IT'S ME

Yes, it's Me! Cooky Schock, one of the newest members of the Art Jewelry Elements Team.  I'm creative, happy and grateful. But in reality I create in total chaos; I actually thrive on chaos-it's my happy place! I'm very asymmetrical in all I do, even my appearance.

I come from a nursing background so I did live in a very structured, well-organized world for a long while. And I am very grateful to be part of this community of artists. I have always been a maker of stuff: kids' clothes, bears, quilts and even quilted bears wearing kids' clothes. But seventeen years ago all that changed when I discovered The Shepherdess, a wonderful beadstore in Old Town San Diego. I learned to bead, create with wire and then work with metal, which became my passion.

I magically became the owner of The Shepherdess, which gave me the opportunity to meet wonderful teachers and students, all lovers of what I love! Three years ago The Shepherdess and I decided to retire and so we did!

Through the years I have had the opportunity to teach across the country, including Juneau AK and the Dominican Republic for Parson's School of Design. I continue to teach but I'm moving in a direction that has surprised even me.

 I've rediscovered a craft I did in the '70s this time more refined with an updated style that makes it more of a fine art. Welcome to my world of micro macramé!

It's a far cry from the plant hangers and fuzzy bearded Santas I made back then. My work has recently been featured in the Spring 2016 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry and in the new Fall issue also.

I'm sure that metal will always be a part of my art,  enhanced by the captivating colors and textures of the beads and fibers that I'm creating with now.

Actually, it's a good thing that my work, equipment, tools and supplies are becoming a bit more minimalistic because 2017 will find us (husband & two dogs) traveling in our new RV across the country, wherever the road leads us!

Website: www.cookyschock.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cookycrumb
Instagram: www.instagram.com/cookycrumb   

Art Camp 2016

Also known as my summer vacation!

For me, one of the best things that has come from me being part of the AJE blog team is that I have made so many lifelong friends despite the fact that most of them are thousands of miles away. For the past couple of years some of those friends have been kind enough to host and entertain me on vacations to the USA and I have just returned from yet another wonderful trip staying with Jenny Davies-Reazor in Delaware.

Holidays with Jenny, a trained art teacher are packed with creative and artistic pursuits and I always come home full of ideas and inspiration, which is why I refer to it as art camp. We've even discovered that if we have to drive any distance together we start bouncing ideas around that snowball so quickly I have to take notes while Jenny drives so that we don't forget them. On past visits Jenny has introduced me to many new skills including polymer clay techniques, handmade book making, felting and last year - bead embroidery, to which I am now completely addicted.

This year was no exception so I thought I'd share some of the highlights with you.

Our first trip out was to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore - a small museum crammed to the rafters with some incredible contemporary art and installations in all sorts of media. Photography is not allowed in the majority of the museum but I did manage to get some shots around the grounds.

Entrance to the AMVA and Jenny with a magic bus

Incredible mirrored mosaic egg by Andrew Logan

http://www.avam.org/

We were allowed to photograph this one particular exhibit and Jenny just couldn't resist a little interpretive art. If you're planning a visit I can also recommend the restaurant on the top floor for some great food and no, the food has no link with the exhibit!

http://www.avam.org/

The exhibit that both Jenny and I were struck by the most were by fibre artist Chris Roberts-Antineau and since I couldn't photograph them I have borrowed some images from her gallery with full credits given. I would so love to get to New Orleans to see more of her work.

Chris is a self taught artist and the sentiment of her artist's statement really resonates with me. I think it has great relevance for those of us who suffer self doubt about our abilities or validity as artists:

http://www.antieaugallery.com/

These pieces are worked in applique and embroidery and clearly have stories behind them. The detail is incredible and the each piece is so beautifully made... top of my shopping list if I ever (unlikely) have enough disposable income.

http://www.antieaugallery.com/art/sketchbook/

http://www.antieaugallery.com/art/swan/

http://www.antieaugallery.com/art/ascension/

http://www.antieaugallery.com/art/owl/

If you you like textile art and can get to a Chris Roberts-Antineau exhibition I would thoroughly recommend going.

Another great thing about visiting Jenny is that she lives close to the lovely Marsha Neal-Minutella so I get to hang out with her for a while too. These ladies have regular bead nights with a lovely group of ladies and they were kind enough to arrange one for when I was in town - good food, good wine, great company and bead projects...what could be better?

Jenny taught everyone how to make wonderful little beaded needle felt collages and Marsha has been making up kits of my Goddess bracelet with her ceramic buttons and leather. I haven't made one of these in an age and it was great fun all making them together.

Collage by Marsha Neal using one of my goddess focals, goddess bracelets by me, goddess bracelets by Jenny Davies-Reazor, Collage by Lisa Goodman with ceramic focal by Jenny.

Whenever I stay at Jenny's I try to make sure that I get some crab cakes in at some point and this year we managed that on a couple of occasions. This time around though we also got down and dirty picking crabs for Labour Day dinner....I always was a messy eater but at least this time I wasn't alone!

There comes a time in every vacation when you just need to slow down and relax a little and we chose to do this by staying home and hitting the seed beads. I managed to complete two pieces both of which were designed around ceramic cabochons by Caroline Dewison:

Jenny meanwhile was working on these two fabulous projects:

Then it was time for some more culture so we headed off to visit the Philadelphia Magic Gardens - the largest public artwork of award winning mosiac mural artist Isaiah Zagar:

'Spanning half a block on Philadelphia’s famous South Street, the museum includes an immersive outdoor art installation and indoor galleries. Zagar created the space using nontraditional materials such as folk art statues, found objects, bicycle wheels, colorful glass bottles, hand-made tiles, and thousands of glittering mirrors. The site is enveloped in visual anecdotes and personal narratives that refer to Zagar’s life, family, and community, as well as references from the wider world such as influential art history figures and other visionary artists and environments.'

Theses images are from both the 'Gardens' and the streets around the area that are full of Zagar's work. The installation is rich in it's variety with homages to many great artists. It's also something of an assault on the senses - one of those places where you'll see something different every time you go back and never see everything no matter how often that is. Again - I thoroughly recommend a visit.

https://www.phillymagicgardens.org/about-us/about-isaiah-zagar/

https://www.phillymagicgardens.org/about-us/about-isaiah-zagar/

https://www.phillymagicgardens.org/about-us/about-isaiah-zagar/

Then it was back to the studio for more play time and because I miss my fur baby when I'm away Zoey and Oscar, Jenny's adorable dogs make sure I don't miss out on the cuddles and the laughs.

Zoey gets cuddly in her cone while Oscar keeps an eye on the road.

Next it was time to get on and learn some new tricks and this year it was print making. The only time I remember doing this in the past is with potatoes and poster paints at about the age of 5 and I was hoping I could do a bit better than that now.

Here you can see some of Jenny's hand carved plates and the resulting prints...and why she's the art teacher and I'm the student! That's me at the bottom trying to cave a simple leaf without slicing pieces out of my hand...It seems I have a tendency to put my fingers in harms way in most creative activities!

We actually took ourselves away to the beach for a day to carry on with these projects and I really did get into it. My designs need a lot more work which frustrates me because I always want to be perfect at the first attempt but that would make for a very dull life wouldn't it? I was really pleased with how the suns came out on the black paper so I'll be pursuing that further and I think I might be printing my own Christmas cards this year. Oh and I still have the requisite number of fingers!

We didn't get to spend too much time actually on the beach as the poor dogs were attacked by a swarm of black flies and we had to make a run for it. I did manage to pocket a few treasures though and Jenny gave me the wonderful big shell skeleton she found which will be great for both textures and as a photography prop.

And last but not least of course I had to do some shopping... A lot of beading supplies in the UK are imported from the US which means we pay a lot more for them and have far less choice. If we import ourselves we get hit with import taxes and handling charges on a ridiculously low purchase value. But none of that applies if you bring them into the UK yourself for personal use so it would have been foolish of me not to stock up on supplies while I was there wouldn't it? Quite a little hoard I bought home with me in the end.

So that's another vacation over then but I have so many things I want to do as a result of it that it'll stay with me for a good long while and I'm sure you'll be seeing the fruits of it on AJE at some point. I owe a big debt of Gratitude to Jenny and her husband James for hosting me and to everyone else who helped make it such a memorable time...I look forward to returning the favour sometime soon.

And if your holidays include your creative pursuits or people you've met through them we'd love to hear about them.

Art Headpins Challenge Inspiration...Are You Up For It?

In case you missed it or it's slipped your mind our design challenge for this month is all about Art Headpins and we'd love you to join in. You can find full details here but all you need to do is design something using art headpins (or make the headpins themselves) and be able to join in out blog hop on August 30th.

Art headpins have been around for a good while now but they seem to be gaining in popularity which is not really surprising considering their versatility and the wide variety of mediums they are now made in. I started working on my challenge pieces this week but before I did I decided to do a little review of some of my past pieces to see if they provided inspiration.

For me earrings are usually the first things that come to mind, partly because they're often sold in pairs but I also think ear (or eye) level can be the best place to show off these pretty pieces.

The design can be very simple but still very striking like this pair which matches head pins by Suebeads with beaded beads by Kristen Stevens.

With this pair the headpins are by Humblebeads with beaded beads by Suebeads and here I use the wire of the headpins to create loops and then passed them back down through the bead and formed little tendrils as an added embellishment. If the wire of your pins is particularly long its worth considering working them into your design.

Here I used headpins by Jen Cameron purely as embellishment, wrapping them around a copper hoop and adding my own ceramic drops to finish the look.

But Art Headpins are not just for earrings and I've used them in a number of necklace designs. Here I've used one of my own fine silver headpins to create a pin bail for a gorgeous lampwork tube bead by Magdalena Ruiz...

And again, this time with one of my bronze clay headpins.

Another design with a bronze headpin using one of Caroline's cute little bird beads sitting on a lovely Mookite bead...again, simple but effective.

  

This last necklace was made for a design challenge several years ago and was probably the first time I'd worked with Art Headpins (unfortunately I can't remember who made these). I called this necklace Shiraz and the idea was to give the impression of vineyards with the deep purples, buds and curling tendrils of the headpins. A tiny bronze headpin also features in the capped bead dangle.

Looking back over these pieces had the desired effect and I've already managed to make a few pieces for the challenge...very organised for me I can tell you! I hope you're feeling inspired too but just in case you still need an extra nudge then how about doing a little window or hard cash shopping..? There is an abundance of headpins out there in all sorts of materials just waiting for someone to show them some love and here are just a few of my favourites...

Glass by Thornburg Bead Studio

Ceramic from Latirus

Mixed media from Pip n Molly  

Glass by Anneli Beads

Ceramic by Marsha Neal Studio (available at Bead Fest Philadelphia this week).

Glass by Beads of Passion

Polymer clay by Studio St James

Glass by Beadfairy

Silver by Atlantis Glass and Bead

Glass by Sabrina Koebel

If you would like to be included in the challenge please refer to the original post which you can find via the link at the top of this page and then e mail Jennifer Stout Cameron.

Be creative and enjoy yourselves!