Introducing me.... Laney Mead

I am a new member of the admin team here at Art Jewelry Elements and thrilled to be part of a great group of extremely talented artists - the head pin challenge of last week left me with a serious addiction to head pins and making them!  I am a lampworker, writer, mother to 2 grown up kids who refuse to leave home, wife, cleaner of house, walker of dogs, chief dribble wiper  (we have a special needs cat, he was brain damaged at birth and dribbles, more about him further down.... ) and de-hairer of the furniture.  What I am not, is a cook or shopper, I do neither well so my husband does those jobs and has been known to leave me easy meals in the fridge should he be at work! 

I thought I would introduce myself via various photos I found whilst looking for one - which I didn't find - and wasting the last 30 minutes or so!!

So this is me... the cute one in the frilly knickers petting the dog, Barney, whom I was told was the most aggressive hound and the person who is headless (!) is my 19 year old mother (she was too young!) wringing her hands in terror.  That was the beginning of my love affair with animals and is in the early 70's - don't you just love the frocks of the day!!  

This is where I live, the beautiful, rural countryside of Hereford, in Herefordshire UK.  We are just 13 miles from the Welsh border.  My bedroom window looks out over the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons in Wales and we have the greenest grassland in the UK, because it is nearly always raining!!

One of my walks through the ancient woodlands with my dogs, this Old Man Oak tree is over 300 years old, I tell him all my secrets.

I have drawn since I could hold a pencil and had big dreams of being a famous artist but due to being fostered in my teenage years I hit the job market as soon as I left school at 16 in a bid to leave home for good.  All my artist endeavours have been through just sitting and doing, I am self taught in everything I do from the pencil drawings below to the glass I do now.

Some of my drawings were made into dog tags, prints, key rings and cross stitch designs, to name a few.  I love to draw and although I don't do it to this level any more I still doodle in the evenings, but I do it for pleasure.  Making money from pet portraiture in pencil is hard work as each drawing can take over 50 hours and that is for a small one.

I did a few whimsy ones too!  This one is called 'Bottom's Up'.  I used to keep chickens but being this rural, the fox and the badger came one night and my girls are no more.  I  miss their fluffy bums running around the garden and chasing Defi, my youngest Golden Retriever who used to annoy them!

Some of my doodles, I love eyes, they are windows to the soul.  These are just for pleasure, although I have been known to sell the odd one every now and again, I do them for me not for profit.

I 'found' glass completely by accident.  A chance 'go' with my (ex) sister in law who used to use fused glass and I was hooked.  I was shown how to light the torch and what a mandrel was and left to my own devices.   Hours of practice in the converted studio: my easel was packed away and my bench was set up.  I started with flowers, but I always wanted to create my pencil portraits in glass.

No matter how hard I tried the portraits 'went' whimsy so I ran with it for a few years.  All my animals had bums, stories, googly eyes.  They are all beads and if they didn't make me smile going in the kiln they didn't make the grade! 

This one is 'The Mummy Cat'.

'Baa-Humbug' was made for a friend who is an author and had just finished writing a book on English sweets and the heritage of them around the UK.   Great book!  For those not in the UK the Humbug is a black and white mint sweet (candy):  Bah-humbug is a miserable old 'git' and the saying was made famous by Shakespeare's Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

I write tutorials too, this one is for badger beads, but I have done leaves, roses, bees, butterflies... all whimsy ones.  You can find them in my Etsy shop - links at the bottom.

I have written for several magazines too, this is the most recent tutorial I have written and it was published in the 2016 September issue of Glass Line.

..and was for this elephant bead.  My glass work has finally come full circle and now my beads are more realistic, just like the pencil portraits I used to do.

A Lynx, the customer wanted the holes in the ears so they could affix the fluffy bits of the Lynx's ears themselves. 

I have also been experimenting with boro glass and marbles, they are getting more and more round! 

The Wolf, my favourite animal in the kingdom, this one is made with enamel glass powders.

And finally...  I write about my special needs cat Gordy, who is a British Short Hair and more recently Teeko, a Birman,  who is 15 and came to live with us last year, for Cat World magazine.  Gordy is almost 4 and he is a forever kitten, he has limited balance, dribbles and can never go outside on his own due to not learning from his mistakes.  He wears bibs (this is an old article) to protect his fur and those are specially designed for him by Claire of Clasicats.

This is one of my favourite photos of Gordy my son took him outside in the sunshine to play cars and he loved it... Gordy was quite happy too!  Gordy can go outside but can not be unsupervised.

This is all my gang, my dogs Izabel and the reason I am also known as Izzybeads, she is 10, Defi is 6 and came to live with us at 13 months old and Teeko who used to live next door but they moved to Spain so he came here.

And that is me!  You can find me at Art Jewelry Elements but also on my blog

Dust, Dribble and Dog Hair

on Etsy

Izzybeads

and also on FB, I do have a business page but I prefer to use my personal one so come and be my friend!

Laney Mead

Every Story Needs an Introduction...

"At day's end" - Polymer clay pendant

The beginning is always the most exciting time but also one where doubts and worries are highest. It is not the best part of an story because that would be (at least for me) when you are attached to the other people involved. But it is the moment where everything may be possible and every moment still needs to be told.

Why do I start with this? Because for me creating jewelry or sculptures or other "things" always are about telling a story. This may just be an idea or an emotion, a memory or an inspiration. It is not that all my work hold this depth but all that have a meaning to me, that I really fall in love with, do. 

However, I am still astonished every time again that it is not only me that likes what comes out of my mind and hands. This is why I really felt so honored when I was asked if I want to be a part of Art Jewelry Elements. So do start with this story I'll take a moment to introduce myself...

Me in the reflection of the glass door at our balcony (Leipzig).

My partner (I will call him by his nick Rumpel) and I are living in Leipzig in Germany. If you are ever to visit Germany, you should come and visit (especially during summer time). Even if I originally come from Bremen, believe me, I just feel home here. Right now while I am writing this I can hear a concert from the park in front of our house (an old apartment house like most houses here around 100 years old or so?). It is the Leipzig Song Festival and people are singing and dancing in the park. They are relaxed around in this city. My family moved to Leipzig when I was still a teenager and I was a gothic (still am in my heart and when I go out). In all other cities in germany I would have been ignored or looked down in a quite suspicious way. Leipzig? An old lady came up in the supermarket and told me "My dear, what a lovely dress! Sadly I am too old to wear something like this!" 

 Tiny wee elephants with pink flowers because everyone needs and elephant... or two... - Ear studs

Why am I telling you this? After all this is an Art Jewelry Elements blog. But it shows who I am and that I was always drawn to the weird and to an aesthetic that is not always fitting to the mainstream. There is not THE gothic but there is a longing, a sensuality and sometimes a beautiful melancholy. I could let my defenses down and drown myself in music and dancing. I come from a loving family and we discuss and argue and appreciate each other. But I think this is true because of the ingrained painful and difficult times my grandparents, my parents (my mother as well as my stepmom), our friends and myself had. Sometimes I have to take a deep breath to realize how happy I am right now with Rumpel. You know, it is easy to forget in all the worries and fears of the day. This is not the right moment to tell all the uncounted stories but we had them, from addiction to cancer to attempted suicide. To create was always a way to understand the world around me and my own feelings. After my mother attempted suicide I was empty inside but started to paint for hours, the whole night without stopping in a frenzy. I painted myself without even knowing it but I had to. There was no other way to cope with the helplessness and pain.

"Silver Rain Drops" I love to recycle/upcycle old and found materials and this pendant is made from an tea tin box

To create keeps me sane. People smile when I tell them this not realizing I mean this literally. My head is full of ideas and thoughts, sometimes it may get a little loud there. I tend to worry too easily and too much. To work with my hands, to form a story in my mind and before me, this helps me to relax. My whole attention is focused on this moment- You'll find a part of me in all my work.

"Ancient Woods" A necklace combing my favorite colours as well as my love for handmade art beads!

I experiment a lot and love to try new materials and techniques. My day job is in research and being a scientist defines a lot of myself. Actually there are so many people in research I know that are creating next to their work. They sew, solder metal sculptures, cook and paint and are the reason why I believe that scientists and artists are quite similar, driven by the same desire to grow and the same curiosity to play. The downside is that I easily get bored too. So you'll see me jump from idea to idea just to come back to the first again after a while.

"Purple Wings" Made with some of my own etched copper wings and uglibeads from Julie Wong Sontag

You'll see beads and components made by me using metal, polymer clay, ceramic clay, resin, fabric, yarn, bones, shells, wood and whatever else I may find! Oh, and there is a childlike pure joy in me to take broken and old jewelry apart and sort all the single parts just to use them again in my own creations. I still can tell you where every single "bead" I have comes from, be it cheap glass beads, found objects, artisan components or old jewelry parts. If you ever see my chaotic and gigantic stash, you'll be impressed by that! But there is something special in ever piece because it has it's own story and I'll also remember what happened in my life at that time. It will add so much more to every piece I make.

"Urban Jungle" Made with connectors made by scorched earth that I actually won from Niky Sayers here last year! :)

I also thought it would be good to show you some example pieces of my work because an image can show you what I won't ever be able to tell. It was rather difficult to select examples (and I know there are still a lot but... but... I couldn't remove more, I am sorry!). In the first one you see the pendant to my necklace "At Days End". This is my most beloved piece with a deep meaning. I started to create it when the last of my cats (all brothers) was terminal ill. I had to come to a decision and she is the result of finding the strength to let him go. It is three years ago and I can smile seeing her, but still, writing these words, I start to cry. I didn't stop missing them, all of my three little ones. They were there in my darkest times when I had no words for the world to tell. 

Mixed media collage made on Formentera with limited holiday supply and magazine cut-outs

It was made with polymer clay as well a the tiny elephants with the pink flowers. The first ones I sculpted for friend with a love for elephants and pink  (she is a grown up and tough woman by the way). She now gets a pink advent calendar every year made by me. Sometimes with elephants...

I also chose some necklaces, one in my mixed style (even some old roman glass can be found) and one made with tin from an old tea box, long earrings, that are all about dangling as well as some with my beloved etched wings, and last but not least two mixed media pieces. All of them are me. 

Mixed media pieces with all the leftover items I could find - mostly polymer clay pieces gone wrong

Since I started very personal, I will also end on this note. This bunny sculpture is actually not made by me but by Rumpel. As I already said, an image tells more than words and maybe you'll get why he is so special to me. Next to this adventure here at AJE, Rumpel and I are getting married in october!

A bunny made from polymer clay by Rumpel (my partner) as a special present for a friend of ours

On this note I will also (finally) come to an end. What to expect from me? I love tutorials and weird things! I hope you are excited as me to see how this story may go on and I am so thankful for you to have me!

All the best from Leipzig,

Claire 

PS: You can find my blog at saraccino.blogspot.com and my shop at saraccino.etsy.com. All other details and links can you can find at the contributors page here on AJE!

Hello

Precious metal clay, that's where my jewelry making addiction started!

(PMC butterfly, one of my first pieces)

Hi, I'm Niky Sayers, the newest member of the Art Jewelry Elements team and I come from Surrey in the UK.

5 years ago, after giving up my job to become a stay at home mum, I decided that I needed a hobby. A short Internet search later and I had ordered 50g of PMC, a load of tools and a torch, of course those were the days when silver metal clay did not cost a fortune! 

(PMC heart with handmade chain, another early piece)

After a short romance with metal clay, I found I rather liked working with chainmaille and wire, then I stumbled into art beads and all hopes of ever being able to shake this jewelery making addiction were lost!

(this was one of my first ever art beads, a beautiful lampwork bead by Laura Sparling, I still have the rest of the set, unused in my bead display, oh how I love them)

I have since learnt the joys of soldering and I am enjoying playing more with sheet metal and setting gems.

(my most recent necklace made using one of Sue Kennedy's stunning lampwork focal beads)

I am now a fully fledged bead addict and have even started selling my own handmade jewelry elements.

(prong set Roman coins, my newest love)

All of what I know I have learnt from fantastic blogs such as this one and You Tube, so I feel very grateful for the opportunity to join the wonderful women on this blog and to help inspire and encourage others in this fantastic jewerly making community!