying her diverse body of work: mixed media collages, ceramic shrines and tiles. Her jewelry work incorporates her ceramic "Mythic Nature" line of sculptural pendants as well as metal, resin and gems.
She holds a fine art/art history degree and was a full time art/ceramics teacher before altering her career path. Now as a full time working artist and part time teacher, she creates in her 2 studios-the "dirty" clay studio and the "clean" jewelry/collage studio, accompanied by her canine and feline furry kids.
Blog: J Davies-Reazor
Etsy: J Davies-Reazor
Facebook: The Art of Jennifer Davies-Reazor
Twitter: @JDRshrineart
Lesley Watt
Lesley started making jewellery in 2009 as an antidote to a stressful day job and when some online investigation revealed there could be more to it than the local hobby store could offer, a love affair with art beads began. After taking courses in basic silversmithing, PMC she finally quit the day job (on something of a whim) in 2010. She also branched out into component making with metal clays in 2011 and fuelled by a passion for texture and colour further workshops in enamelling and etching have further influenced and enhanced both her jewellery and component designs. Lesley gets a real buzz from trying new techniques and a foray into ceramics in 2013 has proven to be a major passion. The only thing that holds her back is a lack of hours in the day and the space to house any more kit - oh, and her bank manager!
Blog: The Gossiping Goddess
Etsy Component Shop: THEA Elements
Etsy Jewellery Shop: THEAjewellery
Facebook: THEAjewellery
Twitter: @THEAjewellery
Susan Kennedy
Susan, the owner of SueBeads, started making glass beads in 2005 because she loved lampworked beads so much, but wanted to make her own instead of buying them on ebay! She also makes enameled components and dabbles in polymer clay, but her first love is glass. She has attended jewelry-making classes at ArtBLISS and has taken classes from Barbara Lewis (torch fired enameling) in addition to several classes at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.
Blog: Sue Beads
Etsy: Sue Beads
Website: Sue Beads
Facebook: Susan Kennedy
Twitter: @susankennedy
Caroline Dewison
Caroline is a lifelong addict of anything creative. She settled on ceramic beadmaking 3 years ago and has managed to stretch the fact that she had a kiln to sneak in lampworking, metal work and loads of tools, all vital to her development as an artist! She has an extremely patient husband, who doesn't complain when she messes up the kitchen, 3 wonderful kids, 2 cats, and 2 chickens. She draws her inspiration from the natural world and wishes there were more hours in the day to explore all the ideas in her sketchbook.
Blog: Blueberribeads
Etsy: Blueberribeads
Facebook: Blueberribeads
Lindsay Starr
Lindsay M Starr is a beadwork and mixed media artist currently based in Nashville, TN. She spent her early childhood in Alaska, and her school age and college years in Oregon. Lindsay has a great appreciation for history, science, and nature and is consistently inspired by insects, sea life, color, and the significance of beads and beadwork throughout human history. She spends her days beading, walking at the zoo, and practicing yoga. Lindsay loves to share her knowledge and passion for beads and beadwork to hobbyists of all skill levels.
Blog: Phantasm Creations
Etsy: Phantasm Creates
Facebook: Phantasm Creations
Laney Mead
A convert to glass from a life of doodling and drawing Laney started her artistic career with no formal training but a passion for paper and pencils. With the help of a friendly artist who took her under his wing, she learnt how to use coloured pencil as a fine art medium and to experiment in abstract work with acrylic and oils, this led to painting murals all over the house walls, don't ask her about the 'space themed bedroom for her son and then having to try and paint it white to sell the house!' and although she longed to paint real 'outside' murals and got asked to do so she couldn't commit the long travel involved with two, then small kids. After several years of custom pet portraits in pencil she chanced upon a weekend of lampworking. After being shown how to use the torch and asked to not burn down the studio she spent a blissful 2 days creating the wonkiest beads you ever did see. She has been lampworking since 2008 and is finally at the point when her realism in pet portraits is merging with the glass. Other than that one weekend she has never had a lesson and is completely self taught in all her techniques. When she isn't melting glass she is writing for Cat World magazine about living with her brain damaged 'celebrity' cat Gordy and the newcomer old Teeko cat. She lives in rural Herefordshire UK with views from her bedroom window over the Welsh Mountains with her husband, Golden Retrievers Izabel and Defi as well as the cats and two grown up kids that refuse to leave home. She is currently campaigning for 'Kidsxit'.
Blog: http://laney-mead.blogspot.co.uk/
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/IzzyBeads
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaneysIzzybeads
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/Izzybeads
Claire Fabian
In my work I want to create stories and images, rustic and organic or a little bit tribal, or even playful up to completely weird. Once I got the compliment my work was odd (meant in the best way!). Since then I use this to describe my work “...to add a little bit of odd to your life.” I create due to a simple reason: It keeps me sane. People smile if I am telling them this not realizing that I mean this literally. It keeps me sane on so many levels. I work in research and I believe it is the same creativity, the same curiosity and more than that the same hunger that drives scientists and artists. There are so many ideas and thoughts in my head that sometimes it is a little bit loud in there. I create jewellery as well as beads and also love to work on mixed media projects. My favourite material of all times is polymer clay since it is so versatile but I also use ceramic clay, all kinds of metal, paper, textiles, organic things and everything else I can get hold of.
Blog: http://saraccino.blogspot.de/
Etsy shop: http://saraccino.etsy.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claire.fabian
Pinterest: https://de.pinterest.com/claire_fabian/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraccino_by_cf/
Cathy Spivey Mendola
Cathy has finally learned to say that she’s a jewelry artist. It has takenyears to realize that jewelry is what she was meant to do. She has had a loveaffair with creativity since she picked up her first crayon. The passion tocreate led her to pursue numerous art mediums over the years. After trying herhand at just about everything she always comes back to jewelry making. Her loveaffair with jewelry probably started before she ever picked up that firstcrayon, so it was only natural for her to make her own. In the beginning shejust strung some beads on jewelry wire, then came some metalsmithing workshopsuntil she began to teach herself bead embroidery. Once she made her firstnecklace using bead embroidery she was hooked! That was almost 2 years ago.
Inspiration from her vast collection of seashells and gemstones keeps herbusy designing. Her latest works have incorporated shells along with fossils and even deer antlers. As long as she can bead around it, anything goes!
Blog: http://cmendola.blogspot.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/pinkbirdgirl
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CathySMendolaJewelryandFiberArt/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathdola/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/cathdola/
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/csdola/
Cooky Schock
Cooky been a maker her whole life-teddy bears, quilts, clothing, weaving, knitting and gourds. You name it,she has tried it! For the last 18 years she has been immersed in beads and metal both creating with, selling and teaching. And she has finally found her passion-Teaching! She has been fortunate enough to teach as far away as the Dominican Republic, Juneau AK and around the US. Recently she rediscovered macrame, something she did in the 70’s this time updated and small-micro macramé! She lives in San Diego with her husband and two pups. They are all getting ready to take their show on the road (literally) in a new RV, living life wherever the road takes them.
Website: www.cookyschock.com
Website: www.shepherdessbeads.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cookycrumb
Instagram: www.instagram.com/cookycrumb
